Within a showcase on the elevated floor of the Melbourne Cricket Ground sits a electric pink outfit donned by Robbie Williams. His show in front of 100,024 fans was seen as a success.
Perhaps you don't enjoy Robbie Williams. Perhaps you believe he is the finest offering to music known to man. You might take a reasonable stance, conceding that some hits are fantastic while others are terrible.
The central idea is that enjoyment can take many forms. You like what you like. There is no universal formula to create art or even five-day cricket.
The Unrivalled Depth of The Test Format
Test cricket boasts incomparable variety. It's difficult to think of another sport where the outcome is so dependent on the environment.
The climate, the time of day, the ball – the factors are countless. Above all is the pitch.
If the long game is a form of art, the strip is the canvas on which the athletes craft their legacy.
A Broken-Down Battle: The MCG Match
The fourth Ashes Test between the two sides was Test cricket cubism, the traditional sport broken apart and stuck back together in abstract form.
This is not a defence of the surface which yielded a victory and the another sub-three-day finish of the Ashes battle.
Having 10mm of grass on the surface, resulting in 36 wickets tumbling in less than two days, is not a fair contest between bat and ball.
A Varied History: The Nature of Test Cricket
But any notion this was a diminished spectacle, one that should be qualified as illegitimate, is wide of the mark.
The long game is a varied portfolio, 2,615 parts and ongoing. On occasion, as seen at the MCG, the cricket ball behaves unpredictably for the pace bowlers. In contrast, it turns square on a dry surface. Sometimes, the pitch is unresponsive, other times it explodes.
The close matches are particularly captivating owing to the patience committed elsewhere.
Adaptation: The Core Skill
Some factors are accepted more easily than others.
The debate in during the match was that the contest was skewed excessively towards the fielding side. That the top batters were hindered from demonstrating their skill.
This level of cricket is about adapting to challenges – assessing the situation and adapting appropriately. The top two individual innings were made by acknowledged players. One team made more mistakes than the other, and thus were defeated.
Sheer Celebration: The Fan Perspective
Go and inform the fans who have experienced 18 winless matches that this was not entertaining.
Among the crowd of the ground, a sea of people made noise and chanted, producing a festive mood in a bastion of national pride.
There was hope as the bowlers surged, advantage when batters responded, and pure joy when the victory was secured.
Extreme Ends: The Range of Test Matches
The Melbourne has previous experience with pitch problems. In the past, a Test there featured a wicket with all the life of a pulled Christmas cracker.
That match was a slog, with limited drama and slow play. The latest encounter and that drawn affair are diametrically opposed points of the scale – neither ideal, yet significance can be found in each.
Four Tests into the ongoing battle, it is the two-day matches that will be most remembered in the history books.
"Far from being the end of the format at all," commented a veteran. "The people who have been fortunate to see these short time have been given some real entertainment. Different entertainment."
Small Victories: A Glimmer of Hope
In the lead-in to this Test, the captain addressed the media like a man carrying the enormous pressure on his back.
The squad protected him, reinstating the smile to his persona.
Different players delivered with crucial roles. These are small positives, hardly enough to guarantee long-term stability, but a foundation to build on.
At the very least, this MCG win takes its place among other memorable performances in similar circumstances.
As the crowd left into a beautiful night, the team congregated on the outfield to start their own festivities.
Celebrate the win, lads. You've earned this one.
