WINNING AT ANY COST

In spite of being severely criticised and castigated by various people for the very bad behaviour and attitude displayed by the Aussie team in the second cricket test at Sydney, Ponting and his men seem to be blissfully unaware of having done anything wrong. Here is a sampling of their resposnes.

Ponting believed there was nothing wrong with Australia's on-field conduct during the match. "I have absolutely no doubt about this match being played in the right spirit," he said.

Ricky Ponting still believes his team does not need to alter its behaviour, but has admitted he would do some things "a little differently" if he could return to the Test in Sydney.

However, Ponting does not believe the team is arrogant. "I don't think anyone wants the way Australia plays cricket to change," he said. "Everyone likes to see a tough, uncompromising brand of cricket ..."

Hussey said the players had "never stepped outside the rules or the laws of the game". "We have a great pride in playing for the baggy green cap and for playing for each other," he said in the Australian. "We know how hard it is to get an opportunity to play for Australia and we want to play as hard as we possibly can."

McGrath, who till recently was part of the team and who is himself a master of the art of foul-mouthing, backed the integrity of Ricky Ponting while supporting Australia for their "hard and fair" attitude. "From an Australian point of view, I know the way the guys play and I have total respect for every guy that pulls on a baggy green. The Australians play it hard and fair."

Cricket Australia (CA) threw its weight behind Ricky Ponting and his team-mates against accusations of unsporting behaviour and said sparks are bound to fly when the game is Test cricket and not "tiddlywinks". "Test cricket is what is being played here. It's not tiddlywinks," said Sutherland, asserting Australia always played the game hard but fair.

CA chief executive James Sutherland looked unperturbed by the barrage of criticism that has been hurled at Ricky Ponting and his team-mates for their behaviour during the Sydney Test against India. "The Australian cricket team plays the game tough, tough and uncompromising. It's the way Australian cricket teams have played the game since 1877 under all sorts of different captains. That is the way Australians have expected their teams to play."

Not to be outdone, Allen Border and Steve Waugh too pitched in with their own support for Ricky Ponting and his men. Border said that while he thought Australia had no need to apologise for their on-field behaviour, which has attracted widespread criticism, it was time for international sides to start understanding each other more. "What we think is just routine banter they take offence at - it is straight-out cultural stuff," he told the Courier Mail.

Steve Waugh added his bit by saying,"Teams playing against Australia fail to understand that banter, gamesmanship, sledging or whatever anyone would like to call it is just the way Australian kids joust and play in the schoolyard and backyards."


It is intriguing the way these guys keep throwing out this crumb about their hard and fair attitude. One can easily see that their approach is hard, but where does the fairness come. It takes some time to realise it is just a smoke-screen which masks the reality. It is the CA chief Sutherland who lets the cat out of the bag when he says, "The Australian cricket team plays the game tough, tough and uncompromising." It is there for all to see that they play hard with a Win At Any Cost, Fairness Be Damned outlook. Obviously they have realised that cricket playing technique alone won't carry them far with any consistency. They will just be one among all the other countries, more or less sharing the win-loss statistics on an equitable basis with them. To achieve their goal of Winning At Any Cost they must resort to extra-constitutional methods. This is where sledging comes into play. As Steve Waugh says above, "banter, gamesmanship, sledging or whatever anyone would like to call it is just the way Australian kids joust and play in the schoolyard and backyards." Every Aussie kid is initiated into this technique from the play-school level itself and trained to perfection by the time they come out of school. As Steve Waugh or somebody else explained, these are mind-games designed to cause mental disintegration or disorientation of the victim. When opposing teams are pelted with abusive language which the ICC for some strange reason has not found fit to ban, they don't know how to counter that and they go mad with helpless anger, and lose the match. What a simple technique!!


The problem with such methods is that such Frankensteins have an ugly habit of turning back on the creators. The Aussies happily enjoy their wins as long as the other teams meekly surrender to them. For example, they just loved the way India capitulated at Melbourne. But in Sydney when India matched them in cricketing performance (in spite of a strong pro-Australia show by umpires Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson) as well as in sledging performance with public accusations of their misdeeds, they are unable to take it. It is not only Ponting and his team but the CA Chief Sutherland as well as Allan Border and Steve Waugh seem to be suffering from severe mental derangement. When the whole world has come down on them for their bad behaviour, these worthies are deluding themselves that the poor Aussies have done nothing wrong, and it is only the bad, bad wolf that is the world which is pouncing on the sweet innocent Little Red Riding Hood. How pathetic!


Luckily for Australia they still seem to have some sane people who realise that the Aussie cricket team as well as the cricket establishment need some talking to. One report says: "Ponting has been backed by Cricket Australia and his team-mates, but there has been severe criticism from former cricketing and sporting greats about the team's attitude." John Bertrand, a sailor who won the America's Cup in 1983, is the chairman of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame and he wants a meeting with Cricket Australia to let it know its sides should be showing more respect to opponents. "We have a lot of clout in the sporting community and we will be saying to Cricket Australia that people need to step back and reassess what is happening here with a cool head," Bertrand said in the Herald Sun. "The pressure to win out on the field has become too hot, and that pressure is all about winning at all costs.... That is not what sport is about ... The fallout that we are seeing at the moment is not acceptable. It's clearly damaging international relations and clearly a lot of people are upset." Bertrand has joined the respected athletes Herb Elliott and Robert de Castella in believing the players are too arrogant. "Sport is only sport," he said, "it's not war."


Neil Harvey, an Invincible from 1948, disagreed with Hussey and said Ponting "needs to look at himself". "Certainly the captain needs to be stronger and keep his guys in line," Harvey said. Harvey was also concerned by Australia's failure to shake Anil Kumble's hand at the end of the Test. "I don't think they are very sporting." So there still seems to be some hope for Australia as long as such sane heads are around.


All that the Aussie team and establishment, including retired players and captains, need may be some psychiatric evaluation.