Gordon Robinson | “Dead like a dawg….”

Playing Gene Autry’s House Rules, the dilemma always arose whether to pose “bareback” double-six.

At Gene’s game, double-six posed the first game. Afterwards, the holder of double-six posed whatever. Best practice was to pose double-six unless you held five sixes (double-six can’t “die”) or double-six is bareback” (unguarded by another six). If “bareback” it can still be posed if there’s no other “very posable” double or your hand contains every number.

One Saturday afternoon, playing against Dessie and The Dunce, I picked up the following motley collection: double-six; four-trey; double-trey; double-deuce; double-ace; ace-blank; double-blank.

Ugh!

No fives. No double likely to pass right-hand-opponent. I thought about it long and hard then, because of my fives void, decided to pose double-trey. Autry tried his best by pushing six twice. Dessie cut twice. Late in the game, Autry, with a smirk, played a third six to Dessie who turned to me with “Next time, pose it because  dis one dead like a dawg in di middle a Hope Road!” before slamming down his last six “killing” double-six.

I remembered that ignominy on April 24 while reading an article posted by Cricket Gully, a fairly new online publication established in 2022 by three passionate cricket fans, Dileep Kumar Kureti, Sai Kiran Vakalapudi, and Vedant Awalegaonkar. It has grown exponentially and is now a hub for worldwide cricket stories. 

On April 24, under the headline “Kevin Pietersen mocks Test cricket’s decline…”, Cricket Gully reported on the upcoming December English tour of South Africa:

“The tour currently faces a serious problem which Kevin Pietersen addressed on social media with a witty yet direct comment….. The series has two excellent teams yet it fails to attract television broadcasters. 

“Reports suggest that Cricket South Africa cannot find a UK broadcaster for England's 2026-27 tour. Sky Sports used to broadcast these matches for multiple decades but the network has chosen not to renew the existing contract. TNT Sports showed interest in the project yet they cannot make a financial commitment because their business operations remain uncertain. UK currently lacks plans to broadcast a major England Test series.”

Even Sky Sports, the home of English Test Cricket television broadcasts for decades, has abandoned Test Cricket? What next? Test Cricket on You-Tube? 

I’ve been trying to advise world Cricket Administrators for ages that Test Cricket, in its current format, is “dead like a dawg in di middle a Hope Road!” In this age of abbreviated entertainment, tweets, Tik-Tok videos and magic rectangles rule. Nobody has time to spend five days watching a match that could end without a result.

Today’s sports fan wants speed and instant gratification. So football (REAL football not the American aberration) has taken over from cricket as the preferred sport to watch, including on TV, rather than a game that still takes breaks for players to drink tea.

Really? Seriously?

Instead of cricket, we now have T20 leagues everywhere that aren’t only capturing TV viewers but also more professional cricketers are abandoning Test Cricket to play for one of the many teams in leagues like IPL, Australian Big Bash or even CPL. 

Watching a technical maestro like Rohan Babulal Kanhai deliver a batting master class at Lords in 1966 would, today, not be on anyone’s bingo card. Everybody remembers the magical Sobers/Holford partnership that brought West Indies from the jaws of defeat to the brink of victory. BUT it was Kanhai’s stubborn defence of his wicket (his instructions were “don’t get out”) that set the table for the cousins to shine. Kanhai only made 40 but his innings was the turn-the-corner moment. 

Today viewers would be switching to NBA Basketball in droves.

Conventional English wisdom proclaims that cricket viewership has declined in England because the team has performed so poorly recently including in the 2026 T20 World Cup. But the English just want to make it all about them as if cricket belongs to England. 

In fact 2026 Men's T20 World Cup broke all previous broadcasting records with viewership in India surpassing 500 million before the semi-finals. Digital streaming peaked at 60.5 million concurrent viewers, and total viewership for the final exceeded 800 million. The tournament saw an overall 69% increase in viewership from non-traditional markets, including 150% in Germany and 136% in Italy.

It’s not English cricket team’s performance. It’s Test Cricket that turns people off.  Sport has been dependent on TV for decades so ICC had better cut out this stubborn maintenance of traditional cricket formats and radically reform Test Cricket or start planning its funeral. 

It’s not sustainable in its current form. Old Golfers never die. They just whack on their balls until they finally get them into the hole. Cricketers don’t have that opportunity. 

Test cricket evolves or dies. Like the Olympic sport of skiing, it’s going downhill fast.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com