After all the highlights, the 4th test finally got under way for about 5 overs. The test could have finished after those 5 overs as far as I’m concerned, enough happened in that time that one could easily be forgiven for thinking 5 days had passed. Every moment was spellbinding. McGrath was urgently restraining his muttering when the debutante Hauritz dropped Sehwag off the third ball of the innings. By the end of his next over McGrath had Sehwag clean bowled with a beautiful cutting delivery. Very next ball Dizzy was on his knees appealing with a flattened plam held aloft for an LBW decision that Umpire Dar could not refuse. He was shedding those volatile elements again! This brought about the recommencement of the Tendulkar-McGrath-Gillespie combat series – in which every move is breathtaking. There is nothing like that flurry of unrestrained action at the start of a test match, the desperation of settling in.

I love the Fox highlights. When there’s a break in the play or it rains they simply show extended highlights either of the session just gone or of an earlier match. The thing that is so brilliant about it is that they show a lot of nothing happening. There will be deliveries that strike the batsman on the pad and run away down to fine leg allowing the batsmen to take an easy legbye; deliveries that the batsman shoulders arms to, letting the ball go safely through to the keeper; they will show the batsman pushing into the covers, momentarily thinking about running but, well before a threshold of thrilling action could be crossed, calling no and returning to his crease; and they will show at least two slow motion replays of this delivery, from alternate angles. On channel 9 all you ever get is meaningless boundaries and wickets. Fox find the flow of the game and capture it, they provide a sense of the game’s pressure – as it builds, morphs and recedes. Its like watching timelapse footage of a rock weathering. 9s highlights are like watching fireworks on television – the constant explosion of lights with no dynamic sense is boring. Yesterday, as it rained in Mumbai, Fox played the highlights of the 2nd test in Chennai. A match that ended in a rained out draw (9 would never show highlights of a drawn match). The people at fox are aware how exciting this match was, the incredible build up to the enthralling, timeless partnership between Martyn & Gillespie, and the little appendix at the very end with Sehwag smashing Mutterman McGrath for boundaries everywhere – the fireworks and the muttering! A beautifully appropriate salvo paying respect to the test that by all necessity had to remain inconclusive – it could not find any way to finish.

Fox channel has a much finer awareness of inaction and the away-from-the action. Their crowd shots are often filmic, the scoreboard operator so slowly and with dreadful reluctance pulling down the ‘SACHIN’ panel and replacing it into storage. All that 9 ever gives us is chicks in bikinis. BUT 9 IS FREE! (but but what of the cost to the planet?)

The following comments have been entered by Kieren Whittock, renowned expert on the geology of cricket. In requesting this entry I asked Kieren the question “What kind of rock was Dizzy?” In response Kieren discusses the formative processes that Dizzy Gillespie went through during and after his epic 6000 ball innings of 24 in the 2nd test:

Dizzy was not just a rock. A rock cannot be viewed as something static, it is dynamic, always changing, over millions of years of geological time. In this way, Dizzy was a geological process, subject to changes due to heat and pressure, and weathering process.

I decided he was most certainly an Ultramafic, volcanic rock.

His batting with Marto represented his solid state. He had reached chemical equilibrium at that point, all his elements had settled out into their solid form. His magma had reached its solidus. He was iron rich. Basaltic. Mafic.

Yet prone to weathering.

During his innings he was prone to high heat and pressure. He metamorphosed, he became Meta-Basalt. He became more prone to weathering. His iron rich solid minerals became iron rich clays, tending towards Kaolinites. He was losing parts of himself, becoming part of the orange (probably due to iron content) dust in Chennai. He was suffering intense weathering, returning his parts to the rock cycle.

Until finally there was nothing of him left. His wicket fell. He became clay. Dust. His iron spread all about the ground.

That vortex again. Millions of years of geological time had passed.

The rock cycle continues in time for Dizzy to reach his liquid form again at some point in the series, when he is handed the ball, and bowls, letting off his volatile elements. Millions of years pass.

Before the 2nd test began I spoke about how the Indian team had looked to Lance Armstrong for inspiration. Now that the Indians have failed the cycling god I am thinking the Australians should hop on the deserted bike and use Lance as a model of how to celebrate total dominance and create special little adornments to the mythologies that will spring out of their moment of glory, extending it infinitely. Immortality is not just acheived through deeds but through the style with which the deeds are presented to the world, I think Achilles knew this well. Lance Armstrong has ensured his immortality not just through winning 6 Tours de France but in the way he signified this feat of greatness to the world. On the final stage of this year’s tour his very own Myrmidons, the US Postal team, rode as a legion and, in defiance of race dress codes, had added golden strips to their jerseys, to match the maillot jaune of their magnificent leader – who himself rode a bike with spokes of gold and donned a golden helm. I would like to see something similar from the Australian team in Mumbai. As with US Postal they may have to cop a fine, the ICC may not like it – but anything the ICC dosen’t like has to be good for the game. We have seen Warne’s paltry attempt at gaining poetic immortality fizzle out – the small piece of red on his bowling boots was within ICC regulations and really, who saw it, and who cares – its Murali’s record anyway. They have to go bolder than that. What needs to happen is they need to go beyond even Lance Armstrong’s very effective yet very staid approach, they need to go to the pinnacle of sporting fashion extravagance. They need to give SOOOOPER MARIO a call! If he’s gonna cop a fine, he’s gonna make it worth it. I have no doubt Mario Cipollini will be being celebrated long after Achilles, Lance, or Warne have exited the cultural consciousness of the earth. If the Australian team can draw on the audacious dress senses of Cipo then there is no predicting how they will be decked out as they run onto the ground at Mumbai. My friend Katherine suggested that Dizzy should be wearing white robes and sandals. Imagine that running into the crease to bowl, sandals flapping, robes flowing in the breeze in unison with the mullet…

The epic poems are on their way; there will be movies made about this team, Brad Pitt will play all 11 of them (and the 12th man, Brett Lee, he will be played by Jet Li); there will be plastic figurines with their own web serials. Come on aussie, put your match fee where your wardrobe is and ascend to the pinnacles of glorious stardom.