A Tale of Two Stuart’s

Filed in Other by on December 10, 2010

It is Friday afternoon and it has been a slow day in sports news. So slow, in fact, that SEN in Melbourne has spent a good portion of the afternoon debating whether some inane pop star called Lady Gaga has a penis. She may well be a chick with a dick, by all reports. Lady Gaga? Perhaps not an entirely truthful moniker. I went to the experts on such matters but most of those who engage in trivial matters such as commercial pop music suggested it was nothing but a scurrilous rumour started by an even more inane and even more painful pop star. The issue still seemed in the balance so I did as all good writers who have had about 14 hours sleep for the week and not even the slightest indulgence of amphetamines should: I went to Google and You Tube.

Opinion appears to be split but one thing seems certain to my eyes: that woman has something going on downstairs. Bulges like that aren’t really common place on what I would call your average girl. Pre-op transsexual was my first guess but hermaphrodite is closer to the mark, apparently. I could be wrong on all counts and to be honest I don’t really care: each to their own and it is unlikely that my life will ever intersect with Lady Gaga anymore than it did on this sunny Melbourne winter day where discussion was rife about whether this disposable pop star was a chick or a dude or a little of both.

It did get me thinking, however, in a somewhat lateral way. And I reached the conclusion that Andrew Hilditch, the big dog in selection circles in Australian cricket, could in fact have a vagina to go with what can only be assumed is an exceptionally small penis. There is no doubt that his contempt for those who deviate from the norm and his contempt for those who disagree with him are a result of small man syndrome but his bitter vindictiveness could be explained by him having both sets of reproductive organs. Constant menstrual bleeding, the insecurity of a small penis and a personal desire to select enough bad players to eliminate himself from the worst Ashes team of the last thirty years have turned Hilditch into a person with the mentality of a clown-baby.

Only a clown-baby would be idiotic enough to not select Stuart Clark for the Fifth Test at The Oval after having overlooked the accurate seamer for the first three Test matches. Only a crazed fool with a penchant for power trips would drop Clark after he turned the Ashes series in Australia’s favour on the first day of the Fourth Test when he took 3-7 off 6.5 overs. Only a blind acid user who overdosed on some poorly cooked LSD forty years ago at Woodstock couldn’t see that Clark is Australia’s most potent bowling weapon.

Yet Andrew Hildtich, one of “The Rat King” Ricky Ponting’s lady-boys with coach Tim Nielsen, has made plenty of noises since the last Test that Clark won’t be there for the decider. Hilditch has come out and said Clark was not among Australia’s top three fast bowlers. Ponting has said Clark is no certainty for the final Test and is reportedly not on talking terms with the affable and intelligent paceman. Nielsen offered effusive praise in his blog for nearly every player in the squad when discussing the Fourth Test yet his best first day bowler didn’t even earn a passing mention.

The rise of Hilditch and Nielsen to their positions of power in Australian cricket has been interesting as these two have come to personify everything that has been wrong with Australian cricket since James Sutherland took the reins of Cricket Australia and Ricky Ponting took over as captain.

Both were moderate cricketers. Hilditch played eighteen Tests for Australia during the dark days of World Series Cricket and the early Alan Border years. He was a mediocre opening batsman, at best, who averaged an astonishingly poor 31.55. He would be regarded as one of Australia’s worst opening batsmen of the last thirty years and he is certainly among the worst players to have played fifteen-plus Test matches for Australia. Nielsen never represented Australia- he was about as close to claiming a Baggy Green as your faithful author- and kept wicket for only eight seasons at South Australia where he averaged an amazing 26.06 with the bat in first class cricket. He was also born in England, a now somewhat curious fact seeing as he appears to be doing everything possible, with his South Australian buddy Hildtich, to sabotage Australia’s Ashes hopes.

How these two came to positions of such power is quizzical. Hilditch is obviously a politician who has risen through the ranks despite an obvious lack of any talent outside political survival, a cricketing Kevin Rudd whose greatest claim to fame was his political resilience. And Nielsen was seemingly handed the coaching gig by being the last man standing with his first mission, under the direction of Ponting, seemingly being the elimination of any old school cricketer, like Clark and Stuart MacGill and plenty others, who believed the role of coach in a cricket team is one of servitude and not one of leadership.

