Call to arms: One of the posters inside the Channel Nine inner-sanctum. Read one placard: “The mission, should you choose to accept it: Cricket needs to be re-established in the national psyche, re-igniting passion for the sport, not only among current participants, but for all future participants drawn from the widest possible scope of Australian society." Another pointed out the areas where cricket was failing miserably, highlighting that while it was the No.1 sport for men aged between 45 to 65, no less than 70 per cent of those aged from five to 15 years of age “are not interested in our sport”. It pointed out there was “falling interest among young, female and multicultural segments” and that "two to five females are more likely to attend an AFL or NRL match”. The bottom line was cricket needed to change to ensure it was “a sustainable employment option for all of us”. And that means keeping “Gyngell, Browne and Sutherland” happy.

"Urge kids to play cricket": another of the glossy ads. In other words, Nine bosses David Gyngell and Jeff Browne (who has since left the network) and Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland. Three years down the track and you can bet Gyngell and Sutherland will be clinking glasses and giving each other a wink when they sit down for lunch for a post-summer debrief. In those hours after the final ball of the 2010-11 Ashes series had been delivered, cricket was in serious danger of becoming as relevant as – gulp – football. While Gyngell will point to unprecedented ratings and Sutherland will highlight record crowd figures, the real difference three years later can be seen in something as simple as the current one-day series.

Winning back the Ashes is one thing. Taking one-day international cricket off life support and making it watchable again is the greatest achievement from Michael Clarke's side this summer. Normally, the thought of dressing up as Super Mario and standing in the baking sun while drinking mid-strength beer appeals as much watching a Golden Girls marathon. But if James Faulkner keeps batting as he did at the Gabba last Friday, arousing childhood thoughts of when pyjama cricket actually meant something, well, I'm prepared to dust off the Super Mario suit and have a go. While the return of the urn has been fundamental to cricket's swift renaissance, with more than 15 million people tuning into Nine for the five-Test series, the Big Bash League has ostensibly addressed those concerns plastered all over the wall of the Nine commentary box. When Sutherland spoke at the Melbourne Press Club last November, he said: “Our research of the late 2000s showed that cricket was becoming less relevant as a sport for kids, females, young families and Australians from non-English-speaking backgrounds. We needed to do something to get them into the game.”

Surely, though, Sutherland could not have predicted the runaway success of the Twenty20 format. Apart from the fact BBL matches are averaging almost a million viewers per night for Ten, with an average of more than 20,000 attending, what must hearten the suits at Cricket Australia the most is what happened on days one and three of the Sydney Test. While sold-out crowds packed the SCG, there were sell-out crowds watching the Scorchers and Thunder on January 3 and then the Strikers and Sixers on January 5 in other parts of the country. It's the first time cricket has had two sell-out crowds on the same day. As it stands, the game is on track to have more people attending cricket matches this summer than 2006, when the likes of Warne, McGrath and Langer had turned the summer into their own version of Cold Chisel's Last Stand tour.

The game's back, baby. And how. Everyone at Nine and Cricket Australia get to keep their jobs, Pup's got the urn, the kiddies and the girls and new Australians from parts of the globe not familiar with the strange game are all buying in. And the rest of us jaded fools are dressing up as video game characters from the 1985, when one-day cricket really did mean something, and standing beneath the sun and then the Southern Bloody Cross. As for drinking mid-strength beer, well, let's not get carried away. Yet.