Is it me or do the Australians seem very easily provoked when things are not going their way? Surely, after years of dishing out abuse in the name of mental disintegration, they should be prepared to receive some? What was good for the goose for so long has got to be applicable to the gander, too.
For a few years there it was just the Indians that got under the skin of the Aussies (apart from the occasional incident like the Sarwan-McGrath fracas). These days, with the aura of invincibility no longer shielding them, more teams are getting into a spat with the Aussies and a distinct glass chin is showing up.
Here's the clip from Friday. The relevant moments are from the 4:00 mark (the clip features profanity and foul language so it may not be suitable for some):
Update: Michael Jeh discusses the same thing in more detail on his CricInfo blog. The double standards are shockingly obvious to so many, it is amazing that various cricket boards let the Match Refereees get away with it. Ugh!
2 comments:
JQ
Cheers for this ! I was thinking of putting a post on the incident and the ridiculous nature of the punishment dished out to Johnson !
I, for one couldn't fathom, why Gambhir for one ' shove' got a one match ban.
Johnson, on the other hand has in the last three months (?) - pushed Benn away and last night was also involved in a physical alteration with Styris.Yet, the refree decided a 60 % loss of match fee is OK. Trying finding any semblance of logic in that :-)
On to your post per se , I for one firmly believe that Aus can never take what they dish out. It's just that earlier the skill set of the group of 11 was that high, they were hardly under the cosh.
I don't believe that there was that much chatter then - sure the odd moment or two would occur, but don't think it was to the level Steve Waugh would like us to believe :-)
What's happened now is that after losing half of the wonder X1, they are more under pressure. They try to chat and distract opponents, only that the opponents aren't buying the bluff. Which admittedly is part of your argument.
Some things get me really mad and this is one of those. I cannot understand how the various cricket boards cannot get their acts together and ask for equality in these matters.
There isn't a single Match Referee I trust to give a consistent punishment. A shame, really. Someone like Mitchell Johnson, obviously a fellow with the skills to be a great, will carry with him the tag of being easily provoked and, more importantly, does not get hurt enough by sanctions to see the need to be behave better on the field.
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