Madness: Travels to the Country, Australian Cricket and Thoughts on Totalitarian Censorship
After a wild few days, buried deep in the bunker with a bottle of Jameisons and a framed portrait of Grantland Rice, highly charged about the prospect of reaching what those in the card-making business recognise as a milestone age, it was determined that the only answer was to flee to somewhere a little quieter, where the drinking was more social and the folk less misanthropic. So, with a few well-directed phone calls and the filling of a decent sized esky, it was off to Harden and more specifically, the Harden picnic races.
The journey was sound and the hospitality warm. It was the right tonic.
Upon arrival, an esteemed local citizen who travels by the moniker The General and a man who mixes in the right circles, hustled me straight off to meet a well-heeled gentleman who claimed to me the mayor. He bellowed something about being honoured to host such a well respected writer or what not but I was just a little more concerned with finding winners, high octane drinking and the gargantuan spread laid out by the local ladies of the CWA.
Having found the winner of the Cup at 4-1, a hungry looking type who was seemingly racing for his life named Spanish Beggar, the night loomed large. That was, of course, if the bookies paid out, a task that was not as straightforward as one would imagine. But the cash was obtained, despite the fact it was laced with obscenities and bilious threats, and the evening was strong.
Strong, though not long. All public houses were shutdown at some obscenely early hour, which didn’t suit those of us cranked and set for a long night of randomness. Seemingly, in the words of Runyon, a gentleman was done in by another gentleman, a patron “considered a very good shiv artist”. The claret flowed freely as a result of same and the local constabulary were keen to lay a blanket over any public behaviour from that point on.
So it was off to nowhere in particular and the evening only ended when the cigarettes ran dry, the copy of the Sunday paper was delivered and heavy discussions on the likes of Foucault had reached their natural conclusions.
Just as I was on the verge of some much needed and well earned sleep, I received a panicked call from a well placed associate of mine. “I have just read that there is no more to life than sinking piss and following Canterbury Bankstown. Is this true?”
After a brief period of thought, I replied, as follows: “of course not. There is heavy gambling, the words of the Good Doctor, avoiding crows and keeping the pricks honest”. I hung up the phone.
The next morning, hovering about in a state of induced depression and penetrating nausea, the cricket was flicked on. As eight bodies lay, hurting from the vile heat and the pain of last night, the first words of the morning were uttered and they were rather philosophical considering the paths we had all traveled in the preceding hours.
“Why the hell did Australia not make England follow on?” muttered somebody. I hadn’t opened my eyes to see who and the ringing in my ears prevented me from identifying the questioner with any real certainty. It was probably Mayor McCheese, a strange Lance Whitnall-type cigarette salesman.
He made a good point. There was no legitimate reason why Australia would not enforce the follow-on. Australia has accumulated 602 runs and then bowled England out for 157 in 61.1 overs. It was little more than the amount bowled in a one-day game, so the decision surely had nothing to do with resting the bowling attack. Australia, in the end, won by a landslide but Ponting and his baseless decision may well have cost Australia a Test match. With some Collingwood and Flintoff discipline and the development of expected fifth-day rain and Australia would be heading to Adelaide with the series all tied-up. It was a bizarre and ultimately preposterous decision.
And it was reflective of the decision making in Australian cricket that has become more illogical, more stubborn and more ludicrous. From on-field decisions to team selection to Cricket Australia actions, those making the calls have been making strange, stupid and hard to fathom choices in recent times.
My thoughts on the crowning of Shane Watson as a Test quality player, and to a lesser extent Michael Clarke, has been well documented on these pages and I won’t go into it any further other than to say their inclusion defies all logic and is offensive to the sensibilities of those who know the game. Ditto for the non-inclusion of Stuart MacGill for the Adelaide Test. Cricket Australia showed all the sense of a retarded yellow-bellied marmot when allocating tickets for this Ashes series, causing high levels of frustration and disappointment with their poorly constructed ticketing scheme. They paid no heed to recent ticket allocation schemes like the Sydney Olympics and the football world cup qualifiers and left many fans distraught and embittered. And Ricky Ponting has made some extraordinary on-field decisions which have hurt the chances of the Australian team- decisions Border, Taylor and Steve Waugh never would have made-such as sending England in at Edgbaston in 2005. His field placements and bowler changes are at times obscure, the great batsman often appearing lost without his intelligent mentor Darren Lehmann to guide him.
In Australia, where cricket is the most important game in town, this is a worrying direction for Australian cricket and it is imperative the game gets itself in order and fast. Selectors need to be more flexible, more measured and less malevolent. Ricky Ponting needs to develop a greater understanding of the game as a whole and needs to listen more to natural cricket brains like Shane Warne. And Cricket Australia need to be more aware of those that make the game; the fans.
Of course, these are the thoughts of just one man, the opinions and serene screeds of a man raised in the democratic tradition where free speech is a right and the ability to suppress same was tossed out in the 1950’s when the Menzies Government failed in its attempts to put a sack over the Communist Party in this country. This isn’t Stalin Russia and those with a penchant for censorship don’t get the steel-capped boots to thump into the balls of those who deviate from mainstream opinion. More so, these are the words of a professional, a wordsmith and respected analyst (in the southern islands of Japan, at any rate), who gets paid a pretty penny to get his words and thoughts and opinions on paper. It would be most unprofessional to merely conform to the thoughts of censor-mongerers and totalitarian apologists. And I, of course, put my name to these thoughts and don’t hide behind aliases or pseudonyms or modern technology. The points are argued and the name is there for all to see.
And that is probably that. At least for this week, while the fire is hot and those stoking the flames are working hard.