THE BATTIFICATION OF ST MATTHEW

Homer links to Rebecca Wilson in the Sydney Telegraph:

Cricket Australia bow to bullies

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.

Can I just mention that Homer runs the excellent Indian cricket blog: My Two Cents. Naturally, he's on the flip side of pretty much everything written here. But it's not just rabid Hindi - How's that for ya, Boo? - ranting. It's a tight blog written from the enemy... sorry, opposition perspective. Just beware the enormous links.

Anyhoo, Rebecca Wilson.

Most of her article is fine: instead of getting all high and mighty with Hayden, CricAussie should have pulled him aside for a quiet word in his shell-like; CA should stop sucking up; and the Indians are sooks and squealers. "Humourless as a box of hammers" is a nice mixed metaphor, too. But I agree with Homer that the bit about the castes was dopey, although I'm not sure why I think that. Maybe because it doesn't matter whether Rollerboy is rich, poor, a member of India's "burgeoning middle class" or even a real and actual intemperate Sikh warrior. It looks more like she chucked that in to give the article intellectual backbone. It doesn't. Nor was I aware a bully's favourite line is "Nobody likes you". Although, you really have to concede it contains an element of truth in regard to Hayden; he's not popular with the opposition.

Strangest, though, is her beatification of St Matthew the Character.

Reverend Flatty is a fantastic cricketer, but he ain't no saint. If he was he would have made a sacrifice. That's what Saint's do: stick to their guns then get executed. Flatty obviously didn't have to go that far, but he could have owned his statement that Rollerboy is "an obnoxious weed" because Rollerboy IS an obnoxious weed, and everyone knows it. But no. Flatty allowed CA to force him into an apology.

Not that it was much of an apology. Not that it was much of an offence; more one of time and place - discretion, if you like - than what was actually said. But it was your typical sporting apology: "I called him a cvnt, his mum a whore, his dad a faggot, his country a shithole... I didn't mean to hurt his feelings."

On second thoughts, maybe the sacrifice was to look like a goose on telly reading from a prepared statement.

Wouldn't it have been magnificent if, just once, a professional sportsman stood his digs and said "Hang on, this bloke is a fair dinkum dead shit. Barley Charley on your apology."

Comments

[Boo]

>> But I agree with Homer that the bit about the castes was dopey, although I'm not sure why I think that.

Perhaps because the comment is
a) incredibly irrelevant to the topic
b) laughably untrue and
c) reflects an infantile grasp of the realities of Indian society.

If Rebecca Wilson - I was about to say pulled her head out of her ass, but I'll be more charitable - stopped deriving her current affairs knowledge from her high-school history textbook, and actually bothered to pick up a newspaper (apart from the one she is paid to write rubbish for) from the last 25 years, she would know that India's aggressive affirmative action policy has turned the caste system on its head.

[carneagles]

Is this Clumsy Caste System Analogy Week or something?

[Tony T]

Boo: Thanks for the extra detail. The reason I said I wasn't sure is that I really don't know much about Indian society, and I was pretty sure Wilson had no idea, either.

Carn: It might be Clumsy Analogy Week at the Beeb, but I agree with "(Insert name here) has exhibited talent, wealth and boorishness. He is clearly destined for a great future in a greatly changed game."

[13th Man]

Funny, Boo, but my best mate is ethnically Indian (which would surprise you, no doubt) and both he and his family reckon the system is alive and well, and that any policy to the contrary is just window dressing.
Having said that, Wilson clearly ballsed up here. However, I inrepreted her reference as an extremely awkward attempt to link the broader caste system with an hierarchy that places sportsmen above reproach (which doesn't just happen in India, of course), and at the pinnacle of society. Awkward - yes. Unnecessary - yes. However, her broader point is pertinent: MaakiBoy is apparently above reproach purely because he plays for India (but just as obviously, it's been OK for them to insult various Australians and that's somehow OK).

[Boo]

>> my best mate is ethnically Indian (which would surprise you, no doubt) and both he and his family reckon the system is alive and well, and that any policy to the contrary is just window dressing.

13th Man, often the best way to make somebody realize something instead of a long and torturous debate is to provide an analogy couched in a frame of reference the hearer is familiar with.

In that spirit, let me leave you with this koan:

My best (imaginary) mate is ethnically Aboriginal Australian and both he and his family reckon the White Australia system is alive and well, and that any policy to the contrary is just window dressing.

[St. pat the Appeaser]

Come now my children, on this 4th day of Lent let us rest our disputes and sup together on this feast day in joy, benevolence and much imbibing to maketh glad our hearts.

Boo is correct. The Caste system, like Masonry, is more an unspoken agreement of handshakes and subtle winks while all the while legislated affirmative action has made mandatory incompetence the law of the Indian land.

DoS was very un-Christian like in calling Beatific Bhaji those terrible names. We all know the BCCI and her team are more like "whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead [men's] bones, and of all uncleanness." and "Even so ye [the Indian team] also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." There, that's more Christian like.

So let us trouble not our hearts with all this dissention and quarrelsomeness. Gather up your ploughshares and beat them into swords. Come, let us march on Mumbai to spread the Good News!

[pat patron of the ponderous]

Please forgive me my brethren, that should have read "4th Sunday of Lent". I offer this blog my blessings In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen

[pat]

Crookinfo: "Oh, you could watch replays of that Ishant wicket all day, quality ball" No mention that each replay shows it missed the bat by a country mile. And, where's the hot spot? They showed it for a boundary by Gilly but not Pup's not out. All we get is a belated Snicko, again showing the only edge was front pad and no bat.

