Gideon Haigh makes some fair points in today's Age....
1) Cricket crowds can be ugly jingoistic morons.
2) Racial undertones are becoming more apparent. (Although that's probably because we now are more aware of the issue)
3) The media is altering crowd behaviour.
All three are signs of collective fatheadism, and the media - especially Channel Nine which gets more down-market by the minute - play up (even exacerbate) the crowd behaviour.
Don't forget the Mexican Wave. Surely the ultimate in mass idiocy.
However, I won't cop Gideon's we bad/they good nonsense....
Australian spectators who hectored Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan with cries of "no ball" were somehow more offensive than the Barmy Army's similar cries when Brett Lee was bowling last season, because the Australians were part of a majority and the English were not.
The simple fact that Murali's out there - and in doing so eroding the very fabric of the game - is more offensive than any sledging that's ever occurred.
Cheatilitheran will end up with 600 test wickets and questions will alway's be raised.He does NOT straighten his arm and that is final. But next time we will cope with whatever he chucks down. Or bowls down rather(freudian slip) ps... have the selectors forgotten Matty Elliot??
Posted by: Brett Pee | 27 December 2003 at 21:06