The Brisbane Heat’s decline shows that entertainment trumps winning

It’s all well and good to have a crack at the Brisbane Heat for losing, but in the end, isn’t the entertainment of the Big Bash more important than winning? Read Colman’s Call here.

Chris Lynn’s Brisbane Heat squad has been rubbish this season.

• SMOKE, NO HEAT: Hurricanes thump the Heat

• SNUBBED: No WBBL World Cup games for Brisbane

• PANIC: BBL bosses hauled before TV executives

To slog or not to slog, that is the question.

The Brisbane Heat’s early exit from Big Bash contention has put pressure on the team’s much vaunted “fearless cricket” policy and put the … er, heat on its coach Daniel Vettori and captain Chris Lynn.

It hasn’t helped that one of Australia’s best limited-over players and now popular shoot-from-the-hip commentator Andrew Symonds labelled the team and its strategy “dumb” after Lynn went for a duck in this week’s loss to the Melbourne Stars but still and all, the outcry does raise some serious questions.

Chris Lynn trudges from Bellerive Oval after being dismissed by the Hobart Hurricanes. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

Not just about Vettori, Lynn and the Heat, but about the entire Big Bash concept.

Sure it’s important to win, but isn’t it just as important to entertain?

I mean, when you have the Stars’ “waterboy” Brendan Fevola interviewed mid-match decked out in the team’s lime green kit you know this isn’t the Ashes you’re watching.

And much as getting a look at the bowlers, taking the shine off the ball and building an innings might be what Australian Test coach Justin Langer is desperately seeking from his batters, it’s hardly going to have the turnstiles ticking over for a Big Bash match.

In taking over broadcast rights this summer Fox Sports promised “cricket like never before.”

I’d argue that Big Bash isn’t cricket at all.

Brendon McCullum walks off after being caught by Dwayne Bravo of the Melbourne Stars. Picture: AAP Image/George Salpigtidis

It’s a new game; a hybrid game. What you’d get if you mated baseball with Barnum and Bailey circus.

“Step right up folks, step right up. Under the big top tonight, see amazing feats of strength, agility and hand-eye coordination and, up in the commentary box, the clowns …”

After the Heat’s season-ending loss in Hobart I was inundated with mail from disgruntled cricket aficionados (in my game anything more than two letters qualifies as an inundation).

One was from a former Test player, another from an experienced grade and county cricketer.

Both made very valid points about the dire straits in which the Heat, and Australian cricket in general, find themselves.

Both offered very intelligent and well thought-out suggestions on how the situation could be improved.

As long as the Big Bash lives up to its name, young fans will continue to watch. Picture: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

Yet I found it interesting that I didn’t receive any complaints from within the Big Bash core demographic – young people with no grounding in the traditional form of the game.

The ones who think a game is something played in front of a computer screen and who need a very persuasive argument to be lured outside their bedrooms.

In fact, what I did get was support for the Heat and its adherence to the John Daly philosophy of “grip it and rip it”.

As one Heat fan wrote: “Fearless cricket means not being afraid of losing games you should win, nor concerned with being criticised for a dumb strategy.”

It’s a fair point. If the so-called Bash Brothers, Chris Lynn and Brendon McCullum, had taken the long handle to the Stars, hit 10 sixes each and ended the match in a canter, would they be called dumb or destructive?

After all, the competition is called Big Bash, not Pretty Placement.

Let’s face it, no-one ever paid to see Mike Tyson’s jab or John Daly’s putting. They wanted brutal knockouts and fearless drives, just like they go along to Big Bash to see the ball soar over the fence.

It’s like Rocky Balboa’s training Mickey said to him in Rocky III, “Kid, the worst thing that could happen to any fighter happened to you. You got civilised …”

It’s the same with Chris Lynn. Sure he could be a little more patient, a little more selective, but if he gets civilised and starts dabbing singles around the field, what’s he going to be?

Just a cricketer.