Two for Twenty Two
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To win a Test match you need 20 wickets
Australia. They did not acknowledge test matches against their nearest neighbour until 1973. Note that test status for that one-sided match in 1946 was awarded well after the event, and only when they realized it wouldn’t affect Don Bradman’s average.
It’s all been pretty grubby since then, but an example would be that they have yet to play Bangladesh at home in a test south of Cairns. Bangladesh has had test status for over 20 years and has beaten Australia in that time.
They are bullies on and off the field, yet their cricketing scoring custom outlier remains strangely unadopted by the rest of the world. It seems a strange hill to die on, because in this case they are right.
In test cricket in particular, wickets are what wins matches. They are the currency; runs are the bargaining chips.
So when a scorecard is shown it is the wickets that are the most important landmark, and they should therefore go first. Respect.
The other thing about wickets is that they fall at an unpredictable rate, which is what drives a game.
When you go to the supermarket for 30 minutes you know that a side will have scored 20 or so runs. Maybe 15, maybe 25; it doesn’t really matter.
So when you turn on the radio / ROVA / whatever the first thing you want to know is how many wickets have fallen in that time, because you can roughly guess the runs.
That two hour meeting. You get out of it knowing whoever is batting has scored 80ish or so runs. The thing you want to now is how many wickets have been lost. So that’s the first, and most important piece of information you want.
Australian Cricket has a lot to answer for, but in this case they are right. And it is time we admitted that.