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Anyone interested in Cricket politics

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    Anyone interested in Cricket politics

    I am, and the whole thing should be fascinating

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/mai...bucknor108.xml

    Australia invented "sledging" and Ricky Ponting decided that the aussies could no longer take it when Harbhajan Singh called andrew Symonds a "monkey"

    There are all sorts of dynamics and political implications in this row which is set to run and run

    Simon Barnes in today's Times:

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle3149148.ece



    The present row in cricket has been brewing for damn near 50 years. Ever since sledging became widespread, it was always going to escalate to a point when two teams could no longer bear to be on the same pitch and the whole structure of cricket would totter.

    The gloriously ironical part is that it is the Australians who are swooning like virgins and saying that sledging has gone too far. This from the nation who invented sledging, this from the nation who gloried in sledging, this from the nation who believed that sledging was irrefragable proof of national machismo.

    It was Australia who coined the term sledging - meaning a remark of sledgehammer subtlety - and it was Australia who dignified it, with the declaration by Steve Waugh, the captain from 1999 to 2004, that sledging was “mental disintegration”.

    Background
    Umpire axed in Test cricket racism row
    Cricket split by 'Bollyline' tour
    India’s wounded national pride
    The slippery slope of sledging
    Background
    Procter haunted by controversy
    Controversy timeline
    Other cricketing controversies
    'Bring them home' say majority of fans
    Background
    Australia finds little in which to glory
    Multimedia
    Video: Racism row erupts
    Echoes of Bodyline series
    The Doosra: sticks and stones

    The point everybody missed is that cricket is not an insult competition, any more than it is a spitting competition. But, hey, the Australians are world champions and everything they do must be right. So for years, every cricketing nation has tried to be as much like Australia as possible: to hire Australian coaches, to establish Australian-style academies and to use playground insults on the cricket pitch.

    Sledging is part of the game, Australians say. That’s true, just as kicking people in the shins is part of football and punching people in the nose is part of rugby. Both these acts are punished. Offenders concede fouls and get sent off. Punishment doesn't stop it, but it keeps it under control. But sledging has been out of control for years.

    What’s said on the pitch stays on the pitch. It’s all part of a man’s code. Anyone who complains is a poofter. Thus, Australia brought this childish practice of sledging into cricket, with the result that all the other international teams feel obliged to do the same.

    Last summer, England players threw jellybeans on to the pitch to insult Zaheer Khan, of India. I mean, how pathetic is that? India were furious about that, too. The Asian teams come from a culture in which politeness is a more respected thing than it is in Australia or England, but many Asian cricketers have thought it appropriate to fight back in kind.

    Continuing escalation is inevitable. If I called you an idiot, again and again and again, you would eventually call me a bloody fool. What would you think if I then staggered back in horror. “He called me a fool! He said bloody! This mustn’t be allowed!” That is what has happened.

    Australia led the way in insults and now, claiming that an India player used a racist term, they are saying that rude behaviour on a cricket pitch is terrible, rotten, awful, mustn’t be allowed. If Harbhajan Singh did call Andrew Symonds a monkey as a racist insult, it is pretty nasty. As nasty as when Darren Lehmann, the Australia batsman, called the Sri Lankans “black c***s”. Many Australians defended Lehmann’s outburst because it was “in the heat of the moment”. It was pretty nasty, no matter what the moment’s temperature.

    There are a million complications in this row, to do with ever-rising Indian nationalism, ditto Indian prosperity, the changing centres of power in cricket and a million issues of culture, politics and self-worth. Such things are normal in international sport, part of its endless fascination.

    The reason the row has got out of hand is not because of racism. It is because too soft a line has been taken on the practice of sledging for far too long.

    No one in authority wanted to be seen to be picking on the Australians; none of the players wanted to complain because he would look soft and insufficiently masculine - and, what’s more, he would get sledged ten times worse next time.

    Cricket should not have set racism as the final frontier of unacceptable behaviour; a line should have been drawn years ago at the point when banter becomes bitter invective. Cricket has been soft on a serious matter for decades and now cricket is in crisis.

    Australia has long promoted mental disintegration; as a result, we are facing the disintegration of cricket.
    Let us not forget EU open doors immigration benefits IT contractors more than anyone

    #2
    Cricket should have its own forum to keep it away from the rest of us...

    Mind you the telegraph is usually a cracking read...

    I am

    Comment


      #3
      I think in this case, the paper has got it right.
      It's Deja-vu all over again!

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by KathyWoolfe View Post
        I think in this case, the paper has got it right.
        Depends which article you read. Derek Pringle's effectively accuses the Asian countries of playing the race card too easily and quickly forgetting the 2 internationals where whole sections of the crowd made racist chants directed at Andrew Symmonds.

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by oracleslave View Post
          Depends which article you read. Derek Pringle's effectively accuses the Asian countries of playing the race card too easily and quickly forgetting the 2 internationals where whole sections of the crowd made racist chants directed at Andrew Symmonds.
          I meant the article that DA posted.

          Every country has an extra bit of rivalry with another country (England -not UK - more than most) but Australia took it to an altogether new level.
          It's Deja-vu all over again!

          Comment


            #6
            I cant decide who I support. Seems like 2 bullies bashing each other for the right to be the biggest ass clowns.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by tay View Post
              I cant decide who I support. Seems like 2 bullies bashing each other for the right to be the biggest ass clowns.
              I am looking forward to a true competitive series between two sh*te test teams NZ v England

              may the best sh*te team win
              Let us not forget EU open doors immigration benefits IT contractors more than anyone

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by tay View Post
                I cant decide who I support. Seems like 2 bullies bashing each other for the right to be the biggest ass clowns.
                It is a difficult one I agree. Both sides are guilty of wrong doing.

                Comment


                  #9
                  it seems that no one can validate for certain as to whether Singh actually called Symonds a monkey, which if upheld would mean that the game would go on and cricket would return to being the rather dull game that it is.
                  Let us not forget EU open doors immigration benefits IT contractors more than anyone

                  Comment


                    #10
                    There's a difference between sledging and racism. Racism is racism, no matter who it comes from.

                    Comment

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