The Australian Cricket Team has been copping a fair bit of flak recently – poor sports, arrogant, etc. What are my thoughts on all of this? I would tend to agree with those critics who say the Australian team is arrogant and that members of the team are probably full of themselves.
The behaviour of some of the team is especially poor, espeically in regards to onfield antics, etc. I’m thinking of the likes of Warne, McGrath and co. Off-field – well, the antics of Warne speak for themselves.
Though I do not believe it necessary to bring the game into disrepute or to show dissent toward the umpires when things don’t go the way you would like, I do have to say that the umpires must share some of the blame for the reaction of players toward them at the moment.
What do I mean? Some of the umpires and their bosses have said that umpiring is currently at a high standard – however, I would disagree greatly with that assessment. Just have a look at the recent Ashes series, the Australia-West Indies series, and the Australia-South Africa series. The number of poor umpring decisions has been incredible. Brian Lara, easily the greatest batsmen of his era, could hardly get a decent batting opportunity, being victim to terrible umpiring decision after another.
So players are not allowed to show dissent (and Lara certainly did not) – well I can almost forgive them (and probably do) when the umpiring is so ordinary. Adam Gilchrist’s recent dissent charge was probably justified – however, I can understand the frustration when the umpires keep turning in so many ordinary performances. Perhaps the umpires should improve their game before they start crying about players showing them little respect – after all, there is truth in the maxim that respect is earned.
The other thing I find incredible is the constant complaints about there being too much cricket and that players need a rest. Are you kidding? I saw a recent report that Australian cricket players are playing at the international level something like 100 days of the year. How tough is that? Half of that time they are sitting in the dressing room and a lot of the other time they are standing in the field waiting for someone to hit the ball in their direction – very hard work and exhausting! Perhaps they should get a real job like many other Australians who work at least five days a week and do real work that is far more trying than playing your chosen sport.
Perhaps they are getting too much money for doing so little 🙂
There is little doubt that the Australian cricket team is the best in the world – but some healthy perspective and a dose of reality for the players wouldn’t go astray.
Random Thoughts 