Oh Those Aussie Boys, Such A Tease!

Peter Roebuck teases everyone with a classic article on cricket's spirit:

Sledging is another contentious subject. Somewhat to their chagrin, Australians are constantly cross-examined about it. Partly it is the insight it offers to secrets of the field. Supporters want to know what it is really like out there. Accordingly they relish the remarks. Australians point out that their words are mere banter and that much worse is said in the backyards and gardens and beach matches of their boyhood. Aussies like to tease each other. It's their way of showing affection. Did genial Bill Woodfull once enquire of his men, "Which of you bastards called this bastard a bastard?"

But sledging does not travel well. Other nations are not raised in the knockabout way. Teases can be taken as taunts, can provoke a fiery response, whereupon trouble begins.

Ah those wascally larrikin Aussies, such teases. Yes, you're quite right Peter. Sledging doesn't travel well, especially to Australia. You see, it also makes a big difference who is sledging, sorry teasing. McGrath didn't take too kindly to Sarwan's little tease, nor did Brad Haddin or Mitchell Johnson appreciate Suleiman Benn's teases. In fact Shane Watson seems to have been the only Aussie who relished a West Indian tease and retorted with one of his own, but that dastardly ICC punished him with a massive... well, a fine for that. Its funny though, "supporters want to know what it is really like out there" only when it suits their narrow definition of whats acceptable, or more precisely, whats acceptable when said by one party to another and not the other way around. Speaking of which, here are the next pearls of analysis from Roebuck:

Other cultures instill respect for elders and politeness. Others still, and sometimes the same ones, do not put racism as high, nor regard match-fixing or ball-tampering as rotten. Everyone knows all these things are wrong but opinions vary about their relative importance.

Others we must presume, as a logical continuation to Roebuck's previous assertions, doesn't include the venerable Aussies. Who could put the importance of racism any lower though than Darren Lehman calling the Sri Lankan's "black cunts" and a certain fast bowler who threatened to sue the Sri Lankans for claiming he too had referred to one of their batsmen as a "black monkey"? And these are just two incidents of the many that have been laughed away by several of the ex-cricketers when "monkey-gate" came up. And we could of course ask none other than Shane Warne and Mark Waugh about the variance in opinions about passing harmless information in exchange for money to bookies.

Arjuna Ranatunga can hardly have realised how much refusing to shake hands after the match offended Australians.

My, my, how stupid Ranatunga must be not to have realized this. No, he certainly wasn't capable of understanding what a calculated insult is, he's too fat, right? Certainly the Australians must have understood this though since they obviously took such umbrage at it, and repaid the compliment to another fat subcontinental, Sharad Pawar, by pushing him off the stage because their victory celebrations were so important!

His opponents can hardly have imagined the demons that had been raised by their confrontational approach.

Yes, all that talk about mental disintegration, people are supposed to take that in their stride. It must be shocking to encounter people who take offence to uncalled for personal insults being hurled at them in the name of, whats that word again, ah yes, "banter" and "teasing." Please note Aussies, wink wink, your "confrontational approach" isn't taken too kindly by your opponents. Because they're not "mentally tough" enough. wink-wink.

You see, what you don't get Peter is that the spirit of the game simply perpetuates the self-righteous holier-than-though stand taken by one side over another to justify their behavior or condemn the lack of it in their opponents when they feel hard done by, and when there is nothing in the law that makes getting over it easy. All parties are equally guilty of this, it has nothing to do with overcoming the "cultural differences" of nations in creating a uniform code of respectful conduct, but rather the usage of those differences to say that some of those aspects of the spirit simply aren't as important. Case in point, sledging... or teasing, if you prefer that term. Another example, well lets take it right out of your own article:

Numerous Indians worked themselves into a lather when Andrew Symonds did not depart voluntarily in the infamous SCG Test a few years ago. It was a foolish response. He was under no obligation. When their own batsmen stood their ground, the same observers held their tongues.

Stupid hypocritical Indian batsmen. Of course when an Australian batsmen refuses to walk it is ok! Don't work yourself into a lather over that pack of wild dogs you stupid same observers! You have no right to demand they should have walked after their captain made a request for both sides to agree to a pact on promoting the "spirit." And of course, when an Australian claims he's taken a catch cleanly, thats it, its not negotiable anymore, even if he has grounded it - lets tweak the subjective definition for the completion of catch and "having control over the ball" to suit when a catch is grounded - YOU MUST ACCEPT IT. Otherwise its perfectly fine for the likes of Slater to call your mother all manner of insults since in any case you don't believe his word counts for much! Foolish of you to think otherwise even if you were under no obligation to walk.

So spare us the sanctimony, the eloquently scripted history lesson of how the predominantly black nations' natives embraced Western presumptions, noble empire building as they were, even if they were propagated by pedophile vicars and their ilk. It isn't about respect, if it were there would be genuine efforts to appreciate other's so-called cultural differences and how not to talk or act in a manner that deliberately provokes your opponent. Invoking the spirit is nothing more than claiming that the way one party has acted appeals to the sensibilities of a groups understanding of what is fair play and acceptable and wins them a few gold stars for behavior. And it is more abused, universally so, than any of the sledges - sorry teases - that the Australians have become so famous for.

Read more...

Return

Are You Upholding The Appeal?

