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This is my last column for The Cricket Paper, at least for a
while. So this seems an appropriate time to peer into the crystal ball, and
have a look into the future of cricket, to see how it all turns out.
2017 South Africa
hit 500 in an ODI. New Zealand chase it with four balls to spare.
2019 The World
Cup in England is investigated under the Trade Descriptions Act, and ordered to
re-name itself the FEENIO Cup [Former Empire Elite Nations Invitation Only]
2022 Akira Sharma
becomes the first woman to play men’s international cricket. The tiny
17-year-old makes a hundred on debut against men twice her size and age.
2027 In his last
game in an England shirt, Ben Stokes scores the first quadruple century on day
one of a Test match.
2031 N Srinivasan
and Giles Clarke demand an $80bn ransom from the ICC for something called ‘The
Spirit of Cricket’. The organisation initially shrugs it off, as no one there
has the faintest notion of what it could possibly be. No one that is, except
the janitor, who has a vague nagging memory from his childhood. He becomes
chairman, and injects joy back into the game. Clarke and Srini are banished to
Napoleon’s exile island of St Helena in the south Atlantic, and forced to give
the $80bn to kids’ cricket in developing nations. Everyone lives happily ever
after.
2037 The
full-body ‘nerve suit’ becomes commercially available, allowing the wearer to
completely experience the physical sensations of others. Marketed as a sex toy,
it is soon subverted by ingenious hackers and used to resurrect Michael
Vaughan’s cover drive for everyone to experience as if they’d hit it
themselves. A software engineer fined £1m and jailed for a month says it’s “a
small price to pay”.
2044 Sir Joe Root
fills fellow pundit Gary Ballance’s shoes with mayonnaise live on air for the
12th consecutive season, and is finally rewarded with a knighthood for Services
to Practical Jokes.
2052 After the
successful colonisation of the moon, cricket is struck off as a Star Fleet
Approved pastime when Jamaican astronaut Christopher Gayle the Third breaks the
glass ceiling on the life support dome and becomes the first person to
literally hit a six into orbit.
2069 I play my
last game for Damerham CC, aged 101, declaring: “I can’t complain, I’ve had a
pretty good knock.” Needing just four runs to achieve a lifelong career average
in double figures, I am run out without facing with an average of 9.94.
2077 Bicentenary
Ashes Series. England beat Australia 5-0 in Australia. Again.
2091 The Cricket
World Cup is held in New Argentina, contested by 247 of the world’s 292
recognised countries, a team of expats from Mars, and a delegation of visiting
Nnncrulians. The time-dilation technique used in ‘Relativity Tests’ allows each
nation to simultaneously compete in a five-Test series. Finland beat China by
eight wickets in the final. Some things never change.
- ends 496 words -
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