The crude, crass Aussie mentality raises it's ugly head as expected. The win-at-all-costs mentality, which is well and truly revered by Aussies, drives this bogan behaviour. But sadly most Aussies don't even realise what the rest of world thinks of them and some are even proud of it.
At a higher level (than these stupid remarks), clearly there is a refusal to accept that English speaking countries are (or have already) losing control of cricket. So, with bogans like the Aussie players on the field, there is bound to be more of these loutish encounters.
Warner is cricket's version of Beale. No matter how many times he offends, he is considered a potential match winner and will always be in the team - win at any cost. Unfortunately sometimes players with good skills come in ugly packages and when the bureaucracy worship them (never mind the public), the packages become even worse.
Whenever ugly sledging incidents occur, there is usually one common factor - Australia. Aussies have been up to this rubbish since Chappell (Ian), Lillee and Marsh (a selector, so what hope!!) under the pretext that "we play hard". Sorry, most teams play hard, they just have different value sets, vastly differing from the crass Aussie values. It baffles me that Aussies are treating this any different from what happens in pretty much every match that the Aussies are involved in.
When I travel in the sub-continent I watch plenty of cricket and other sports. Sledging just is not even contemplated. Just add an Aussie team and it's rampant, regardless of the sport.
I watched a game of soccer a few nights back where the Aussies were beaten by South Korea. There were 2 Koreans stretchered off due to elbow contact to head, in what is referred to as a "limited contact sport". The Aussie commentator's excuse was that it was necessary to keep their balance - clearly the Aussies need to elbow the opposition in the head to keep balance - something that the other teams manage without! Or maybe, he was referring to keeping balance on the score card!
It was ironic that Ian Chappell, of all people (a bad proponent of this loutish behaviour) should suggest that someone might get walloped by a bat, if it went on. Aussies have never been able to keep the riff-raff out of their teams. Many other teams have not quite known how to deal with louts on the cricket field and the Aussies kept interpreting this as “mental toughness”.
Being a bully on the field may be considered "being tough" by many an Aussie, but others consider it tougher to play fair and refrain from loutish behaviour - it's just a different intellectual level.
Unfortunately for the sport of cricket, over the last 50 or so years, the Aussies (supported by the other "white" cricketing nations) have had too much control of the administration of the game. So, whilst sometimes frowned upon, Aussie sledging has been mostly accepted.
What's worse is that in the "new world" where India is the dominant country, not much will change as the young Indian players are just as good at dishing out this rubbish. Although there is some hope as sledging incidents are still mostly restricted to games with Aussie involvement (even the Indians don't sledge elsewhere).
- Commenter
- Cockeyed Observer
- Date and time
- January 21, 2015, 11:31AM
PS: I merged a couple of comments here – one of which was censored and the other published by Fairfax – yes, I am successful in getting some comment under the watchful eye of the censor!
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