Zwanzig20

German’s do not traditionally play cricket. Mores the pity, because everybody knows that German participation in anything is a tried and true acid test. They have proven time and again that they are very good at many things, often, and usually, though not always in a boring way. War for instance. They lost a couple, but were never offered a fair fight, and nobody could deny their ambition.

They prove that flair and creativity is often no match for organisation and technical brilliance. To win a tournament of any standing that German’s seriously participate in, or to win anything at all, will usually involve having to beat them. Rugby Union would be very different if they turned their attention to it. So too would Test Cricket.

German’s are often shockingly tall and menacing. They are often terrifyingly vicious, voraciously demanding, and rigidly strict, with a huge element of stultifying boringness. I’m stereotyping of course. But the specifications for a fast bowler are equally stereotyped, and I can see a German bowling attack adhering to these stereotypes very nicely indeed. It would be an attack consisting entirely of clones of Glenn McGrath, an Australian.

What need would they have for the dark art of spin? Surely, it would be inefficient to remove a batsman by individual guile and deception. Surely it is far better to fire ball by ball through a specific channel, using aerodynamics and potential energy to enforce a misalignment between bat and ball, removing the offending object without resorting to the immeasurable.

As for batting, the capacity to accumulate runs through a set programme of scoring shots, always disciplined, batting in partnerships, not tempted to have a slash at a wayward ball, and always playing with a straight bat would make the German line-up a scoring machine. Records would collapse as one German batsman after another collected centuries at measured pace, with controlled violence, forced elegance and cultured menace.

In short, they would be very good. In fact they could be brilliant. Even the great Australian team of recent years at the apex of its pomp would have found any German team a great challenge. Yes, for me Test Cricket in all its glory would comfortably be a global game and the champions of Test Cricket would be safe in the knowledge that they were the best possible team, if only the Germans would play it properly.

But we would rather watch the West Indies. Who wants to see Glenn McGrath bowl every single over in an innings? Who wants to see Geoff Boycott, an Englishman, bat all day? Where would the game of cricket be without the injection of spunk offered by the likes of Whispering Death or Viv Richards? It would be so much the poorer it is depressing to contemplate.

Even current, less able West Indian sides bring a gold-wearing, nonsense-talking, high-fiving genius that can’t be found elsewhere. They enhance the great game on a plane that German’s could never dream of, despite their winning ways.

That is why the slow defection of West Indian cricketers to the flash-in-pan, completely-different-game-despite-same-rules-and-equipment spinning disc of the Indian Premier League is a tragedy. Chris Gayle’s recent comments suggest the lure of the new version is too powerful to resist, although I suspect it is the money rather than the quality of format that is the most persuasive element.

It is an undeniable fact that many mediocre players - West Indians among them - of the first-class, or even one day format, have thrived in the Twenty20 environment. And who is to say which skill-set is the greater? But if you gave a thousand monkeys a thousand typewriters, they will eventually come up with rules for enough games to make anybody a superstar in at least one of them. I know plenty of people who would be world class if being a moron was an organised sport. It doesn’t mean it would be worth playing.

One day the fans and the money could head the other way, deeming Twenty20 cricket vulgar and for chavs, and embrace Test Cricket again. Human obsession with fashion ie doing what everyone else is doing, will always make this scenario possible. Until then it has to be accepted that Twenty20 is what a whole bunch of players and fans would rather be doing right now. Who can blame them? I secretly like it, despite my ramblings. I’m even going to the World Cup.

One thing is vaguely and subjectively for sure-ish. As long as West Indians prefer playing Twenty20, Test Cricket will struggle to resurrect itself, no matter how well the German’s are playing.