McBain
Player Valuation: £80m
Ah Fitzy son.
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/hard-men-needed-in-a-time-of-crisis-20130724-2qjnu.html
And so, dear friends, it has come to this. As if it is not enough that the Lions thumped us in the rugby; that the Brits whupped us but good in the 2012 Olympic medal count; that the brutes have broken their Wimbledon drought; that they have two successive winners of the Tour de France; that the very worst kind of Brits, the Poms, are smashing us in the Ashes … now, NOW I say, their sports journalists are dinkum laughing at us.
I mean, I can half cope with derision, with unpleasant sneering, with the odd searing criticism, because we have been doing all of that and more towards our Australian teams. (Note to students of our language. Correct form is: "We win, but they let us down.") But laughing at us? Poking fun at our ineptitude? Can it get any worse? (Don't answer that, Michael Clarke - it is all just too depressing.)
Most egregious in his laughter at our national misfortune has been Simon Barnes of The Times. Now, Simon, when I give you a smack on the back of the head, I want you to tell the folks what you wrote after Australia's latest batting debacle in the second Test. And then when I give you a kick in the pants you may stop. Ready? Go!
"Look, I'm English, and we English have certain rights, right? And among those rights is the right to have both Australia and Australians on terms we can understand. Australians have a duty to stick to ancient and trusted national stereotypes. So here is a sample of the sort of things that are unacceptable to English sensibilities. 1. Kangaroos that walk. 2. Kookaburras that weep. 3. Australia being the right way up. 4. Australian intellectuals. 5. A soft Australian batting line-up…''
Laugh? LAUGH?! I thought I'd never start. Sadly, here in London - and I am not here for the royal baby, I assure you, so don't get me started - I am on my own. For they dinkum all are laughing at us. Uproariously. Unpleasantly. On and on. Why, you bastards? Did we laugh at you when you went 20-odd years without an Ashes win? When, year, after year, after decade, after decade, you hoped against hope to have one of yourn win Wimbledon, only to fail miserably? When the English rugby team was so bad it would do a victory lap if it won so much as the toss? When the very words "England" and "sporting victory" in the same sentence was a contradiction in terms? Did we laugh? I said … did we?
Alright, alright, maybe a little.
Very well, Simon. What, specifically, do you think is ailing us? You may proceed.
"We know what Australian batsmen are like. They are men to whom a razor is a stranger, men with jutting jaws of immense muscular strength that comes from years of frenzied gum-chewing. They have been aware since conception of the superiority of God's bloody own over anything the Poms can come up with. They are people without compromise. They look as if they grew up castrating sheep with their teeth. They play sport without sparing themselves or their opponents. They are sentimental only about headgear and mateship. They see loyalty as an aspect of hardness. The problem is that this Australia batting side aren't like that …."
And there, is the unkindest cut of all. For the only thing worse than a sneering, laughing Englishman is when you have the sneaking suspicion he is right. Where are our hard men? I don't mean blokes with tatts - we've got that covered. I mean hard men, capable of fighting for every run, of grinding out crucial innings and sneering at bouncers whistling past their nose. Remember those blokes? Where have you gone Allan Border - a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
The three most obvious hard men to have left the team in recent times are Ricky Ponting, Mike Hussey and Simon Katich. In the case of Ponting it was because his time really had come, but the other two left well before then, chiefly because of falling out with Michael Clarke. (Oh all right, in the case of Hussey, this has been many times denied, but just humour me, OK?). And yes, I realise that while Hussey has said he won't come back even if asked, and Boof Lehmann has said he doesn't want either of them back even if they ask, it is not simple as that. If our nation can conscript young men to go Vietnam as we did four decades ago, sending them to war with rifle in hand and a pittance in their pocket whether they like it or not, we can bloody well send young men to England with a bat in hand on a juicy contract to stave off national humiliation! In the case of Katich, he is already there plundering runs in County Cricket as never before.
OK, OK, I'm not totally serious about the conscription part. But I am serious about this. Two years ago, Cricket Australia decided Clarke was the man to lead Australia into the future. It has backed him at every turn, and we are now seeing the results. They're at each others's throats, they're playing poorly, and have lost the last six Tests straight. Call me crazy, but is it obvious that it ain't working? One way of putting it right is to bring back proven hard men who've been pushed out.
So I'll start you off, Michael Clarke. Pick up the phone, and when I say, begin like this: "Hello, Kat and Huss? It's Clarkie. Listen, you know that time I told you both it'd be a cold day in hell before you played for Australia again? Well, it's snowing down here …''
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/hard-men-needed-in-a-time-of-crisis-20130724-2qjnu.html
