Unfair Dinkum: it's not cricket... or, how Australia is in shock about a fallen hero

[Bill Ryan]

Back to myth and legend.

***

There's a story in Hindu mythology about the eldest Pandava, Yudishthira. It was said that he was an exemplar of moral rectitude, who never lied. Such was his virtue in this regard, that he actually floated six inches above the earth, never actually touching the ground.

And then in the battle at Kurukshetra, his former teacher Drona, fighting for the opposite side, was wreaking havoc on the Pandava forces, and he was told the only way to stop the slaughter was to somehow "get at" Drona. So a war elephant with the same name as Drona's son (Ashwatthama) was killed by his younger brother Bhima, who then shouted at Drona: "Ashwatthama is dead! Ashwatthama is dead!"

Drona, for whom his son was everything, didn't want to believe his ears, so he looked across at Yudishthira and asked: "Is this true?"

And Yudishthira shouted: "It is true. Ashwattahma [sotto voce: "the elephant"] is dead!

At that, believing in Yudishtira's unbending integrity, Drona gave up on life, tossed aside his weapons and adopted the pose of mediation, only to have his head cut off by his old enemy a few minutes later.

The story goes that, as he said those fatal words, Yudishthira's feet finally touched the ground: never again did he float above mortal men - he had become one among them instead.

***

What's happened to Smith is similar. No longer will he be an untouchable, levitating saint, separate from us all. His feet might now touch the earth, but that only means he's even more human — as are we all.

[Bluegreen]

Like the rolling ball thing. I don't get that. I get that the rule had not seen the field for a hundred years and it was unfair but so what? I mean if its there in the rule book there it is right? Teams will use a 'run out the clock' strategy and no player or fan has any problems with that. I don't get the disgrace and shame thing. Am I picking up a 'cricket as moral high ground' vibe that I am unaware of? Is that correct? Or am I mything thomething elthe completely?

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Bluegreen (here)
Or am I missing something else completely?

Maybe! Like Watergate, it was more than a burglary (the crime). The 'President' (Smith) knew about it beforehand, but took no action. And when caught, Smith (like Nixon!) lied first to the officials, and then to the press. The 'burglar' (the eager-to-please, naive rookie patsy) was set up to do the dirty work. No-one protected him, and now his career is in ruins.

So it's really about integrity (and hubris!) on all levels, as a big-picture, human issue, with a ton of moral lessons to emerge from all this.... not just one tiny little thing of roughing up the leather skin of a cricket ball.

[Daozen]

Frank Herbert: “The bottom line of the Dune trilogy is: beware of heroes."

I 'd never thought about how these sports stories are archetypal dramas played out on the world stage. Maybe we crave the scandal and dirt in sport as much as the teamsmanship. The Zidane headbutt of 2006 comes to mind. He ruined his career in 10 seconds. So Zidane teaches us, by negative example, restraint and patience. Then there was the the Lance Armstrong doping scandal. There's something bittersweet about watching a hero fall. It subtly pushes you to not externalize greatness, and recover your own heroism.

Cricket is supposed to be a gentleman's sport, so it's even worse to see people cheating.

Bribes to underperform are common in all sports, including Cricket:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakist...fixing_scandal

[Bluegreen]

Am I being mythquoted?

Full disclosure: What I know about cricket could fit on a nymph's back but in the Ozzies' defense they did come up with Australian rules football which may possibly be the world's most entertaining spectator sport ...



I'm still trying to understand why rolling the ball on the last play to win the game is so bad. Seems like something you would laugh at and forget about, congratulate the guy who thought of it and move on. It produces outrage? A 'hated man'? I was mystified by the announcer's immediate reaction (thanks for the vid Kiwi) declaring it to be "disgraceful."

Disgraceful?

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Bluegreen (here)
Disgraceful?

Yep.

Here's a direct analogy, for any Americans reading. Just imagine that no-one had ever thought to write a rule into baseball that the pitcher couldn't roll the ball along the ground... because no-one imagined anyone would ever actually do that, and no-one ever had.

Then, in an important game (an international one), when the opposition needed a Home Run to win off the last ball pitched — and they just MIGHT have done it — the pitcher does just that. The batter has zero fair chance. He can't possibly do it, no matter how good he is.

The key word there is fair. The rules of any game are intended to make things fair, so it's an equal, balanced contest. That's the entire idea of sport. The episode encapsulated the difference between what cricketers always call 'the spirit of the game' and 'the laws of the game'.

Immediately after the incident, that rule was clarified and rewritten so that it could never possibly happen again.

