Dog Day Afternoon
Have you ever had a dog that you got de-sexed? You thought it was the right thing to do, because he’d occasionally piss on the rug or try to bang the neighbour’s Chihuahua. But after the operation he just wasn’t the same. He didn’t strut around the park in the same manner. He didn’t bark as much, didn’t wag his tail as vigorously, or chase the tennis ball as hard. The spring in his step was gone. He looked like the same dog but he seemed different. And he was. He had his balls cut off. And really, how could any of us expect to be the same?
The Australian cricket team has for almost 20 years now, somehow managed to remain virtually unchallenged as the sports unofficial (and official) kings. To use a popular football term, there has never been a ‘rebuilding’ phase with Australian cricket. And the thing that has separated them from the rest of the world, and indeed the difference between very good sports people and elite sports people, goes beyond physical talents.
It is mentality. It is confidence. It is belief. It is toughness. It is all those things that happen between the ears, not between the stumps. That is what has given them that edge, what has made them the clear cut no. 1 team in the world: The line between confidence and arrogance is often said to be as narrow as certain parts of a bee’s anatomy, but that fine line is (or was) Australia’s edge.
For others, that line is apparently fluid, moving accordingly so as to position themselves on the side that most favours them at the time; the side that gets them on the front page, or takes the heat off their insipid play; or racist taunts.
Amongst all this posturing, and people lining up to bemoan the lack of ‘decency’ in the game, somehow India’s literal “we’ll take our bat and ball and go home” routine was forgotten. Now, I don’t know about you, but from about 6 years of age, I was taught this was the worst possible type of a dummy spit: It was the whinge of the perpetual loser. I was also taught not to give people a hard time about being different.
Andrew Symonds was called a ‘monkey’. Brad Hogg called the Indian team ‘bastards’. One of these terms is racially offensive. The other is offensive only if you were born before running water was common place. I understand there are cultural differences to be considered, but the ICC has strict guidelines on racial abuse. I’m not too sure what their stance is on pre-industrial revolution insults about the marital status of one’s mother at the time of their birth.
India eventually dropped the “racist” charge against Brad Hogg and was widely applauded. It was called a ‘sporting gesture’ and something done in ‘good faith’ and lots other things that failed to mention the guideline under which Hogg was cited in the first place. No-one suggests that they may also have done so to encourage Australia to pick Hogg, and therefore duck Shaun Tait.
By this point, however, the media train, fuelled by its own cannibalistic measures, was completely out of control and being driven by long forgotten sportsmen offering uninformed, unsolicited opinion (Deeks? Really? Did Deeks need to get involved?) and a self-serving British ex-pat who may, or may not, be a paedophile (check into Roebuck’s history with English schoolboy cricket teams).
The Aussies were unsure of themselves in Perth. The bowling and field placing lacked imagination and aggression. The pressure, the thing that mental toughness allows you to place on the opposition, was lacking to the point that world cricket’s most confident team, looked distracted and desperately unsure of themselves.
The media, and PC apologists trying desperately to appease an Indian team guilty of all the things they accused Australia of, took away the one thing the Australia cricket team was undoubtedly the best at in the world; winning the match in their own minds before a ball ever gets bowled.
I hope these same people took careful note of the first two test matches. I hope they remember the vigour with which the team played all day long. I hope they accurately recall the inspiring moments out they kept producing out of seemingly hopeless situations. And I hope they gave them one last scratch behind the ear, because although it looks like the same dog, it isn’t.
Have you ever had a dog that you got de-sexed? You thought it was the right thing to do, because he’d occasionally piss on the rug or try to bang the neighbour’s Chihuahua. But after the operation he just wasn’t the same. He didn’t strut around the park in the same manner. He didn’t bark as much, didn’t wag his tail as vigorously, or chase the tennis ball as hard. The spring in his step was gone. He looked like the same dog but he seemed different. And he was. He had his balls cut off. And really, how could any of us expect to be the same?The Australian cricket team has for almost 20 years now, somehow managed to remain virtually unchallenged as the sports unofficial (and official) kings. To use a popular football term, there has never been a ‘rebuilding’ phase with Australian cricket. And the thing that has separated them from the rest of the world, and indeed the difference between very good sports people and elite sports people, goes beyond physical talents.
