This week saw the culmination of Allen Stanford’s super-series. The billionaire has been pumping money into the dying beast of Caribbean cricket for years, and he stepped up this year by offering $20 million in a winner-takes-all, three hour extravaganza between the English team and the Stanford Superstars, a team of West Indians whose reputations by and large ill-fitted their billing.

I was not the only one who thought this affair a little tawdry. The England team were uneasy about the whole thing, as were the hitherto blindly loyal Barmy Army, who declined to support their team en masse. Stanford’s aim was to get American audiences into cricket, (the game was broadcast live on ESPN), a demographic of sports fans generally used to baseball as the longest possible sport, weighing in at around four hours per game.

A Test confrontation lasts as long as the players are mentally strong enough to make it last, and an individual battle lasts as long as those involved can stay out there.

There will be no having a breather when the ball is up the other end. There are few honourable draws as the final whistle blows; one of you needs to submit. Limited-overs cricket cannot match this. It is no epic victory for a bowler when he dismisses someone who just walked across his stumps and swung and missed in an effort for quick runs. In Tests, your only imperative is to survive as long as possible. And a battle for survival for survival’s sake is far more compelling than for the crude sake of a few runs. Tests are the purest test of your cricketing skill. That’s probably how they came to be so called. The contest ends when you are not good enough to continue.

I watch a hell of a lot of sport, to the chagrin of my family, and my tutors, and I can think of few sports that afford such an intense raw conflict as a Test Match. Tennis matches, come close, and like anyone who saw it, I was gripped by Federer-Nadal at Wimbledon this year, but cricket’s real hook is the asymmetry between the competitors. Federer-Nadal was great, but they were for long stretches merely negating each other by both, to be crude, hitting a ball hard at each other. Batsmen, are, obviously, not bowlers, and the skill-sets demanded of each are totally different. The mutual incomprehension between great bowlers and batters is what makes the contests great.

Contrast cricket’s great confrontations. We all have our favourites. My personal one is Atherton-Donald in the Nottingham Test in 1998. Both had a match to win. The only way Donald knew how was to run in and bowl extremely quickly, and he must have wondered how Atherton could stand up to him, and why he would even want to. Both subsequently admitted in their autobiographies thereafter that for that hour on the fourth day, neither of them were truly thinking about the match, but about beating each other. There was time for winning matches tomorrow, but just then, it was just them. Nobody who has seen it ever forgets it, and nobody who only ever watches limited overs cricket will ever see anything like it. And that would be a tragedy.

Cricket is far from physical. Having played a lot of cricket, I’ve found it is actually pretty difficult to get genuinely tired whilst playing, even if the next day your body screams at you. It is small bursts of energy, expended frequently. In that way, it is less demanding than, say football. You can’t make Torres play five days in a row, because he’ll die. Anything good he is going to do, he’ll do it in the ninety minutes, and the nature of football is such that even in his best game, there will still be less time spent watching him than watching other people. Footballers’ great deeds are a flash of lightning in a 90 minute stargaze.

Cricket manifests brilliance in a different way. At its best, it gives an opportunity to watch sustained brilliance for hours on end. It isn’t that Shane Warne bowled the odd stunning ball which made everyone gasp. We gasped again and again. The point is even more acute for batsmen. It is a skill that shouldn’t be forced or rushed. Asked what the greatest innings they have seen are, I know of few cricket fans who talk of Jayasuriya running wild in one-day games, even if he was a sight to behold at his best. Far more often, Lara’s 153 at Bridgetown comes up, an innings set against the backdrop of three days of intense cricket, not just three hours. I don’t really remember great one-day innings I have seen, especially from 20/20 games. More than anything else, swinging with your head in the air and connecting is partly dumb luck, even if, as Gary Player says, the more you practice, the luckier you get.

Limited-overs cricket has its place. It does bring in much needed revenue, and generate new interest in the game. But it should still only be a support act for the Platonic form of cricket, Test matches. An American associate of mine who only last year started liking cricket, at my bidding, got into Test matches first. When he watched his first 20/20, he said to me “it’s a little bit pornographic, don’t you agree?” Porn has its place, and Plato’s Republic has its place. That one is more immediately gratifying than the other is no reason to abandon it.

CHERWELL’S TOP 5 TEST MOMENTS:

1. England vs Australia 2005: one of the greatest Test series in the last 50 years. Workplace productivity plummets as Cricinfo traffic soars. A silly-haired South African becomes a Great British hero

2. Donald vs Atherton 1998: Chasing 147, Atherton gloves a bouncer from Donald but is given not out. Donald goes berserk and fires down the most hostile hour of bowling ever seen. Atherton gets bruised, battered, shouted at, but doesn’t blink.

3. Brian Lara vs Australia 1999: His unbetaen 153 at Bridgetown reminded everyone why the term ‘god-like’ had ever been applied to Lara. Scoring just under half the team’s runs, he led the Windies to their 4th innings target of 311, with just one wicket to spare.

4. India vs Australia 2001: A spellbinding 2nd Test saw India win after following-on and posting an epic 657 in the second innings, with Laxman’s finest ever innings producing 281 of the most elegant runs Kolkata is ever likely to see. An exhausted Australia then succumbed to Harbhajan, sending 1 billion Indians into raptures.

5. Anil Kumble vs Pakistan 1999: Kumble, looking to go home early, bowls 26 overs of vicious legspin, taking all ten wickets, and putting himself up with Jim Laker as only the second man to so utterly dominate a Test match batting line-up.

I feel compelled to write a rebuttal in response to Matt Evans-Young’s opinion piece “True Blues or Mercenaries”.

He goes particularly hard after one demographic – the international MSc Management Research students trialling for the Blues Boat. I fit that description very well, actually perfectly. I also feel it is my responsibility to set the record straight on some insinuations made in his article.

I couldn’t disagree more that I am “tarnishing” Oxford’s reputation. My decision to attend Oxford was mostly based on the reputation of the University and my interest in the course, along with the opportunity to compete at a high level in rowing while studying.

My reason for acceptance probably had something to do with my 1st class degree from Brown, my 1st class degree from Noble and Greenough School, my scoring well above the course requirements on the GRE entry exam, sterling recommendations from past professors, and yes even my personal statement (which was excellent and something I am happy to share with Mr. Evans-Young). In short I am more than academically qualified to be at Oxford.

In response to rowing providing me a “free meal ticket” this year that charge is absolutely laughable. As a non-EU student I am paying over $51,000 to attend Oxford this year, helping to subsidize the artificially low tuitions paid by E.U. residents. If you want to talk about something that is fundamentally unfair about this school, how about discriminatory fees based on your country of origin. Perhaps Mr. Evans-Young and I have a different interpretation of “free”.

As for the charge of somehow not representing the school, I would invite you to come by Christ Church and introduce yourself to some of the other graduates who will tell you that I am indeed involved in the community and a respected member. I will cede this point though, rowing takes about 40 hours a week on top of my studies so I don’t have as many late nights as the average student.

I suppose the difference in our views on athletics is that I see the added challenge, discipline, and goal setting required to maintain this balance as and element that enhances my experience. Prior to arriving at Oxford I competed for the United States on several national teams, an achievement that took a lot of effort, and my international accomplishments compare with the current and past Olympic medallists from the OUBC. People who have shown this amount of drive and dedication to such an arduous venture have a lot to offer to Oxford, both academically and on a world stage- and the Boat Race is just that.

This is a game that Pembroke should have won and they were visibly the better side for much of the match. However, Teddy Hall proved that they should never be written off and produced an outstanding second half performance to set up a thrilling climax to the event. This was college rugby at its finest, though slightly marred by the high penalty count, as both teams demonstrated the passion and skill that separates the first division form the lower leagues.

From the kickoff an early handling error from Hall set up a scrum centre field, but the Hall pack established their scrummaging credentials by winning possession against the head and were rewarded by the fist penalty of the afternoon, which fullback Will Stephens kicked to give Hall an early lead.

Pembroke were undaunted however and both sides threw themselves into the match scrapping for every ball. The breakdown proved problematic, particularly for Hall who were repeatedly penalised for not staying on their feet, clearly struggling to come to terms with the new regulations. Both sides played the territory game, frequently kicking to the corners but strong lineout performances from both packs limited the amount of quick ball available for the backs. Pembroke began to string the phases together, their backline firing far more effectively than Hall’s with inside centre Joe Thornton making some powerful runs. The scrum proved its worth in this game, both in attack and defence, the quality of scrummaging reflecting the abilities of both packs.

Pembroke were clearly in control as the half progressed and camped in the Hall half only heroic defence prevented them from scoring several times. What’s more, Pembroke seemed to be getting under their opposition’s skin as tempers flared and Hall gave away another penalty for going over the top in the ruck just inside their own half, and surprisingly outside centre Tim Horrocks opted to go for the posts producing a sublime kick to finally give Pembroke their first score. Hall compounded their problems when a player was sin-binned for yet another ruck infringement, Horrocks stepping up for another long range attempt which fell agonisingly short.

Hall had a chance to clear their lines from the 22 drop-out but a player was outside the 22 when the ball was kicked which saw them defending a scrum back from where the ball was kicked. This silly error cost them dear as with a man down the pressure from Pembroke finally told, Thorton linking well with fullback Etiene Ekpo-Utip who danced through the Hall defence to score the first try of the match. As the half time whistle blew all the momentum was with Pembroke as the fight seemed to be fading in Hall.

However, someone found the right words at half time and Teddy Hall made it clear they were not beaten from the restart, immediately forcing a Pembroke error to set up a scrum in the opposition’s half and only poor hands in the backline prevented them scoring. Hall had calmed down over half time, and were conceding fewer penalties, but another infringement at the breakdown saw Horrocks put Pembroke further ahead. Both sides were firing on all cylinders now, the Teddy Hall backline finally functioning fully, but neither side seemed to able to convert pressure into points as the tackles came in hard and fast.

Hall seemed to be gaining the upper hand in the war of attrition and won successive scrums against the head to put themselves in great field position on the five metre and allow number eight Charlie Southern to go over for the try. Sparked by this score both sides upped their game producing the best rugby of the match thus far, Pembroke’s dominance long past as both sides matched each other man for man. Hall, playing to their strength, adopted a narrow game plan, keeping it in the forwards and once again pushing into towards the line and the pressure on Pembroke only increased when they had a player sin-binned for dragging the scrum half into a ruck.

A man down in the final stages of the game Pembroke produced some monumental try line defence to keep Hall from crossing , time after time driving them back, both sides providing a fitting finale. Finally Pembroke won a turnover and only had to put the ball out of play to secure victory. Yet the unthinkable happened as a cruel gust of wind caused the ball to drift infield.

Slick Hall hands moved the ball across the backline to replacement wing John Waldron who eluded the stretched and tired Pembroke defence to score in the corner. To add insult to injury Stephens kicked the tricky conversion and the final whistle blew bringing an end to a great contest. Pembroke can take a lot from their performance but Hall’s tenacity separated the teams in the end.