It is patently obvious that Clark has fallen victim to the high school club mentality that has permeated Australian cricket since The Rat King took over. Clark is a thinker. Clark is witty. Clark is not afraid to speak his mind. As such he doesn’t fit into the zero-sum, petty, exclusion culture that ranks social status above cricketing ability, a culture in which weak fools like Hilditch and Nielsen have helped to foster under the direction of Ricky Ponting. Insecurity on all their parts has led to an atmosphere of complete deference for the vertical team hierarchy where dissidence is viewed as a severe act of subversion and individual thought is not to be tolerated. It is arguable that Stalin was more open-minded than the Ponting-Hilditch-Nielsen triumvirate.

If Stuart Clark gets dropped for the final Test, regardless of whether the track is worthy of a spinner or not, it will be the most shameless turkey slap to the cricket loving Australian public in many years. It will be a decision based purely on personality and the fact a number of key Australians could stoop so low when the most important trophy in Australian sport is on the line should see those complicit not only booed and hissed and lambasted at every turn but charged with treason and publicly stoned at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. I’ll pay the $19.95 admission to toss even a single rock at Hilditch, Nielsen and Ponting as they sit in stocks, on bended knee, considering the actions that bought them to such a brutal finale.

Stuart Clark is the man to bring Australia the Ashes.

And the man who could take the burned bails to England is, amazingly, Stuart Law.

The tale of Stuart Law is one of great misfortune and stands in great contrast to Ricky Ponting. Law and Ponting both debuted in the same Test match at the WACA against Sri Lanka in Perth nearly fourteen years ago. Law scored 54 not out batting six. Ponting hit 96 batting five. Ponting went on to become the all-time greatest run scorer in Test cricket history, an Australian captain and a batsman regarded as one of the finest in Australian history. Law never played another Test. Had Ponting failed, had Law batted higher in the order, had a million different things happened, Stuart Law’s Test record could have been very different. While the fate of Law was not the fault of Ponting, there is no doubt he would be somewhat resentful towards Ponting. It would be an entirely natural and human reaction even if somewhat irrational.

And with the chance to end Ponting’s career, Stuart Law would no doubt step up to the mark in what would be his finest hour. Law is now eligible for England under the residency rule and though he is nearing 41 years of age and he hasn’t played Test cricket since the days of Craig McDermott, there is something intensely symmetrical about the possibility of Law playing in what could be Ricky Ponting’s last Test.

Make no mistake: if Australia loses the final Test then Ricky Ponting will most likely be asked to move on. No Australian captain in the modern era can survive consecutive series defeats in England. And it is not in the Australian tradition to keep a former captain in the team. If Ponting is sacked as Australian skipper- and he will be if we lose the Ashes- he will never play Test cricket again.

It would be quite poetic if Stuart Law played his second and final Test in the same match that Ricky Ponting’s career ended. The symmetry of the situation is irresistible and the reverse-talisman nature of Law’s selection must surely be a consideration of the English selectors.

The likelihood of Law playing is not high but he is in the mix, by all reports, and his inclusion would surely fill the Australian team with fear knowing they were up against a player who not only had spine but veins filled with bitterness and vengeance.

So this is what it has all burned down to: two Stuart’s from Australia and the sense and bottle of two selection panels in deciding whether they will play or not. If Stuart Clark does not play then Australia deserve to lose the Ashes. The one upside from such a scenario would be that the ashes of Hilditch and Ponting would likely be added to the urn. And if Stuart Law does get given the most unlikely of Test recalls, fourteen years after his one and only Test and for a different country, the cricket gods may just smile on England for having the balls to make such a monumental play. The Ouroboros, symmetrical nature of Law’s selection is powerful and seeing him on the team card would surely bring a deep sense of fear to Ricky Ponting, who should rightfully view Law as a sign from the sporting gods, a signal that his sporting life is over. It is all very Zen. Then again, Ponting is probably not deep enough to consider such matters and will blindly enter his final Test with little knowledge of the fate that awaits him.

Either way his fate rests with Stuart Clark and Stuart Law, two unlikely actors cast in a leading role at this most critical of times.

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