Word: backyarders
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Even if things get a bit too heavy/We'll all float on") while the rest of the band makes bouncy, happy noises in the background. It's how Nick Drake's Pink Moon might have turned out if ol' Nick had been just a little happier. Perfect for a backyard sing-along as summer's last party winds down...
...explain why he's worried about cricket's future, Greg Chappell must first hark back to his past. So, over lunch in a Sydney restaurant, he describes the Adelaide backyard where he and his brothers contested their fierce "Tests" - played always, at the insistence of their father, with a hard ball. Other times, with local boys, they'd set up stumps at the park around the corner or at the beach, where they chose between two types of pitch - fast (the hard sand) or a subcontinental turner (the soft stuff). These games could go for hours, like sessions...
...junior numbers have been stable for the past five years, says Cricket Australia. But like most sports, cricket loses a disproportionate number of players in their early teens. Many of these could be retained, Chappell argues, if cricket went easier on them. It needs to realize that without a backyard initiation, many kids are finding the real thing too hard. They need to be held back from competition so they can devote at least "their first 100 hours of (cricketing) activity to triggering intuitive learning." Coaches are trying to compensate with intensive teaching, but bombarding tyros with instruction is counterproductive...
...cricket establishment there's respect for Chappell but a feeling he's overstating the issues. His thesis isn't bulletproof. Backyard cricket is less common than it was but it's hardly disappeared. As for coaches bewildering kids with instruction, junior coaching ranks are still filled mostly by players' dads, whose main concern each Saturday is that everyone have a turn. Some boys are quitting cricket because they're not very good at it, but Australian boys have been doing that for more than 150 years. And it has to be expected that some gifted players will fall away later...
...years ago, it was the $5,000 barbecue grill. These days it takes a luxury mower if you want to be a backyard baron. Home-owners are dumping their old, bone-rattling lawn-and-garden cutters and trading up to fancy models with brawny engines, lumbar-supporting seats and the now obligatory beverage caddy. "A lot of people buy a large lawn tractor and think they're going to till the soil and plant a big garden, but many never do," says a senior executive for a major mowermaker. "They use it to cut grass. Buying these minitractors...