Super over 42
27 October 2025
Ball 1
As expected, the white ball games against India have have had a curious ‘two-speed’ feel about them.
The crowds have been great (although see Ball 4) and ardent cricket fans in India and Australia and beyond have been watching. And for this cohort, the triumphant Australian farewells of Kohli and Rohit Sharma in Sydney were massive.
But the average Aussie sports fan has not cared too much.
After a winter spent watching NRL/AFL - the drama, the narrative, the significance - culminating in a playoff series and the climax of the grand final, what hope do bilateral ODIs have? They’re little more than meaningless friendlies. Ultimately, who cares who wins?
In Australia in 2025, ODI cricket is the third most popular format - by a big margin. The 50-over World Cup is still big (although set to rapidly diminish now that future editions will be on Amazon Prime) but bilateral games are a hard sell.
And it has now been seven long years since our home white ball internationals went behind a paywall. The thread has been cut. Even many people who do have Kayo/Foxtel wouldn’t have been watching, partially because there is little chance of casual viewing.
Back when they were on Channel 9, many people would have flicked on the television and said, ‘Oh great, the cricket is on’ and watched. Now, unless you know it is on - and can be bothered logging into Kayo and selecting the game - you simply don’t. (I still do, of course - I watched every ball of all 3 games - but you probably could have guessed that!)
Ball 2
Continuing on this theme, I read with interest where Cricket Australia plans to make white-ball internationals in October a regular thing. They’ve decided February is too hard - the nation is too obsessed with the AFL/NRL build up - but that October is there for the taking.
In principle, I think this is a great idea. But as things are, the matches will only ever have narrow appeal, as I bemoaned in Ball 1.
It does not have to be this way; imagine if this was the plan for this October:
Keep the three ODIs against India behind the paywall. This allows Foxtel/Kayo to still have exclusive content.
But then, make a championship for the T20s. It is bonkers that Australia, India, England and New Zealand are all downunder in October yet playing separate bilateral series and not a tournament!
Put the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy up for grabs. Invite a developing nation too - such as Nepal - and have a double round robin: Australia plays all its matches at home, New Zealand does the same, (Australia and New Zealand meet once in each country for their two head-to-head games). The top two teams play in the final in Melbourne (sorry New Zealand - we have to pull rank here).
Put it on Channel 7, (yes, tweak the current television deal), promote the hell out of it and make it an annual thing (with different overseas teams each year).
It would be brilliant - and it would penetrate into the mainstream hugely. My mother-in-law would be aware it is on and might even watch a little.
And the best thing: India would be guaranteed four games in Australia, and probably five, given they would likely make the final - meaning the huge television money from India would still be coming to Cricket Australia.
It would also be a big lift to the popularity and finances of cricket in New Zealand too.
No doubt Cricket Australia would laugh and tell me how naïve I am.
But if the current trajectory continues, where will we be in a decade? Maybe cricket will dominate in Australia for 12 weeks every 4 years (the Ashes and the Border Gavaskar Trophy). 3 weeks in the sun a year? Like the Australian Open tennis - or Wimbledon in England. Big for a flash and then forgotten.
Ball 3
Australia’s middle order batting to win the second ODI against India was quite exhilarating.
I had actually expected them to lose from the position they were in: after 27 overs they were 4/132, needing 133 more to win. The not out batters were Cooper Connolly and Matt Short.
If you remember last week’s newsletter, you will know that I was not the only one to expect the Aussies were destined to lose.
Well, my friend and I were very pleasantly surprised to see the Aussies cruise home.
Connolly looked classy and Mitch Owen was electrifying. The way he attacked almost every ball - with confidence, skill and power - was remarkable.
Incidentally, Owen’s weak prod that led to his dismissal for 1 in the third game shows that he needs to be batting higher.
The well-accepted notion that power hitters should be saved for the end when they can tee off with impunity is flawed in two ways:
1. It often leaves them with too few balls
2. If the team is in trouble when they arrive, they no longer have a licence to swing.
Australia was 5/195 in the 37th over when Owen came in. He looked in two minds to a good ball and edged it to slip. Had he faced that same ball with Australia 1/30 he might well have cracked it to the fence.
Ball 4
In recent newsletters I have remarked with pleasure on the large ticket sales for this summer.
In the one-day series just gone, the SCG sold out about four months ago and the Adelaide Oval sold out on the morning of the game.
But it must be said that - although excellent - the final crowds were a touch disappointing. And the reason is clear - lots of empty seats in the members’.
Adelaide has a capacity of about 55,000 for cricket. The crowd was 38,440.
Sydney has a capacity of about 45,000 for cricket. The crowd was 40,580.
Cricket Australia should have seen this coming and headed it off. No doubt they’d claim it is up to the venues but the buck rests with them. Especially in Sydney - when the game was sold out in June: how can you have such high demand for tickets yet contrive to have a stadium with less than 90% of the seats taken?!
Ball 5
I normally quite enjoy reading Greg Chappell’s articles. But his latest one is, frankly, strange. I can only conclude that Cricinfo have altered whatever he sent them - because it just does not sound like him at all.
One of the features of writing that has been washed through Artificial Intelligence is sentences of the, ‘It’s not just x it is y’, structure. Here are a couple that Chat GPT just created for me:
Neil Armstrong wasn’t just the first man on the Moon — he was proof that calm precision can carry humanity through the most extraordinary moments in history.
Einstein wasn’t just a genius with equations — he was a revolutionary who changed how we understand time, space, and the limits of thought itself.
Once you know what to look for, such sentences are jarring and stand out. I stress I have no proof that Chappell’s article was washed through AI. Maybe it was not.
But there are 14 of these type of sentences in it. Yes, 14! Here they are:
And apart from those examples, the article is full of unnatural phrasing - different to Chappell’s normal style.
I mean, that last paragraph - it’s just bizarre!
Greg Chappell was one of the greatest batters ever and is renowned for his no-nonsense style. If Cricinfo really have changed his text then next time they should not.
Ball 6
In addition to big-turning legspinners, Alana King and Shane Warne have something else in common: they have proven me wrong.
When Warnie emerged in the early 90s, I thought he was rubbish. The future was an all-pace attack: picking a legspinner was a form of deluded nostalgia.
Happily, I soon realised how colossally wrong I was - probably when Warne took 7/52 to route the West Indies in the 1992 Boxing Day Test.
Sadly, I didn’t learn. When I first saw King, I didn’t think she was up to international standard. I’ve long seen the error of my ways here too and she is now one of my favourite players. I was delighted to see her rout South Africa in the World Cup - finishing with the astonishing figures of 7/18. Here are the highlights if you haven’t seen them - the ball King bowled to get her sixth wicket is a cracker; the one for her seventh is even better!
King can bat better than I thought too, scoring a valuable 51* (49) to support Beth Mooney, as the rest of the team collapsed in Australia’s third game of the World Cup, against Pakistan - without this innings Australia probably would have lost.
