Ah, the sound of bat on willow. A gin and tonic and feet up in front of the box to watch the Australian test team feted – not for having two senior members as cheats – but for being dinky-di, true blue arrogant millionaires.

Me and cricket go back a long way. To the Chappells, Walters and Stackpole. I loved the summer game and rejoiced in our victories and I felt the pang of defeat, specially against England.

I’m not sure fiction and cricket are bedfellows but no matter.

All three forms of cricket have been dying in Australia for some years. Test Cricket is pretty much gone, One Day Cricket is dead and 20/20 is on life support.

This isn’t a phase. It’s a trend towards extinction. Visitors to games (except The Ashes) are an embarrassment on TV. In fact, the cameras try not to show the stands packed with empty seats, which once held up to 80,000 bums at the MCG.

Why is cricket about the shuffle off this mortal coil? A new generation has found other sporting entertainments. In fact, with streaming, there are a plethora of movies and games to play.

Having Smith and Warner involved in a cheating scandal was a major turn off but the game was in decline long before that.

Why hasn’t this been reported? Good question. This is called ‘challenging the basic assumptions’ and the media rarely do it. If the reporters and media organisations, the sponsors and Cricket Australia all are vital cogs in ensuring the game survives, you will see bugger-all reporting that it’s in thermal decline.

Who wants to shit in their own nest, even if that nest is shrinking.

We’ll see more radical and unreported changes to the status quo in the future.

Cricket will still be played at schools and in backyards but as a money making concern, it’s cactus. The future of cricket is in India and that’s another story.