On Test Matches

I love cricket. I also love rugby. But there are crucial differences.

An exciting rugby test can see me on my feet, on my knees, swearing at the ref and hugging my somewhat alarmed daughters with tears in my eyes. And that’s just watching it on the TV. A boring rugby test is worse than a wet weekend in Bognor—even if your side wins you still feel like it was a waste of time.

Cricket elicits similar emotions, even if not quite so intense.

In the summer of 2005 I drove to meet the HR director at a certain drug discovery company. It was the final day of the Fifth Test. You may remember that the summer began with Australia thrashing England at Lords. England squeaked a narrow victory two weeks later, and we were all set up for a thrilling final after two bowling specialists batted England a win at Trent Bridge.

Australia needed to win the match to retain the Ashes. On the morning of 12th September 2005 the lab was fixated by Test Match Special, the ball-by-ball updates and the occasional commentary when the somewhat geriatric radio actually decided to work. Things were pretty tense for a while: Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath ripped apart the England attack and a traditional English batting collapse looking ever more likely.

But as I drove down the sunny Cambridgeshire side roads, windows down and the radio loud, Kevin Pietersen set about the bowlers, giving England a fighting chance of a draw. When I got to my destination, almost the entire company was in the pool room watching the match, cheering every run and gasping at every dropped catch. My appointment dragged himself away and we talked for about half an hour, although neither of our hearts were in it.

By the time I had got home Pietersen had his maiden test century, and England were comfortably set for a draw, which was all that was need to win the series and the greatest and most famous prize in cricket.

Exciting stuff. But the thing about cricket is that even a boring test match is worthwhile. There are always tactics, stratagems, lessons to be learned. The dulcet tones of the much-missed Brian Johnston, the plummy pigeons of Henry Blofeld, Jonathan Agnew drily informing us that the ball is pushed safely away to mid-wicket and there’s no run.

On a warm summer’s afternoon there is no greater pleasure than sitting in the garden with Test Match Special on the radio, beer in one hand and a novel in the other, basically doing nothing: You can get out of washing the car or weeding the garden with the simple phrase ‘Ssh. I’m listening to the cricket’.

So it is with science. A lot of the time, even most of the time, nothing seems to be happening. The laws and protocols seem somewhat arcane. There are moments of great excitement, tension, pathos and heartbreak—and then nothing for another four days, or weeks, or years. But all the time, something is happening. Someone, somewhere, is steadily making progress. Reaching for the prize, at a rate that is not entirely determined by the amount of effort the participants put in.

Two weeks ago I started an experiment, inspired by Jenny’s tongue-in-cheek “look”:http://network.nature.com/people/UE19877E8/blog/2008/09/29/in-which-science-becomes-a-sport-–-hypothetically-speaking at science reporting.

Not much is happening at the moment, although I’m quite excited to see what results Cameron gets when he puts GFP into a beam (similar experiments are going on in the lab next door to me). Jean-Claude is halfway to his target. Eva has a phenotype and wonders Biology, why can’t you be more like math!?. Bob is doing whatever it is that Bob does. I’m wondering if Heather ‘s student erasing sections from two slides is a good thing or not.

There are only 13 members of that room so far, but it’s a fascinating for me at least to see what other people are up to. We’re maybe not quite as exciting as the Bledisloe Cup, or as nail-biting as the Old Trafford test. There is drama and passion here, even if beer is not necessarily part of the proceedings.

Join up, and let’s have a go at those Ashes.