Australian News media coverage

[sandtest]

A few news links which I surfed across after our victory :giggle: Side with No Heart Can't win a civil war http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23076777-10389,00.html Mike Colman January 20, 2008 12:00am WE wuz had. India's stunning performance in the third Test at the WACA should be dedicated to a lot more than the 11 players out on the field. They should share their pay cheques with their bullying officials back home, the weak-kneed administrators at the International Cricket Council and certain members of the media who have taken every opportunity to put the knife into the Aussies since this series began. :hysterical::icflove: The Australian side which took the field for this Test was weakened by retirements and injury but, more than that, it was a side with its heart ripped out. Remember that scene in one of the Rocky movies where Rocky's trainer tells him he's no longer feared by his opponents? "Kid," he says, "the worst thing that could happen to a fighter happened to you. You got civilised." The Australian team was never a Mike Tyson type, threatening to eat its opponents' children, but it was a team to be feared. It walked into town with its head held high, chest puffed out and talking tough. Even without mouthing the words it said, "We're winners and we're going to grind you into the dust." It's a look we know well. The All Blacks have it, the Melbourne Storm have it and at various times the Brisbane Lions and Broncos have had it. Some people call it confidence. Others call it arrogance. Either way, you need it to win for a sustained period of time. The Australian cricket team had it at the start of the second Test in Sydney. By the third Test in Perth it was gone, stripped away by officialdom, jealous commentators and embarrassed locals who are uncomfortable with success. In the space of a week the Australians got civilised. Ricky Ponting and his team walked out for the first day at the WACA promising to play nice. They made a public commitment to bend over backwards to make their visitors feel right at home. The Indians were nice enough to graciously accept the Australians' offer -- as they would. They were the ones with nothing to lose and everything to gain. In effect, the Aussies were throwing away any advantage they might have had over this very good Indian team. There is very little between the sides. This, after all, is not the Australian team of a few years ago. There is no Shane Warne, no Glenn McGrath, no Justin Langer, no Damien Martyn. The loss of Matthew Hayden through injury has made the top order even more vulnerable. The Australians had home crowds, public support, and that air of superiority -- confidence, arrogance, call it what you will. Hysterical reaction to the team's behaviour in Sydney robbed them of that. The way the ICC backed down to the financial clout of the Indian heavies, the way the Australian authorities panicked over the effect of bad publicity on sponsorship dollars and the success of the anti-Ponting campaign stirred up by a former England B captain who now calls Australia home, all combined to back the team into a corner. These are highly paid professionals whose big pay packets and idyllic lifestyles depend on their popularity. If people don't support them, those people won't buy Fords or KFC, and those companies will no longer want to use the players in those omnipresent adverts. It's a vicious circle. So instead of a confident, arrogant, winning team, we get a nice, civilised one. Maybe a losing one. And you can hear the cry of delight echoing around every other cricket-playing nation. Gotcha

[sandtest]

so, in addition to hiring umpires who can see, hear and speak.... one more thing the "evil" Indians :giggle: and cousins need to do is to test all players in international matches for performance enhancing drugs ... this might rattle few more cages mites....

[sandtest]

Checked out online editions of the 3 Aussie majors: The Age, Sydney Morning Herald & The Australian. The main headline in ALL 3 newspapers was the US primary elections in Nevada! Clinton/Romney win etc. Among the 3, The Age & SMH had a graceful coverage of India's victory. They gave the devil its due. Quite typically, it was 'The Australian', owned by Rupert Murdoch (which had the shrillest commentary about the Indians during the Sydney match) with a defensive tone in its headline 'Ponting admits selection mistakes'.....Right, so India won because Ponting mis-judged the pitch....never mind that the Indian pacers had their best batsman struggling. http://www.theage.com.au/news/cricket/indians-break-streak-again/2008/01/19/1200620280498.html http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23080121-2722,00.html I am curious to see the Aussie sports journalists' interpretation of how the relative lack of 'sledging' played into this loss. Question of the match: Do the Aussies need to engage in verbal abuse (=sledging) as a part of their game, to win?

[Rajiv]

:haha: ..thus, don't read much..just watch

[sandtest]

another noteworthy comment from Aus journalists :D http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23075081-5001023,00.html?from=mostpop But they suddenly have a young ambitious crop of players who are a product of a prosperous, confident middle class :dance:who are leading the world in sectors such as technology. :two_thumbs_up: They are not simply looking the world in the eye but staring it down. :giggle: As VVS Laxman said privately before the tour: "Australia fear us, because we are the only side in the world who don't fear them."

[Sachinism]

awwww the aussie is upset we got rid of their SUPERSTAR Mr Bucknor stop your whining biatch seriously what a rubbish article, among the worst ever written, who let this guy be a journalist chats out of his backside

[Mandrake]

Even Waugh wrote in his column about how sad it was for Gilly to go circumspect about his appealing in wake of events at Sydney....ROTFL...Aussie media really pushing the idea that their side lost because India pressured them to tone down their aggressiveness:hysterical::hysterical: As funny as that sounds,do they really believe that they lost because they couldn't abuse:haha: However some of the reports were balanced giving credit where its due:two_thumbs_up:

[Sachinism]

Even Waugh wrote in his column about how sad it was for Gilly to go circumspect about his appealing in wake of events at Sydney....ROTFL...Aussie media really pushing the idea that their side lost because India pressured them to tone down their aggressiveness:hysterical::hysterical: As funny as that sounds,do they really believe that they lost because they couldn't abuse:haha: However some of the reports were balanced giving credit where its due:two_thumbs_up:

australia's biggest weapon??

[Anakin]

Gilly's been too circumspect with appealing? I must have been watching a different game.

[Guest dada_rocks]

Why accuse them our own fans are not happy over evenly matched umpiring howlers they want sthg akin to sydney :hysterical:

[liddu]

lol.......

[Anakin]

Why accuse them our own fans are not happy over evenly matched umpiring howlers they want sthg akin to sydney :hysterical:

:haha::haha::haha::haha: