BETWEEN its fussy, musty traditions, the boutique collection of countries that play it at the highest level and its arcane assortment of laws, cricket already has a number of claims to uniqueness.
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To that list, however, can be added another: how many sports could possibly supply the sound and fury of the Big Bash and the slow-moving tension of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test series simultaneously?
Australian fans really have been spoiled for choice these past couple of months.
IN NEWS AROUND BATHURST:
For those with a taste for colour and derring-do, there's been the Big Bash and its bright lights on the box each evening.
New rules introduced this year have aimed to up the action in this most action-packed form of the code and avoid the excitement flagging - which, considering the format, isn't a great danger.
It doesn't seem to matter if you can't remember who was playing who three nights ago, or even who won the competition last year: the point is to enjoy the game on the night.
And running alongside the Big Bash has been a Test series between Australia and India for the purists. Offering twists, surprises, changes of momentum, battles of attrition - everything that makes Test cricket special - the Border-Gavaskar series has been the slow, satisfying three-course meal to the Big Bash's sugary dessert.
Those who never liked cricket in the first place will harrumph that the SCG Test could have been played for five days without a result, but to that criticism, Test cricket fans might be inclined to say this: yes, but what a five days.
A Steve Smith century, Indian batsmen battered by fired-up Australian fast bowlers, dramatic run-outs, rearguard actions.
And a tense final day in which India could have won, lost or drawn the Test - and changed the complexion of the series.
The timing of Test cricket allowed Indian wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant to be injured on Saturday and return on Monday for a fighting 97 runs. The format allows the space for that storyline.
You don't have to like cricket to recognise the diversity of what it has created.
The sport that gave us champions as disparate as Ian Botham, Viv Richards and Don Bradman - maverick, swaggering superman and complex, driven run machine, respectively - has also given us Twenty20 and Tests.
That's not a bad effort; not a bad effort at all.
