Cricket Australia bow to bullies

[arkay]

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23297380-5001023,00.html By Rebecca Wilson March 01, 2008 12:00am WHEN we think of Australian sporting characters, opener Matthew Hayden is not exactly the man who immediately comes to mind. Great batsman. Prolific run scorer. Good team man. But character? Hardly. This week, Hayden knocked on the door and asked for entry into the hallowed hall where our great sporting characters reside. He joined the likes of Doug Walters, Tommy Raudonikis, Sam Kekovich and Rod Marsh on an honour roll that is rightfully long - a group of sportsmen who have become just as famous for their larrikin behaviour and clever banter as they are for their sporting prowess. But the sanitisation of sport - and the immense power of modern sporting bodies to control their players - would prevent these blokes from opening their mouths at all these days. Hayden called the world's most unpleasant cricketer an "obnoxious little weed" this week. He didn't swear or curse. Instead, during a Brisbane radio interview, Hayden made a comment that was long overdue and just plain honest. For his trouble, Australia's most pathetic and weakest sporting body, Cricket Australia, hauled him into headquarters, forced him to apologise and proved they are as humourless as a box of hammers. They are also erratic, clueless and completely lacking in support of their only asset - their cricketers. Harbhajan Singh is an obnoxious little weed. He is a lot more too. This most arrogant of Indian cricketers has attracted trouble throughout his entire career. He provokes the opposition, niggles all day long and behaves like a spoilt brat when the authorities dare to put him under the microscope. He is part of a caste system in a country whose tiered society benefits only those at its pinnacle. The Indian spinner definitely does not sit at the bottom of such a system. Harbhajan is not just a product of his upbringing. He is living proof that there is a lack of control exerted by the Board of Cricket Control in India over their players. Rather than pull these badly behaved cricketers into line, the BCCI crow every single time that an opposition player dares to answer back. Not once this summer have India ever accepted the blame for any of the bad blood, for the out-of-control sledging or the absolutely dreadful way the team have conducted themselves throughout this tour. Instead, they point the bone at Matthew Hayden, knowing full well the hopeless bunch at CA will jump to attention and force him into a public apology. The world's cricket authorities are all slaves to the vagaries of Indian cricket. They allow appalling behaviour because they are too scared to stop it. The men from the subcontinent threaten to go home and no one ever calls their bluff. Once, just once, someone at Cricket Australia or at the International Cricket Council should have offered to pay the Indians' airfares out of here. My money would be on the BCCI staying put. They want the money from such a lucrative tour as badly as the Australian authorities do. There is now the smell, thankfully, of a rebellion from our cricketers about the way Cricket Australia treats and supports them. While kowtowing to the demands of Harbhajan and his mates this week, the nation's cricket administrators showed that supporting the likes of Hayden and Andrew Symonds is not on the agenda. Hayden should never, ever have been hauled in to face the music. At worst, he should have received a phone call from an understanding boss who might have suggested he kept his feelings to himself. While Cricket Australia carries on about the importance of the "spirit of cricket", they allow star players to partake in pathetic and demeaning advertising campaigns. They place the dollar above everything else, capitulating to the demands of sponsors and opposition nations rather than listening to their own stakeholders. Matthew Hayden should take great comfort from this week's events. If nothing else, he has proved himself to be a gutsy and honest bloke who has a neat turn of phrase without having to use the f-word. Harbhajan reckons Hayden is one of the world's most unpopular cricketers. This obnoxious little weed has paid Hayden a great compliment by resorting to the ultimate playground insult. "Nobody likes you" is the bully's favourite line. Harbhajan and his bosses have proved beyond doubt that's precisely what they are. We will be glad to see the back of them. Cricket Australia are yet to realise that standing up to bullies is the only way to defeat them. Hayden gets it. The cricketing public get it. Time for James Sutherland and co to take note.

[f.b.m]

:laugh: Amazing insight and great neutrality.

He is part of a caste system in a country whose tiered society benefits only those at its pinnacle. The Indian spinner definitely does not sit at the bottom of such a system.

[arkay]

Aussies have never reacted to an opposition this way. This is the first time they are clearly reeling under pressure

[Sachinism]

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0' date=22049,23297380-5001023,00.html For his trouble, Australia's most pathetic and weakest sporting body, Cricket Australia, hauled him into headquarters, forced him to apologise and proved they are as humourless as a box of hammers.

no they didnt BS article anyway

[f.b.m]

