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This Australian drama-series takes you to the 1970's era. It made its premiere on Sunday, August the 19th of 2012, on Nine Network.
The Plot
England 1975 - The plot revolves around the game of cricket. It depicts an Australian team from the 1970's that is loaded with legends. This is the pinnacle of the world cricket stage and two old rivals are butting heads. At this particular time there is a revolution storming the cricket establishment that will soon bring that establishment down to its knees.
Kerry Packer is the Australian Media Mogul who is the creator of the World Series Cricket. This is that story. He signed up legendary cricket players and created an entire parallel universe in regard to cricket.
The first episode made high marks in Australia and drew in a crowd of 2.097 million viewers across a 5-city metro audience. The second episode rated highly as well attracting 2.091 million viewers.
Christopher Lee penned a book that is about Kerry Packer's War and is available to the public. He is the same guy who wrote put the screenplay on paper for this TV series. New South Publishing put it out first in 2012. They are an imprint New South Wales University.
What draws viewers in is the excitement raised at the dramatization of the greatest revolution ever in Cricket. It is based mainly on 'The Cricket War' which a a 1993 book by Gideon Haigh. It is a fascinating review.
The re-creating of the 70's is exquisitely vivid with moustaches and safari suits everywhere. Most all the performances are top-grade and overall convincing.
Lachy Hulme plays 'Packer' and puts on a little weight to make the portrayal more realistic. Packer is depicted as being a menace of an employer who always gets what he wants no matter how long it takes him. In spite of regular abusive outbursts he is still seen as a hero while the cricket authorities are portrayed as quite stuffy and villainous. They are depicted never giving players a fair shake.
There is a portrayal (some considered it a non-portrayal) of Don Bradman that many find intriguing. You never see him in Howzat but there are many references made about him by Australian Cricket Board officials receiving phone calls from him.
One specific inference where you hear 'anti-Packer' and 'conciliatory' cannot be ignored. After that the chairman of that time Bob Parish (represented in the program as well) notes Bradman is quite good when it comes to 'sniffing the breeze'.
35 years later, the political world of the World Series Cricket remain in a state of open debate. Once they aired Howzat's first installment, Gary Cosier (the batsman), who was portrayed as being a sort of naive young man without a clue as to how to work things out that went on around him, spoke during a radio interview stating his belief that the reason he did not receive a contract with World Series Cricket was because of a vote he lodged against a South Australian player strike years earlier. He said that this 'stuck' in the back of the mind of the WSC captain Mr. Ian Chappell.
Certain aspects of this 2-part saga are indeed fictionalized. That means the cricket that is actually shown (even though very believable) occasionally is a bit off-course, but it is no more than what happens in other programs. A cricket fan with a good eye can maybe spot these indulgences, but the storyline holds firmly.
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