The Naughty Corner
Shane Watson, James Pattinson, Mitchell Johnson and Usman Khawaja walk into a bar…
The barman looks them up and down, leans forward, tosses a cloth from one hand to the other, starts polishing a highball glass and casually addresses the group.
“Shouldn’t you guys be doing your homework?”
Australian cricket’s horror tour of India appears to be plumbing new depths.
And while Mickey Arthur appears to be the proverbial Kraken out to make himself a nightmare for the four-man crew of wayward sailors now banished to the poop deck of Australian cricket, it’s not an unsanctioned night on the rum that has the quartet in bother.
In fact, it’s hardly piratical behaviour at all.
Reports suggest it’s plain old laziness they’re being punished for by not being considered for selection in the forthcoming third Test.
Some punishment being left out of a side likely to get its arse handed to it for the third week running, you say. Of the four, Johnson seems least likely to have played a part in Mohali, but having his name sullied in such peculiar circumstances will do plenty to damage his psyche – as it will the others.
For whatever reason, these are the guys who didn’t provide the coach with their personal review of the second Test shortcomings and any issues that may be plaguing the squad.
Martyrs, pariahs, call them what you will. They’re out and everyone else might have to be in.
Utility player Steve Smith is believed to have both biceps wrapped in ice tonight following an extended bout of extreme fist-pumping in the wake of the announcement, but that’s another story.
On the day news broke of the Federal Government’s plan to improve teaching standards in Australian schools by guaranteeing the academic quality of teaching candidates, it seems the suspended players fell for the oldest trick in the teaching handbook.
1) Meet a sub-par performance with a simple task framed as ‘identifying the issue’.
2) Catch out the lazy, insolent or downright dumb by loading both barrels for anyone who doesn’t complete the penance.
3) Follow through. Even if there’s no personal issue with the intransigent, for the good of the group – and to maintain an air of control – the teacher must back up words with action.
If it calls for rubbish duty, detention or suspension, there’s no buts about it. If it’s a Prefect, they take the fall. The school jock, they do the time, no matter the excuse.
“A mangy, rabid-looking dog in the hotel car park ate my report,” Watson may have said.
“I’m sorry, Shane. You’re sitting this one out,” Mickey Arthur would have replied.
“Mine was in my pocket and mum put it through the washing machine,” James Pattinson could have bleated.
“James, your mother is in Australia. And I’ve found the laundry service at our hotel exemplary,” Arthur, perhaps, retorted.
Johnson: “I got mine tattooed on my forearm. But it rubbed off.”
Arthur: “That’s no excuse, Mitchell. Must do better.”
Khawaja: “But, coach, I don’t even drink.”
Arthur: “No, Usman. It has nothing to do with drinking this time. Really. It’s about the task I set for you. Everyone else found time to get it handed in by the due date and you guys chose not to.”
As well as leaving a cricketing public in shock with his decision, Arthur also sent the Australian media machine into overdrive.
He fronted a Mohali press conference on Monday evening to outline his case to the pack of fizzing hacks who are today making up for the time they didn’t have to work during the back end of the second Test.
“We were particularly aware of where we were as a team and how we were going to get back,” he said, presumably referring to something other than the Sub Continent and a business class flat-bed on the flight home.
Arthur then outlined his expectations for the homework task which, it must be said, didn’t exactly sound onerous.
“Unfortunately four players did not comply with that. We pride ourselves on attitude. We have given the players a huge amount of latitude to get culture and attitude right.”
“The teams that are the best in the world have best attitudes, best behaviour patterns and a good, hard, ruthless culture.”
Ruthless appears to be accurate and it may well be the way they do things in the South African school system that shaped Arthur. We’ve all seen Power of One, haven’t we?
Arthur is not Jaapie Botha from the film, but he is framing himself as "The Judge", much like the evil character from the boarding house of Bryce Courtenay's creation.
“We’ve given these guys absolute clarity… a huge amount of time to buy in with what we want to do with the Australian cricket team,” he told the press.
This, presumably, means plenty more punitive measures will be dished out for future indiscretions that see any of the crew sail wide of the prescribed ‘latitudes’.
“This is the line in the sand moment… we’re actually making a massive statement to the rest of the world.”
And this is the worrying part.
As it stands, the statement is that so little control is being exerted by the management and leadership group at the top of the Cricket Australia tree, they’ve had to suspend players for not doing the done thing.
The coach and captain have chosen to discount players who’ve failed or forgotten (or decided they plain old don’t give a fuck) to do the coach’s bidding, rather than double-checking ahead of the deadline as to whether or not everyone understood the task and why it was vital they complete it.
That’s the second oldest trick in the teaching handbook: Make sure the students understand what to do and why they are doing it and you avoid the need for recrimination and punishment at all.
It’s a better outcome for everyone. It leaves room for teaching and learning, but leaves out the agro and despair that comes with claim, counterclaim and dispute.
Tonight, Australian vice-captain Shane Watson is reported to be heading for home, tail between his legs and with plenty of explaining to do.
It may transpire his wife is due to give birth in the coming days and Watson wants to be on hand to witness the birth.
It could also be that a rumoured rift between he and captain Michael Clarke has finally spilled over and the player who has promised so much – and only delivered on that promise from time-to-time – has reacted so badly to the disciplinary action he’s packed up his bat and his Brut and headed for the airport.
If the latter is the case, it will surely be the last time he tours with an Australian outfit. He’s no Kevin Pieterson and cannot be welcomed back to the fold by Arthur, Clarke et.al. as KP was by the Poms after his dispute with Andrew Strauss and the ECB.
Mickey Arthur has spoken about a line being drawn in the sand. Watson appears to have sand in his vagina as a consequence.
Justin Langer is among the ghosts of Australian teams past to be bemused by the current situation, and that may be largely because he played alongside Shane Warne for a number of years and the champion leg-spinner would have been hard pressed to take 500 wickets operating under the Arthur regime.
But Warne aside, it must be odd for Langer and the greats of yore to look upon the current shambles with anything but dismay.
Their legacy is crumbling before their very eyes.
It’s almost like Jimi Hendrix knew what was coming… and so castles made of sand fall into the sea, eventually.
Photo courtesy of Scott Barbour/Getty Images AsiaPac
