Within a showcase on the elevated floor of the MCG is housed a electric pink suit worn by the pop star. The concert in front of 100,024 spectators was seen as a major hit.
You might not like Robbie Williams. Maybe you feel he is the finest offering to music known to man. You might take a balanced view, admitting that some tracks are belting while others are terrible.
The central idea is that entertainment can be delivered diversely. Preferences differ. There is not a single method to craft literature or even five-day cricket.
The Unrivalled Depth of The Test Format
Test cricket boasts unrivalled depth. One struggles to think of another sport where the outcome is so dictated by conditions.
The climate, the hour of play, the red ball – the factors are countless. Above all is the playing surface.
If Test cricket is art, the strip is the blank slate on which the players paint their masterpiece.
An Abstract Contest: The Melbourne Spectacle
The Boxing Day fixture between Australia and England was Test cricket cubism, the great game dismantled and reassembled in a bizarre shape.
Let's be clear, this isn't a defence of the surface which produced a victory and the another short match of the contest.
Having a thick layer on the pitch, causing a cascade of wickets being taken in less than two days, is not a fair contest between batter and bowler.
A Varied History: The Core of Test Cricket
But any idea this was a inferior show, one that should be qualified as inauthentic, is mistaken.
Test cricket is a diverse canvas, over two thousand matches and ongoing. At times, as witnessed recently, the ball behaves unpredictably for the fast men. Other times, it grips and turns on a dry surface. Sometimes, the pitch is dead, other times it explodes.
The exciting finishes are even more exciting due to the time devoted in other matches.
Adjustment: The Core Skill
Specific conditions are embraced more freely than others.
The contention in Melbourne was that the balance was skewed excessively towards the attack. That the top batters were hindered from demonstrating their skill.
This level of cricket is about problem solving – assessing the situation and adapting effectively. The two highest individual contributions were made by acknowledged batters. One side made more mistakes than the other, and thus were defeated.
Pure Elation: The Fan Perspective
Go and inform the supporters who have suffered years of defeat that this wasn't compelling.
In one section of the stadium, a sea of people waved their flags and created an atmosphere, generating a festive mood in a bastion of Australian cricket.
There was belief as the bowlers dominated, advantage when batters fought back, and unconditional love when the result was confirmed.
Extreme Ends: The Range of Test Matches
The venue has form with difficult wickets. Eight years ago, a match there featured a pitch with the character of a pulled Christmas cracker.
That match was a marathon, with few wickets and slow play. The two-day game and that slow Test are extreme ends of the spectrum – neither perfect, yet value can be found in them.
Four Tests into the Ashes contest, it is the two-day matches that will be most remembered in the collective consciousness.
"Far from being the demise of the format at all," commented a past champion. "The people who have been privileged to see these short time have been experienced some fantastic sport. Different entertainment."
Small Victories: Building for the Future
In the build-up to this match, the captain talked like a man carrying the heavy burden on his back.
The players delivered for him, restoring the positive demeanor to his persona.
Different players stepped up with key contributions. These are incremental gains, certainly not enough to secure long-term futures, but something to build on.
In the end, this MCG win takes its place among other historic performances in similar circumstances.
As the fans slipped away into a glorious Melbourne evening, the team gathered on the turf to start their own enjoyment.
Celebrate the win, men. This victory was hard-fought.