[Bill Ryan]

The Shakespearean drama continues. (Wow.) This is the biggest cataclysm in world cricket in a couple of generations. It's pretty big in the context of ALL sports.

First, a reminder:

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
There are four main characters in the drama:

1. The coach (Lehmann, an ugly thug) — who like Richard Nixon, denies all knowledge.
2. The captain (Smith, the fallen golden hero, and a supreme talent) — who knew the plot, but did NOT prevent it.
3. The vice captain (Warner, another thug, who it's now revealed masterminded the entire thing) — who coached the patsy how to cheat.
4. The patsy (Bancroft, who was caught) — the gullible rookie, but still a grown man who never said NO.

I wonder how many times all this has happened in history and beyond. Parents, teach your sport-loving children.

Parents, yes, pay heed: teach your children well. The fallen hero came right apart in a press conference this morning. It was extremely hard to watch.

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
It's also fascinating to watch public opinion veer and wheel like a huge flock of birds.

Many of the same voices demanding his head a couple days ago are now clamoring for leniency and sympathy, some now seriously concerned for his well-being.

The poor young guy was in pieces, and several times could barely speak. He will have earned the instant forgiveness of 20 million angry Australians. You can't fake heartbroken remorse like that.

The patsy (Bancroft) gave a similar conference, and his voice wavered several times. He was unquestionably desperately regretful. He, too, is a good man.

The coach (Lehmann, thug #1) has just now resigned, giving a third press conference. That was totally the right thing to do, and maybe the only good outcome out of all of this. The game is WAY best without him. But he actually had almost no choice. Everything he'd presided over was destroyed.

And what of thug #2 (Warner, the vice captain), who set the entire thing up? He was widely disliked. But psychologists are now wading in: he came from a bad background on the wrong side of the tracks, had little education, and was a muscular, streetfighting bruiser to his core. Was that all his fault?

And he, too, said sorry to everyone... on Twitter.

***

Now, after the meat grinder has finally stopped churning, some healing might start to happen.

The final international match in the bloodstained series between Australia and South Africa, the battlefield where this all took place, starts in a few hours time: exactly as Shakespeare would have written it.

It'd be nice to see the South Africans (11 good men) and the Australians (8 good men, all shattered, + 3 good men in replacement) shake hands in friendship before the battle is renewed. It really is possible that some further good might come of all this.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
It'd be nice to see the South Africans (11 good men) and the Australians (8 good men, all shattered, + 3 good men in replacement) shake hands in friendship before the battle is renewed. It really is possible that some further good might come of all this.

The start of an epilogue, maybe. What I envisaged is already happening.

The South African captain, his sworn adversary on the field and himself a decent but very tough man, has just reached out privately to Smith, who's 5 years his junior, with sincere words that included 'respect' and 'compassion'. It's reported that Smith very greatly appreciated that.

That's leadership in action, right there. Real leadership in any endeavor most necessarily extends beyond just your own team. That's hard for many to understand, and even harder to embody.

[Foxie Loxie]

"Speak for yourself, John Smith!" Isn't that why you started Avalon?! Thank you, Dear Man!!

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
It'd be nice to see the South Africans (11 good men) and the Australians (8 good men, all shattered, + 3 good men in replacement) shake hands in friendship before the battle is renewed. It really is possible that some further good might come of all this.

The start of an epilogue, maybe. What I envisaged is already happening.

The South African captain, his sworn adversary on the field and himself a decent but very tough man, has just reached out privately to Smith, who's 5 years his junior, with sincere words that included 'respect' and 'compassion'. It's reported that Smith very greatly appreciated that.

That's leadership in action, right there. Real leadership in any endeavor most necessarily extends beyond just your own team. That's hard for many to understand, and even harder to embody.

... And, amazingly, has continued to happen. The South African captain went on to encourage everyone to be KIND. And exactly as I'd visualized, on the initiative of the new Australian captain, the two teams shook hands out on the field before the start of the new (and last) game.

While this may seem to be a tiny thing, in cricket this never happens before a game starts. So there may be a new dawn here.

* Aside: for the few people reading this who are interested in the astonishing drama, and may know a lot about cricket, its rich history, the complex details of the incident, and all the personalities involved, the comments sections in these two articles — thousands of them — are VERY well worth reading.

Hundreds of highly articulate and smart people weigh in, from Britain and Australia, definitely not always agreeing. Every aspect of the affair was turned inside out. Some of the posts from readers are long, thoughtful, intelligent, perceptive, and VERY well written mini-articles in themselves. Recommended, for anyone who cares.

