[nukkad] Black day for cricket when we walk away

["Gireesh Dixit" <>]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/black-day-for-cricket-when-we-walk-away/2008/01/08/1199554652624.html
Black day for cricket when we walk away
Aaron Timms
January 9, 2008
ANUARY 6, 2008 will go down as the blackest day in Australia's history since 
August 18, 2007 (the date of Shane Warne's defection to Germany). It will go 
down as the day on which our cricketers cast off the Victorian carapace of 
manners and fair play and started believing their own hype - the day on
which Michael Clarke really did think he was going back to a bucket of KFC 
Crispy Strips at the end of the day's play, and Matthew Hayden really did think 
he could act.
An enthralling Test was played out in circumstances that made for great 
television. Truly, it was a disgusting advertisement for the game. Quite apart 
from everything else, the standard of the umpiring was abysmal. Snicko and 
Hawk-Eye in particular both had disastrous games. To watch them wilt as
Ricky Ponting and his men mounted a systematic campaign of mental destruction 
in the final session of the final day's play, crowding the stumps and openly 
calling Hawk-Eye's integrity and Snicko's sexual history into question, was to 
realise how far Australian cricket has sunk.
Drastic action must now be taken. The captains must meet. A press conference 
must be held. Photos must be taken and, later, given captions. Somewhere along 
the line, someone must apologise to Tony Greig, and Tony Greig must apologise 
to someone. I'm not sure why, but for the good of cricket, for the
future of humanity and for the well-being of Sarah Connor, on whom, after all, 
everything depends, these things must happen.
More short-term measures must also be implemented to cure the rot at the heart 
of cricket. Bowling is a pointless pursuit and must be abandoned. Fielding is a 
pointless pursuit and must be abandoned. Batting, an activity in which a person 
uses a wooden paddle to avoid being hit by a ball when every
better instinct says it would be far, far easier to just walk away, is a 
pointless pursuit and must be abandoned. Umpiring is a pointless pursuit and 
must be abandoned.
In the future, cricket will be reduced as a spectacle to the sight of 22 men 
standing around on a patch of grass, chatting amiably over a healthy meal of 
leafy salads and savoury tarts. Essentially, our national sport will become 
picnicking. And with Bill Granger's new cookbook out, there's every
reason to think we can become just as dominant in picnicking as we have been in 
cricket.
Naturally, the urge towards competitiveness will remain, but new sports must be 
found. Badminton, tenpin bowling, sidecar racing, quoits - these are the sports 
to which Australia and India must now turn to nurture their bilateral 
relationship.
As things stand today, the only person with any integrity left in Australian 
cricket is Richie Benaud. And let's face it - as that surname makes plain, he's 
not even Australian. He's French.




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