Two Decades On

Jack Stockton, Terry Blane and I got wild on Tuesday. Revolution was in the air and whiskey in the shot glasses. Durty Nelly’s was the locale and will be as important to the history of Punting Ace as the Burgerbrau Keller is to the history of Germany. This was no Beer Hall Putsch but the talk of overthrow was in the air. At least from my end. Bob Hawke or Jimmy Hoffa or even Sharon Burrows would have been proud.

The three of us had convened for some long overdue drinking and a serious discussion on expense accounts. Admittedly, it was your vocal author laying it out in terms of us against the fat cats. The Miami non-experience still had me riled. Jack had very little to say. He is a hermit who gets his kicks from hammering out words and watching quality sporting affairs and sucking back triple malt whiskey from the comfort of his own den of wisdom. He is on the downslope of life and wasn’t too concerned with travel costs and the jet set lifestyle. It took a week of heavy threats, extreme conceitedness and the promise that the night was on Terry to even get him down. Terry, gruff and battle scarred from a lifetime on the beat, was a moral supporter but in his street wisdom noted that he wasn’t going to be rocking the boat. “Let is slide son”. He regaled us with stories of his day when the jackboot paper tycoons would pay for no more than a bus ticket and the Friday night slate. I’m fairly sure Terry has not even reached fifty candles but it is always best to just nod and smile when someone gets that delusional. Jack dozed off, as old drunks do.

We had sucked back the afternoon and though my moves towards labour action had been stifled by inertia, the mood was positive. Then the attention turned to the television. The Australian team to travel to the Caribbean in pursuit of a third straight cricket World Cup had just been announced. All in attendance, including a former State cricketer and a stale old barmaid who had probably engaged in prostitution or acting in her younger days, watched with an air of melancholy and a slight touch of disappointment.

Terry was the first to speak. “What the hell happened?” At least that is what I had written in my notebook this morning. It was all starting to get a little hazy by then.     
 
“Twenty years ago, we had a team of men…now…” And he was completely right. Time sure has slipped by and we all look back through rose coloured glasses but there is little doubt the nature of cricket in this country and the characters who play the game has changed and it is a change for the worst.

The year was 1987 and the world was a fairly different place. That big wall in Berlin still stood tall, John Howard had been marked as a political loser, we all had the right attitude towards Communism, mobile phones weighed half a ton and there were still a few choice citizens calling for the return to the imperial system.

The game of cricket was different back then. The players, during the World Cup, they all wore whites. Bowlers still had a chance. The balls were red. Television coverage was from the era of Bruce Gyngell. Nobody cared for leg spin bowling. And the Australian cricket team was on the verge of their first World Cup victory, sending a team full of mustachioed legends, iconic characters and well-loved heroes.

So now we compare and contrast for no other reason than personal kicks. And maybe a quick lesson in sociology. By the end, we will all feel a little worse and probably a little older. But this is necessary.

We shall start at the top with the leadership team. In 1987, Alan Border was the skipper and Bob Simpson parted his wisdom as coach. Both were tough as nails. AB probably ate glass. Simpson had finished off Tim Zoehrer for reasons now entrenched in cricket rumour. They were gritty and they imparted it on their side. And Border certainly never missed a game for reasons of rest and relaxation. Today, Ricky Ponting runs the show and cricket hippy John Buchanan offers spiritual mentoring or some other rubbish to a team of supposed professionals. Ponting, for all his skill and beauty as a batsman, is closer to fool than genius on the intelligence continuum and left his manhood on the floor of the Bourbon and Beefsteak a decade ago. And one does not even know where to start with Buchanan, a man who has done all in his power to prissy up Australian cricket with the Zen bollocks of Phil Jackson.

When we look at the batsmen then and the batsmen now, one cannot help but weep openly for the days of yore. Today’s bunch are probably more talented and more technically correct but I don’t think there are too many who would rather watch Michael Clarke push and prod ahead of a David Boon airborne cut shot. And surely old Swampy Marsh provided a better spectacle than Matthew Hayden. Well, maybe only to fans of stoutness. Dean Jones, the great one day batsman of them all, was a far better proposition in the middle of the order than Michael Hussey. Maybe not in terms of numbers but when it came to entertainment, shot selection and pride, we would all rather watch Deano. And of course, back then, we had Mike Veletta, a man of whom nothing more needs to be said. At least we have Brad Hodge these days, though Andrew Hilditch will probably jack him around until he flees the country. And Andrew Symonds is a throwback, a character with plenty of zip and plenty of lip. He has a torn bicep and is willing to tear it again just to get a game. Tremendous ticker.

Stephen Waugh. Tom Moody. Simon O’Donnell. Three fine all-rounders for any era and three players who will all be strongly considered for the all-time Australian ODI eleven. This was the core of the ’87 victory and they all did Australia proud. Fast forward twenty years and the all-rounder Australia selects is Shane Watson. It is probably best to just leave it at that as his name itself causes more ill feeling than any set of adjectives I could come up with. He is a bum and that is that and anybody who wants to argue the point can look me up and we’ll throw hands.

Adam Gilchrist and Brad Haddin are probably more talented wicketkeepers than Greg Dyer. Though it must be noted that Greg Dyer had one of the finest upper lips in the game and he never took “personal leave” during a World Cup or any other type of cricket, I am quite sure.

And now- Tedeschi: On Bowlers. We had two great one day tweakers back then in Tim May and Peter Taylor. They knew their limitations and played within them, always getting the job done. And Brad Hogg isn’t too dissimilar though his cheery demeanor probably needs to be altered. Sending down the fast one’s in 1987 were The Great Stickman Bruce Reid and Billy the Kid, Craig McDermott. Compare that with Pretty Boy Lee, the tongue-ring wearing Mitchell Johnson and the very feminine Nathan Bracken and his hair net. Glenn McGrath would be more suited to the ’87 team. Ye Gods, we used to send hairy men with balls of steel out to bowl. Now you need wavy blonde hair and an ability to suck back three Bacardi Breezers an hour. The only similarities between the bowling attacks are that they both had two mediocre South Australian pacemen (Andrew Zesers then, Shaun Tait now) who will never be heard from again.

It has been a long road, the last twenty years. Particularly for cricket fans. And the cost of success has been common sense and testicular fortitude.