So asked the umpires, and Paul Collingwood later admitted he probably made the wrong decision. The subsequent reactions from first New Zealand and later the press must have affected the English captain and a short while later he resigned from the position. New Zealand's reaction was viewed with cynicism by some, considering wicket-keeper Brendon McCullum infamously ran-out Muralitharan when the latter walked over to congratulate his skipper on reaching a fine century in December 2006, a move that then skipper Stephen Flemming justified by saying

You can't just wander off when the ball's in mid-air and if we'd had an overthrow I'm sure they would have taken that.

Yet little over a year later, when McCullum pulled the stunt again (apparently he'd even managed to do it once more between these two occasions when he ran out Chris Mpofu as he walked out to congratulate his partner on scoring a fifty) to run-out none other than Paul Collingwood, skipper Daniel Vettori withdrew the appeal after Daryl Harper spoke to the Kiwi skipper.

The circumstances in which each of these incidents took place are interesting. In the first instance, the game was close and Elliot's run out swung the game heavily in England's favor. In the second, Sangakkara played an absolute blinder and with New Zealand batting last obviously would have wanted to chase as little as possible. In the final case New Zealand were in a reasonably strong position with England struggling at 27/3 in the 11th over but Collingwood's dismissal at that stage would no doubt have improved their chances of making the semifinals of the Champions Trophy. So its not like you could say that sides are ruthless when they need to be and willing to adhere to spirit of cricket only when the odds are already stacked heavily in their favor.

But the key issue here is that all three incidents could have had a decisive bearing on the match's result, and but for an umpire's intervention, all three captains were happy to stick within the laws at the cost of cricket's over-hyped conduct of sportsmanship because at the end of the day, as RajaB said in the last post, it comes down to the numbers. For this generation, maybe even the next, the circumstances will leave an indelible mark, but what about after that? History will remember the numbers, the stats and it takes considerable digging up to find the fascinating story behind the numbers, an effort that all too often will be too much bother unless the incident has been researched for that specific purpose.

Which is why sometimes in focusing too much on the numbers, in striving too hard to maintain the only records that history will judge you by, you do something that gains you notoriety. How you then react is what makes the difference between whether the issue will be deemed inconsequential and confined only to a paragraph in annual review, or whether it makes the centerpiece of the decade's review. Jardine's "I'm not here to win friends. I'm here to win the Ashes" gave writers the opportunity to paint him as cricket's primary villain for years.  Steve Waugh's "They make the rules, we try to make sure we play within them" response* fitted perfectly with the ruthless, ice-man persona the press had created. Indeed you would find such retorts litter the landscape of events in cricket that went down as controversial, right from W.G.Grace to Fleming's stubborn support for McCullum.

By his early action on the field though, Vettori managed to successfully quash a controversy before it had the chance to become one, and but for the line about Harper's instigation, even if you did notice the event you would believe Vettori had conducted himself strictly by the Spirit of Cricket immediately. Collingwood made the wrong decision but did apologize after the match, which while not sparing him from criticism at the time, didn't leave him with the ridiculed legacy Brad Haddin will have to live with for flatly denying and refusing to believe even with available video evidence that he had made a mistake.

It would appear then that the only place where the spirit of cricket seems to find a place today is in making a qualitative assessment of a cricketer's morality in determining the degree to which an incident is reported and recorded, as inconsequential or outrageous. The only exception being in justifying whether an Australian captain is capable of counting and organizing, skills you would have thought were prerequisites for leading your national side, but that is another issue.

Which brings me to Randhiv. He might have been coaxed into bowling the no-ball, but whether by volition or by instruction, he did apologize and he hasn't complained about SLC's punishment. But the board's reaction is interesting, and not just because the common consensus is that it is over-the-top. In recognizing the place where the spirit has the most relevance, which is most certainly not on the field, they have acted in a manner that shall forever taint Randhiv whilst reflecting their actions in a quite different light. After all, can it honestly be asked a few decades from now whether theirs was an overreaction? Quite likely it will be remembered as the days when administrators felt they had an obligation uphold the spirit.

I'm not criticizing them. What I'm trying to say is, they felt they were asked "Are you upholding the appeal?" to which they answered decisively in the negative and so lives on this fascinating aspect of the game... where all manner of individuals use the spirit as required at the moment and then react based on how they believe history will judge them for it.

*In the match in question, Aus vs WI, the Windies had been bowled out for 110 and Australia crawled to 111 off 40.4 overs (in stark contrast to their lightning quick chase of 180 in under 20 overs against Bangladesh in the previous match) as they tried to prevent the West Indies' nrr from falling too far behind New Zealands'. The reason being the Kiwis had won against Australia and would carry those points forward to the Super Six stage which would mean Australia would carry none. With only a game against Scotland left, New Zealand would have to win by a large margin to overtake the West Indies nrr, which they did.

Read more...

Return

on why ponting is the ultimate saviour of rules and spirit of the game.

"They can play whatever way they want to play. We came to play by the rules and the spirit of the game. It’s up to them to do what they want to do."

ponting meant every word of it...for the first time i truly believed what he said...

for the simple reason that he once even sacrificed australia's possible win against india to complete 90 overs assigned for the day...he did it just to play the game by the rules and the spirit...

tho it's another matter that some neckheads still beleive that he did so to protect his head being chopped off for couple of games...the 'truth' can't be further than this...

Read more...

Return