Another gem by this amazing 'journalist' Cricket changed forever By Rebecca Wilson February 23, 2008 12:00am NO ONE stood up and shouted. Not a single cricket fan realised the true extent of what was happening. Cricket changed forever and irrevocably this week. Players were auctioned off like cattle and the game that was once meant for purists and gentlemen was transformed into a circus by the very country that accused Australia of destroying the spirit of the game. Picture it - a bunch of millionaire businessmen sitting in a five-star hotel in India. They have each bought a majority shareholding in a Twenty20 franchise that will play a total of six weeks a year on thesub-continent. The cheapest of the franchises, Jaipur, went to Lachlan Murdoch for about $75 million. Other wealthy businessmen with a smell of the money paid up to $200 million for a cricket club whose players will never really be members in the true sense of the word. Andrew Symonds says he nearly pulled out of the whole thing. He didn't and the result is that he will earn a staggering amount of money to run around for a team whose name we all have trouble spelling. He will jet in first class and get out of the place the minute it is over. There will be no bonding with teammates, who will come from all around the sub-continent and the rest of the world. Not a single one of them grew up dreaming of playing for a Hyderadabad Twenty20 franchise. The power of India in the cricket world has never been more obvious. It appears that they can do what they please. How can a worldwide cricket auction take place, for God's sake? How does a national cricketing body allow its players to put their names up as individuals willing to be flogged off to the highest bidder? Who decided that these businessmen in a hotel had the credentials and the credibility to control the fates of the best cricketers in the world? Again, the International Cricket Council has weakly capitulated to the world's biggest cricketing power and allowed this craziness to unfold. Those cynics among us tell me rugby league and the AFL have been flogging themselves off to the highest bidders for years. The difference for me, though, is that it has never been so crass or so public. Barry Hall may know what his teammates earn but it is never put anywhere in black and white for the entire world to see. Matthew Hayden is on a different contract from Mike Hussey but I bet they don't talk about it. Australians hate blatant and public displays of wealth. It is not in our nature to talk about how much we earn with our friends. We see ourselves as equal to those with whom we work and equal to those who take to the field in the flannels and the baggy green. These are backyard barbecue boys - blokes from middle-class homes just like us. We empathise with them when they play, when they hit a slump or when they miss a catch. Will we still feel the same way about Andrew Symonds now that we know he earns $35,000 an hour? But it is not his fault for taking it. When a country like India - one of the fastest-growing economies in the world - starts to fly, it is inevitable the truly rich will strike. But India is also a country with one of the largest gaps between rich and poor in the world. It is almost obscene to think of Symonds and co. pocketing so much cash when millions live in squalor. The International Cricket Council has changed the sport forever - and for the worse. That vision of the village green and a couple of dozen young men applauding each other's feats will be one our kids simply won't believe. We will struggle to remember why we fell in love with the sport, too. So many of us have suspected for a long time that cricket is no longer the gentlemen's game. This week, it entered a dangerous phase that threatens to derail its ideals and to turn it into a playground for the wealthy, many of whom have questionable motives. The ICC has proved it is the weakest sporting body in the world. Based in Dubai, its leaders float around the world in their blazers, making us believe they have the good of the sport at heart. Not a man among them has the mettle to put his hand up and declare a concern for the game. Not a one understands that this has opened a can of worms in a country that has been tarred by allegations of match-fixing and betting anomalies for years. Throwing around millions in an open auction for cricketers is the beginning of the end for a sport needing to have a good long lookat itself and realise the rot has really set in. PLAYER manager Greg Keenan is one of those blokes who always manages to sneak under the radar when it comes to bad publicity. But the last few weeks must surely flush him out. Keenan has lost a football team full of charges in recent years from both the league and union ranks. But he still has three star clients - Wendell Sailor, Willie Mason and Matt Henjak. We all know about Wendell's woes. Willie was at it again in Coffs Harbour last week, behaving appallingly by urinating in a public place. Then, of course, there is Henjak, whose dreadful behaviour on the drink has cost him his contract at the Western Force. Like Sailor and Mason, Henjak is a repeat offender. Keenan continues to claim his commission for these blokes even though he has failed to rein them in recently. What sort of player manager continues to unleash these blokes on football clubs without any hint of pulling them into line? Not only that, but Keenan always remains unrepentant about their behaviour even when it is public and shameful. Keenan has lost clients for a reason. He could start rebuilding his business by pulling the blokes he has left in his stable into line. http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23260057-5001023,00.html How dare they ..... ..... umm..... .... them bastards!! India is poor. So rich people shouldnt exist!

[IndianRenegade]

Symmonds is a monkey! why don't they see the Humor?

[Chandan]

Cricket Australia bow to bullies -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegrap...001023,00.html By Rebecca Wilson

Why are you guys wasting your time over this rubbish article? It is not even worth commenting at and to me it is yellow journalism at its best (or worst!). Please stop giving attention to such rubbish articles. Even Indiatimes is not as bad as this one!

[zubinpepsi]

too much attn given to this pathetic skin head..

[Mandrake]

"He provokes the opposition, niggles all day long and behaves like a spoilt brat when the authorities dare to put him under the microscope." Seems like a pretty accurate description that would fit most in the Oz team:haha:

[Predator_05]

I googled Rebecca Wilson and found this; MILF quality, IMO.

[Mr. Wicket]

Didn't realize the Footy Show was worth watching until now.

[Ram]

Well, If Mathew Hayden was right in calling Bhajji " An Obnoxious little weed", I wonder if anyone here will have a problem if I call this women a " Bloddy *****"... Only an intellectually bankrupt specimen like her will actually justify one of country's leading sportsman, a role model to many youngsters in Australia, calling another international cricketer such names. If this is the standard of the Australian press, then God save the Aussies.