The Spin | Schrödinger’s six, tiny boundaries and the hollow spectacle of ghost-town T10 cricket

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James Wallace   Have you heard about Schrödinger’s six? When a cricket ball has spawned off the edge of the bat and flown all of 35 metres, is that really a six at all? How about when it comes in a hulking yet virtually empty 50,000-seater stadium in Canada, the ball smashed into the empty stands and kerplunking down the vast swathes of unpopulated seats to be retrieved by a clinically unbothered fielder? You might have seen some of the footage from Canada’s “Super60” T10 tournament in Vancouver this week, particularly a delivery from the Mississauga Masters’ Ali Khan that soared over the Toronto Sixers batter Kieron Pollard’s head and away over the lilliputian straight boundaries of Vancouver’s BC Place. For once this was unquestionably not a six but a five, a wide plus four: a six can only be struck off the bat. But the pertinent question was, what even is any of this? “It’s crazy. My goodness,” laughs Faf du Plessis when the Spin discusses the incident with him. The former South African cross-format captain is one of the most experienced and well-travelled franchise cricketers and is still in demand into his 40s. “I’d heard from a few guys that the boundary was ridiculously short, but when I saw it I thought it doesn’t look like proper cricket. In terms of the sixes being hit and some of the scores, teams chasing down over a hundred in four overs and edges flying over the boundary for six. I bet it didn’t feel like cricket either.” “Bills to pay, brother,” was Sam Billings’ now deleted response on social media when he was asked why he was playing in the tournament. Billings’ response tells us plenty but his subsequent deletion is also indicative of a kind of franchise omertà, of not wanting to bite down too hard or too openly on the hand that feeds. Billings was happy to provide a pithy summary of the franchise free market, however. “Man has a job,” he posted on X. “Man has a family. Man gets paid for job to provide for family. Family is happy. The end.” I reached out to several players involved in the tournament to talk about their experience and it was telling that none wanted to go on record. How would Du Plessis have felt if he found himself playing in it? Initially he responds with a straight bat. “The guys out there say it’s a great competition, that it’s fun because obviously Canada is a great place, Vancouver is a great city and it’s an experience playing in that stadium.” Sounds a bit like a paid holiday with a bit of cricket on the side? “Well the destination is important. Some guys would go: ‘Where’s great golf courses? And they’d go: ‘You know, Dubai is great. I can play golf every day. Or Europe – Ireland, there’s some great golf courses.’ I’m not a massive golfer but golf is like a disease to some of these guys at the moment. Everyone just wants to be a professional golfer. “It depends on where you are in your career and what your priorities are,” he adds about the myriad franchise lives you can lead. “Post stopping playing international cricket, my priorities were to play in the best competitions around the world because that was now my version of international cricket, so you had the IPL, The Hundred, The Big Bash and the SA20 … and then you’d look at the gaps and your other commitments and maybe go and play in the Bangladesh Premier League or the IL20.” It’s never been a better time to be a professional cricketer but there is a tightrope to be danced. No one begrudges players at all stages of their career the chance to earn money and gain experiences but they also can’t be impervious to awkward questions if the cricketing product they perform in turns out to be one that can only be identified by its dental records. Faf du Plessis of Chennai Super Kings during the final of the Vivo Indian Premier League in 2021. Photograph: Saikat Das / Sportzpics for IPL Watching the sixes rain down in the Canada T10 “highlights” I was struck by the contrast to when I last saw a stadium peppered in such a way – when Razaullah breathed much needed life into and nearly changed the outcome of the third England-Pakistan Test at Edgbaston. The latter thrilling in their rug-pulling resistance and as part of a wider narrative, the former numbing in their constructed inevitability. “Very easily you can play so much cricket in these days of T20 cricket” says Du Plessis, pointedly. “I think there’s one thing that’s most important for players that have the luxury of choosing where they want to play – it’s the ability to say no.” Next year’s Canadian Super60 isn’t likely to be on his hitlist then? “I’d be stoked to bat there,” he grins. “The boundaries would be so small it’d be good for me as I’m getting older. I could get a 17-ball century! Yes, that would be so good.” We look at each other, safe in the knowledge that no, it really wouldn’t.

A rivalry renewed “Oh man, there’s almost more anticipation for it because it has been so long. It’s like a drought and then the rains are coming.” It’s fair to say Du Plessis is looking forward to the South Africa v Australia Test series that starts in Durban on Friday. It will be the first time Australia have played a Test series in South Africa since the infamous Sandpapergate series of 2018 and the first Test that the current world Test champions have played since November last year. Du Plessis was the Proteas captain at the time. “It was just a remarkable series to be a part of,” he reflects, eight years later. “I always thought they should have made a Netflix documentary with all of the stuff that went on.” There’s one scene he wouldn’t mind being cut from any eventual release though, namely the grainy footage of the stairwell scuffle between David Warner and Quinton de Kock during the Kingsmead Test where a confused and scantily clad Du Plessis arrives on the scene to see what all the fuss is about. The footage has been sent to Du Plessis many times in the past few weeks. “I still feel vulnerable when I watch it,” he laughs. “It was possibly not my best move, but it was just like fight or flight. I heard a noise from the shower and my first instinct was just to go out there and investigate. I was like: ‘There’s no time to put on a shirt!’ but I looked kind of ridiculous. I said to the Aussie guys afterwards that the best thing to do to calm the whole thing down would have been if someone just whipped my towel away. That would have defused everything. Maybe history would have been different. “You can tell from the video that I was up for defending the guys though, even in my precarious state. What makes me laugh is [the South Africa fast bowler] Lungi Ngidi in that video, he is to the right of the screen. He is one of the biggest guys going but he’s stood absolutely frozen to the spot like a statue. Every time I see that footage my mind goes off me and to Lungi. I’m like: ‘Look at the size of you man! Get stuck in there!’”

Stat of the week Alex Lees and George Munsey chased 100 runs in 4.2 overs in Canada’s Super60 League. Take a look.

Quote of the week I have given everything I had to this team and to Indian women’s cricket – my blood, my sweat, my time, and many times, a part of my own game and personal ambitions. There were moments when I had to put my individual performance, my own growth, and what I wanted for myself aside, because I believed the team had to come first” – Harmanpreet Kaur steps away from the Indian women’s captaincy in all formats after five Tests, 51 ODIs and 155 T20 internationals in charge.

Memory lane Photograph: Adrian Murrell/Allsport July 1994 | A tale as old as time? The England captain Mike Atherton was accused of tampering with the ball during a Test match against South Africa at Lord’s. Atherton picked up some dirt from a used pitch and put it in his pocket, TV cameras later showed him seemingly rubbing the dirt on to the ball. When accused, Atherton said he was using the dirt to dry his sweaty hands before later copping for the offence. He was fined £1,000 for ball tampering and another £1,000 for lying to the match referee. His England side went on to lose the Test by 356 runs. No Netflix documentary necessary.

Still want more? Sandpaper made Australia the story in 2018 while South Africa’s achievement faded into irrelevance, writes Daniel Gallan. England’s warm-up plans reveal healthy dose of reality and limits of Bazball ethos, reports Simon Burnton. ICC delays plans for World Club Championship after ‘Big Three’ object. And India beat arch-rivals Pakistan in Japan to claim Asian Games cricket gold.

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