Tawny doesn't verbally concede but rather castigates Pup for indicating to the ump (prior to being given) that the ball hit the pad no bat.

Oh well. That's cricket. You won't read about it in the papers of course. Oh, unless the Indian's get a dodgy one. Then we'll hear nothing but bitching and moaning for days.

[pat]

Roy middles on for 4 and Lawry's waiting for Leg Byes. Geez, Chappeli's daughter could commentate better than these mongas.

[13th Man]

Boo, truly thou art a dickhead.
Now, I really couldn't give a toss if you believe I happen to have a Sikh mate (who incidentally, along with those of his family that I know, considers MaaKi Boy a coward for hiding behind team management and not just backing himself and accepting the consequences of his 'intemperate' - cheers Spanky - actions). Nevertheless, nice attempt to divert attention from the central point of discussion: the caste system.
As it happens, my mate is a Sikh by way of another Commonwealth nation (you currymunchers do get about, don't you?), so he admittedly has nothing but contempt for Hindus and their grotesque caste system anyway - but I believe him. Unfortunately, I also have to have many more dealings with members of the Hindu community here than I want, and personal observation indicates that they are a bunch of elitist arseholes - particulalry toward Indians (generally FOBs) that they deem below them. Due to my own social 'postition', those Indians that I know are generally self-described as 'higher-caste'. They, too, often try to claim that there is no longer a caste system - then collectively shoot themselves in the foot by actively discriminating against those they consider below them. These generally being of darker complexion and 'lower birth' (but there is no caste system, of course).
Just because it may have been legislated against doesn't mean it is gone, just because wankers like you claim it doesn't exist doesn't mean it doesn't exist - there is far too much evidence to the contrary, I'm afraid.

[CL's blog is Back]

The Australian team are the world Champs went it comes to abuse of the other team.

Until they change no on will ever take them seriously re behaviour of other teams.

Are the present team so stupid as to not to recognise that every player that gets up their nose merely are aping their behaviour.

Mathew Hayden obviously doesn't understnd the queen's english if he thought he was innocent.

Here is a thought. why not play cricket as it is supposed to be played without any abuse, show opponents some respect.
Australian parents would be greatly relieved.
Cricket may even get to be enjoyable again.

pray tell me which will be heard of in 100 years time.

Andrew Flintoff congratulating a very brave Brett Lee or Symonds, Singh, Ponting and Hayden?

No I do not have a blog

[Homer]

13th Man,

" 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."

is what Ms Wilson says of Harbhajan Singh.

So here's a request - could you please ask your Sikh friend of the casteism practiced by them?

[Boo]

>>I really couldn't give a toss if you believe

As pat might say, in his best Queen's Danish - 'the lady protesteth too much, methinks.'

I wasn't doubting your best mate story 13th Man. (though I'd invite him on here for a bit of a dekko himself to test your mateship a tad). The object of my White Australia analogy was to let you get a flavour of the following implicits:

a) That discrimination exists everywhere and right-thinking people are ashamed of it.
b) That for the major part it is not practised any more, certainly not in an institutionalised fashion. (In today's India's case, if anything, the reverse)
c) That those who were discriminated against in the past have long memories and grievances that will perhaps take centuries of affirmative action (and just plain doing-the-right-thing) to erase - and then some.
d) That any measures taken to address past sins may be viewed with cynicism and suspicion by cynics.
e) That there will always be racists and segregationists who are products of nothing but their own vile prejudices.
f) Finally, that for some, nothing will ever be enough.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. The *captain* (for f*s sake) of the current team is a 'lower' caste. To reduce complex social realities to a moronic punchline and use them in a completely irrelevant context - like Wilson did - is just dirt-poor journalism.

Btw all your gratuitous abuse apart, screw you for making me commit the unpardonable sin of explaining a koan. Because of you, I'm now forever condemned to the Failed Zen Masters' Hell, where I will listen forever to the sound of my one hand clapping. Bastard.

[pat]

For the record, I agree with DoS, Bhaji is an annoying little weed. I'd put him on a par with Steve Burns of "Blues Clues". Every time he thanks me for watching I reflexively clench my fist and have an overwhelming desire to punch out the TV screen.

[jop]

Yep, DoS is indeed spot on, Roller Boy is an obnoxious little weed. Though I' be tempted to use a slightly stronger word than weed. He's also clearly a coward and a racist pig.

[Bruce]

TLM removes one void from his record. Small things can turn matches. He was a bee's proverbial from chopping on in about the third over - but instead has played one heck of an innings.

[Russ]

What a stupid discussion.

Tony was right in his post, 'Dos is an on-field c*nt. He is in good company, including but not limited to pretty much every Australian captain for the past 40 years, most of the test players, first class players, and grade players, and every foul-mouthed, insecure, child who plays competitive cricket after the age of 40. Hayden isn't some role model for sledging, he is the product of a cricketing culture where sledging opponents is so common you either learn to like it and do it, or you don't play.

Which is not to say that other countries aren't as bad. Even a brief perusal of the past few decades of international cricket digs up a plethora of distasteful bat waving, ground standing, rule-bending, dropped catch claiming, crowd abusing (and bruising), sledging and braggadocio. Every single test nation has and has had c*nts playing for it.

That's the way the game is. Most professional sports are similar. Some set some basic ground rules. There is no point engaging in an endless bitch session about the "Australian manner". If you want run penalties for audible obscenities, and bans for racism, bigotry and outright abuse, then good. But you also need to support the authorities taking a hard line. There is no will to do so, not at the ICC, not at Cricket Australia and not at the BCCI. Send your complaints there. I'm bored of the topic.