It is mentality. It is confidence. It is belief. It is toughness. It is all those things that happen between the ears, not between the stumps. That is what has given them that edge, what has made them the clear cut no. 1 team in the world: The line between confidence and arrogance is often said to be as narrow as certain parts of a bee’s anatomy, but that fine line is (or was) Australia’s edge.
For others, that line is apparently fluid, moving accordingly so as to position themselves on the side that most favours them at the time; the side that gets them on the front page, or takes the heat off their insipid play; or racist taunts.
Amongst all this posturing, and people lining up to bemoan the lack of ‘decency’ in the game, somehow India’s literal “we’ll take our bat and ball and go home” routine was forgotten. Now, I don’t know about you, but from about 6 years of age, I was taught this was the worst possible type of a dummy spit: It was the whinge of the perpetual loser. I was also taught not to give people a hard time about being different.
Andrew Symonds was called a ‘monkey’. Brad Hogg called the Indian team ‘bastards’. One of these terms is racially offensive. The other is offensive only if you were born before running water was common place. I understand there are cultural differences to be considered, but the ICC has strict guidelines on racial abuse. I’m not too sure what their stance is on pre-industrial revolution insults about the marital status of one’s mother at the time of their birth.
India eventually dropped the “racist” charge against Brad Hogg and was widely applauded. It was called a ‘sporting gesture’ and something done in ‘good faith’ and lots other things that failed to mention the guideline under which Hogg was cited in the first place. No-one suggests that they may also have done so to encourage Australia to pick Hogg, and therefore duck Shaun Tait.
By this point, however, the media train, fuelled by its own cannibalistic measures, was completely out of control and being driven by long forgotten sportsmen offering uninformed, unsolicited opinion (Deeks? Really? Did Deeks need to get involved?) and a self-serving British ex-pat who may, or may not, be a paedophile (check into Roebuck’s history with English schoolboy cricket teams).
The Aussies were unsure of themselves in Perth. The bowling and field placing lacked imagination and aggression. The pressure, the thing that mental toughness allows you to place on the opposition, was lacking to the point that world cricket’s most confident team, looked distracted and desperately unsure of themselves.
The media, and PC apologists trying desperately to appease an Indian team guilty of all the things they accused Australia of, took away the one thing the Australia cricket team was undoubtedly the best at in the world; winning the match in their own minds before a ball ever gets bowled.
I hope these same people took careful note of the first two test matches. I hope they remember the vigour with which the team played all day long. I hope they accurately recall the inspiring moments out they kept producing out of seemingly hopeless situations. And I hope they gave them one last scratch behind the ear, because although it looks like the same dog, it isn’t.
posted by the captain at 5:54 pm
3 Comments:
TESTIFY!
I think you'll find that what Australia was unsure of in Perth was how to play that mysterious thing called swing bowling. We can't bat to it, and we certainly can't do it ourselves. Instead, we persist with the "fast and straight" carpet bombing strategy.
Look at the last team to seriously challenge us - England in the Ashes series in the UK, and guess what? Flintoff was swinging it like a male stripper.
Watching Ponting face up to ball after ball which swerved and jagged as he flashed away and was beaten over and over again had nothing whatsoever to do with the off field side of things.
However, as someone who was critical of Australia and their attitude in your last blog post, I will admit that I am disappointed that India was guilty of the same things in Perth that they threw a huge tantrum about in Sydney: dodgy appeals, gleefully accepting the rub of the green from the umpires (the Symonds decision being particularly bad), and "over celebrating" at the end of the match - even standing in a circle just as Australia did.
Spot on Pat.
Wasn't Aussie Troy Cooley poached back from the Poms following that particular Ashes tour to coach our boys in the lost art of swing bowling .... particularly the notoriously successful reverse swinging ball?
The sub-continental tourists have conveniently short memories.
Comparatively, could you imagine the furore it would cause if Andrew Symonds was to run around a ground in India with an Aussie flag? The already feral Indian crowd would get feraller (is there such a word?) and authorities would have to call in the riot squad!
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