Cricket continues unaffected by spot fixing scandal

Cricket last week explored the sublime having succumbed to the ridiculous the week before. As three men familiarised themselves with the British prison system, South Africa and Australia played out one of the most extraordinary Tests in living memory to remind everyone why the sport is bigger than its participants.

Michale Clarke put in a brilliant performance in Australia's first innings at Newlands. It was to no avail, but made up part of a memorable Test.

Cricket may be in crisis but the world keeps on spinning. The disrepute into which the game was dragged in Southwark Crown Court seems but a distant memory now. The perpetrators (or at least some of them) have been punished and the show must go on.

The spectacle of Newlands warmed the hearts of cricket lovers everywhere. Following on from the trial, there had already been a close fought first Test between India and the West Indies. Shivnarine Chanderpaul showed that normal service had been resumed with a typically crabby ton.

His side then emphatically showed that normal service had been resumed by collapsing with the very real prospect of victory on their minds. To further prove the point, Rahul Dravid reassumed the wall like form that he adopted in England this summer.

So from New Delhi to Cape Town and cricket continued. You don’t need me to tell you what happened there, but in case you’ve been hiding under a rock or taking a break from the game, you can see the scorecard here.

It was a game that cricket needed. When its back was against the wall, the sport produced something magnificent and South Africa and Australia deserve every credit (or discredit, depending upon your point of view) for producing such a thrilling encounter.

There was good batting (Hashim Amla, Graeme Smith), great batting (Michael Clarke) and batting that would draw ridicule on a village green (Brad Haddin, Australia’s entire second innings).

There was good bowling (Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel), great bowling (Vernon Philander, Shane Watson) and bowling that would draw ridicule on a village green (Mitchell Johnson).

Mitchell Johnson was back in his usual groove against South Africa.

To add further spice to the occasion there were dropped catches (Michael Hussey, Shane Watson, Graeme Smith) and plenty of use of the Umpire Decision Review System. Third umpire Billy Bowden was as central to the action as the on field duo of Billy Doctrove and Ian Gould.

All that breathlessly compacted into three days made for quite the Test. Day Two was only the third occasion in the history of Test cricket that a part of all four innings has been seen on the same day, such was the frenetic pace kept up by both sides.

As the game swung this way and that, eventually to be won, famously, by South Africa, the sport of cricket was able to get a lungful of fresh air a million miles away from the stuffy environs of a London courtroom.

It was a game cricket needed now more than ever before.

By Miles Reucroft