With so many forces arrayed against Test cricket this summer – schedulers and ticket pricers, curators, ball manufacturers, always the weather, and, one suspects, the tide of history itself – the best thing the contemporary five-day game has going for it is the players. While the Perth Test seemed programmed for a draw from the sighting of the pitch, it was full of entertainment. There is no compulsion on batsmen to score at four to five runs an over. For decades, batsmen abused the privilege of having conditions loaded in their favour and saw easy-paced surfaces as an opportunity to entrench their positions and bore spectators to death. The NSW and Australian opener John Dyson was batting...
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