Just let them play Cricket

It seems that I have to come in to bat for the Australian Cricket Team. Again.

Today, Jonathan Green, over at the new ABC blog site "The Drum", opines that a losing Australian Cricket Team would be good for cricket. You can read it here.

Now, "The Drum" is a new addition to the ABC website, and features contributions from writers such as the often entertaining Annabel Crabb, Barry Cassidy, and of course Green, who also is the big wig running the site.

Before Green was running "The Drum" he was Editor in Chief of Crikey.com, and oversaw the transformation of the site and it's associated members-only newsletter from small, plucky, gossip-filled insurgency to overblown, overimportant and supercilious soft-left tome. So coming from Green, this article is hardly surprising.

Green's basic premise is that the Australian Cricket Team are bad losers, petulant in their behaviour and far from humble in defeat.

Now, he probably wrote this after seeing Doug Bollinger throwing the rattle from the pusher after the abomination of a decision he received after Asaud Rauf gave Brendan Nash not out, Nash not offering a shot. With Australia out of replay challenges, Nash was safe.

Bollinger's reaction was not one usually associated with grown men, but it was in isolation. A way of telling this is it is the only specific incident Green refers to. The rest is broad generalities about behaviour, including a description of Ponting's behaviour that defies all reason.

Green writes that he wants to like the Australian Cricket Team, but only a cursory perusal of his article would indicate that this is lip service of a fairly high order.

Unfortunately this is indicative of a recent trend that has seen the Australian Cricket Team become a key issue of debate in Australia's Culture Wars. They are either just a team of highly paid sportspeople trying to justify their large salaries, or a boorish and boganistic (!) reflection on all that is wrong with Australian society at large.

I wrote about this when this sort of guff began to appear in the mass media: when Australia controversially beat India at the SCG in the New Year's Test in 2008. (My thoughts are here.)

I also wrote about the effect this had on the behaviour of the Australian Cricket Team here. The Australian Cricket Team's talk and swagger on the field was nothing compared to the intimidation opponents felt when coming up against the teams led by Steve Waugh. This had had a manifestly detrimental affect on the team's results, and since that 2008 SCG Test Match, Australia having lost series to India, South Africa and England, while beating the West Indies, South Africa and New Zealand.

The truth is the Australian Cricket Team do not behave like spoilt little brats, and never have. Under Waugh, the Australian Cricket Team was focussed on winning Test Matches, and anyone who didn't like the behaviour of the team, as long as that behaviour wasn't contrary to the rules of the game, could sod off. Waugh's loyalty was to the team, and to success.

Even Bollinger's dummy-spit in Adelaide could be attributed to a man whose spot in the side is uncertain, and whose team was badly needing wickets against a much weaker rival. It doesn't make it right or any less embarrassing, but it's no reason to start barracking for Pakistan.

If the Left are tired of the cricketer's behaviour, or more likely, are never going to be satisfied with their behaviour no matter what they do, then they should find a new sport, ideally one where no member of the Coalition of the Willing (e.g. USA, UK, Australia) are world beaters. Fencing would be a good example.

Australians play Test Matches to win Test Matches. It is that pure and simple, and we should just let them do it rather that submit to a national therapy session.