• https://theguardian.com/sport/blog/2018/mar/28/david-warner-ball-tampering-ban-australia-interview (2110 comments)

• https://theguardian.com/sport/blog/2018/mar/29/smith-and-bancroft-had-to-front-up-then-break-down (1128 comments)

[Bill Ryan]

The human story rolls on. More happened yesterday morning Australian time. That, too, was hard to watch.

Here's Warner, the disliked thug, and ex vice-captain, in action... yelling foul abuse at the South Africans. (Who, as karma would dictate, are right now methodically taking the Australians apart in their final game.)



How are the mighty fallen. Here's Warner the man, facing the press at last, several days after the others. His beautiful young wife, an innocent in all this, was sobbing at the back of the room.



The Watergate analogy rolls on as well. He repeatedly sidestepped pointed questions about exactly what had happened and who else was involved. He repeated the mantra, after pausing at length each time, that he just had to be responsible for his own actions in the affair, for which he deeply apologized. He left no doubt that the story was far more extensive, and that more people were implicated. But he named no-one.

For any Americans reading this (if they are!): it makes no logic for the batters to be covertly messing with the ball, if the pitchers don't know — and also surely the coach. My guess is that it'll take time, but many people will get dragged into all this in the coming weeks and months, including quite a few in former teams going back years.

It's always said that rugby is a thug's game played by gentlemen, and soccer is a gentleman's game played by thugs. Cricket, meanwhile, is meant to be a gentleman's game played by gentlemen; but that's been an illusion for a couple of decades now. Just maybe, this cathartic clean-out — a draining of a different swamp — will make some difference.

[Cardillac]

why do so many people put such stock on sports events?- they're a rigged illusion- they're games, a diversion- how many people invest their own self-identity and self-WORTH in sports teams/events? ("WE won! or WE lost!") where the observer had nothing whatsoever to do with any team; they didn't personally play; don't even personally know any single player but refer to their selected, preferred team as "we"

Larry

[happyuk]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
The human story rolls on. More happened yesterday morning Australian time. That, too, was hard to watch.

Here's Warner, the disliked thug, and ex vice-captain, in action... yelling foul abuse at the South Africans. (Who, as karma would dictate, are right now methodically taking the Australians apart in their final game.)



How are the mighty fallen. Here's Warner the man, facing the press at last, several days after the others. His beautiful young wife, an innocent in all this, was sobbing at the back of the room.



The Watergate analogy rolls on as well. He repeatedly sidestepped pointed questions about exactly what had happened and who else was involved. He repeated the mantra, after pausing at length each time, that he just had to be responsible for his own actions in the affair, for which he deeply apologized. He left no doubt that the story was far more extensive, and that more people were implicated. But he named no-one.

For any Americans reading this (if they are!): it makes no logic for the batters to be covertly messing with the ball, if the pitchers don't know — and also surely the coach. My guess is that it'll take time, but many people will get dragged into all this in the coming weeks and months, including quite a few in former teams going back years.

It's always said that rugby is a thug's game played by gentlemen, and soccer is a gentleman's game played by thugs. Cricket, meanwhile, is meant to be a gentleman's game played by gentlemen; but that's been an illusion for a couple of decades now. Just maybe, this cathartic clean-out — a draining of a different swamp — will make some difference.

Apparently it wasn't fair that they picked on his wife with the Sonny Bill Williams masks because supposedly WAGs (wives and girlfriends) are off limits.

That might have been less likely to have occurred if she hadn't launched an online tirade about Ben Stokes. With a husband like hers, who is she to point the finger at him?

It's cheating, embarrassing, and a complete PR disaster, and I am loving every single second of it.

[HaveBlue]

None of this will be surprising to us New Zealanders as we are well used to the cheating Australians in any sport be it Rugby, Rugby League or Cricket and the infamous under arm bowling of Greg Chappel in the early 80s. (yes we have a long memory and Australia has a long history of this style of 'sportsmanship')
More recently we have the Womens Rowing incident where a rower simply stopped pulling and handed victory to another team. Match fixing? And now this! Will they not ever learn?

Crying and being sorry is a charade acted out only when caught red handed. Denial and contempt is the more usual standard fare.

This is disgraceful for them and their poor countrymen (including visiting tourists to NZ) who are mocked and ridiculed as a result despite these incidents having nothing to do with them personally. We bring it up in jest whenever we get the chance but the stinging truth of it does cut to the bone of these poor wretched souls, even of those not in any way responsible.

I feel really sorry for Australia (especially my Aussie cousins in Perth) but not those who so often bring that great nation into such disrepute. They are after all a penal colony originally and old habits die hard I guess.

