The Ashes: Flimsy Aussie excuses
With Australia now trailing in the Ashes, the flimsy excuses have started to show their acne-ridden faces. First we had all the fuss over umpiring decisions and “dirty cheat” Andrew Strauss, and now Shane Watson reveals that it is all because Cricket Australia have imposed a sledging ban on the squad.
To claim that Rudi Koertzen and Billy Doctrove were almost entirely to blame for Australia’s defeat at Lord’s, as some Aussie fans and pundits have, is to forget the bowling of Mitchell Johnson and co (on the 1st day in particular) and a 1st innings score of just 215. Sure, the dodgy decisions didn’t help but by that stage Australia were trying to bat for almost two days in their 4th innings, hardly a Test match hanging in the balance.
Who knows, had Andrew Flintoff been denied one of his controversial early wickets, he might have followed up with a vengeful hat-trick and bowled Australia out for 150. Unlikely perhaps, but the point is we cannot second guess an alternative outcome. England won the match, and that is that.
As for the sledging, here is what Watson had to say:
It is a fine line between being perfect role models and being competitive. As a group we don’t want to lose the edge. That is the reason we have been so good in the past because of how competitive we are and we don’t take a backward step.
From which you might imply that because Australia can’t call the English players nasty names or swear at them, they have suddenly lost their ability. This presumably explains why Mitchell Johnson has struggled with his radar so badly and why Philip Hughes hasn’t scored a sackful of runs.
As a result, Australia have turned to the only avenue open to them – the moral high ground. At Cardiff, England were unsporting in their use of “pretty ordinary” time wasting tactics. Nathan Hauritz, the sole dissenter, suggested that Australia would have been a teeny bit tempted to do the same.
To add to the charge of unsporting conduct, at Lord’s England became cheats, claiming phantom catches and, presumably, finding some way to ensure that the umpire’s decisions went in their favour. Quite what they will make of England being fined for a slow over-rate (Ricky Ponting’s personal cricketing crime of choice) is anyone’s guess.
Frankly, the smell of Australian desperation is hanging in the air like Sergei Bubka.
UPDATE: It has now emerged that Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland has also been moaning about umpiring decisions, apparantly contacting the ICC for clarification of why the Philip Hughes catch wasn’t referred when the Bopara decision was. I can answer that for you James, it is called umpires discretion. Quite simply, they were convinced that the Hughes catch was clean, so didn’t need to refer it.
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