P.S. While I'm here d'ya think you could elect a Prime Minister that could last in the job at least until the next election cycle? That would really help with your image on the world stage during these very trying times.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Cardillac (here)
why do so many people put such stock on sports events?

What a great question. There's the passion while playing, and the passion while supporting.

Kurt Hahn, the German educator who founded the Outward Bound schools, famously stated that participation in outdoor adventure pursuits such as mountaineering and sailing were "the moral equivalent of war".

He was committed to young people growing and maturing personally in overcoming not other people, but tackling natural adversarial circumstances that demanded courage, honor, teamwork, commitment, problem solving skills, and decisiveness in extreme conditions.

The Greeks had much the same idea when they founded the Olympic Games. The same qualities were required, in an arena that DID involve 'fighting' others, but ritualistically, and not in unforgiving mortal combat. The ideal was to put on display all that could be best about being human.

We still have the same need to challenge ourselves, and fight with our colleagues to survive and thrive — whether it's battling to survive in a gale at sea, a storm on a mountain, or when under immense pressure on a sports field. And if we can't do it personally, we do it as armchair combatants by projecting ourselves into the personas of the participants. I think it's part of the core of the human psyche.

[Innocent Warrior]

In response to your request to hear from Aussies to better understand the nation’s passion for sports, the song below (lyrics on screen) says a lot. I was Victorian growing up, the main two sports were AFL (VFL back then) and cricket, the song is the primary theme song for the AFL.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=E3TBPgXrPLc

I haven’t watched that game in decades and I still know all the lyrics to that song (also our family’s football club song, Carlton, the mighty blues).

There are three primary elements to this phenomena; values, bonding and media. The media frames the sports with hero worship, what you see in the media is not an accurate reflection of the nation as a whole, the majority don’t take that too seriously.

More potent is the ritual of the sports, cricket in summer, football through the winter. It’s when the families and friends came together (at someone’s home or the pub), barracking for their team, which was paired with beer and meat pies, that’s about as Australian as you can get.

The morals; being fair dinkum (honest), keeping the bastards honest and giving everyone a fair go are core values of being Australian, these values are strongly reflected in good sportsmanship.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Rachel (here)
The morals; being fair dinkum (honest), keeping the bastards honest and giving everyone a fair go are core values of being Australian, these values are strongly reflected in good sportsmanship.

Yes. That's the myth! The problem was that in reality, much of that fell by the wayside quite a while back. This is why the Indian sporting media, who've been following this drama closely, have been talking gleefully about karma.

The history is way too complicated (and boring to non-cricketers!) to document here, but for a couple of decades now the Australian cricket team has been widely disliked worldwide. They've been described as 'a pack of wild dogs'. They're boorish, abusive, dish out horrific insults to good people while playing, and now the schadenfreude* (that's a word not used too often on Avalon!) has been rampant.

Two examples from MANY, that need little comment:

1. A few months ago, the Australian fielders continually made disparaging remarks to English batsman Jonny Bairstow about his father's suicide, in an attempt to put him off while he was batting. (It failed: Bairstow is a strong character.)
2. More recently, in the series of games that culminated in all the drama, one of the South African batsmen had a relative that was injured in a train accident. The Aussies were going 'choo choo' to him while he was batting. (That, too, failed. But they were trying hard.)

The Australian public knew about all this, and also disliked their own team... hence the huge reaction in Australia to the proven cheating. It was a case of the team themselves being so carried away by their 'win-at-all-costs- mentality that they were blind to everything, and justified whatever they did. Cricket Australia, the sport's governing body, has now ordered a wide review of 'team culture'. Many years too late, but better late than never.

* Schadenfreude: pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune.

[Napping]

I think your being a little harsh on the magnificent and virtually unbeatable Aussie teams of the early 2000’s Bill. If back then you asked Indians themselves who their favourite team was after India...it was a unanimous Australia. Favourite player? Tendalka followed by Warne. I spent 6 months in Bangladesh in 2010 and this was definitely the case.

Back then, we played hard, didn’t mind a good sledge, but generally speaking we were revered. The tide turned as Michael Clarke’s captaincy....we lacked leadership, lost our rudder....and ended up with a team the last 6-7 years that even Aussies ourselves have found it hard to follow.

[TigaHawk]

why do people care so much about this?

It's like playing fetch, but you need a 3rd person to hit the stick further away than the first person throws it, then multiple people catch it then throw it back.

Much more important things we could be focusing our attention on.

Unless the entire point of this is how seriously they're taking it - when they downplay actual serious things.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by TigaHawk (here)
why do people care so much about this?

If you had a time machine, you could ask the Ancient Greeks, who founded the Olympic Games. They knew a thing or two.