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Journalism of Courage
Hubris. Defined as ‘overbearing pride or presumption, arrogance’. It is also one of the reasons why we celebrate the defeat of Australia at Antigua. We celebrate the West Indians’ win for many reasons but our joy at Australia’s defeat is down to pure hubris.
That’s the way they do it. Australia wouldn’t be as successful were it not for that fierce competitive streak, that desire to stub out every trace of opposition. It flows from their captain, Steve Waugh, and is reinforced in just about every member of the squad. The Aussies show no mercy, take no prisoners. And, when things go wrong, when the graph blips, Hard Aussie becomes Ugly Aussie. Ask Ramnaresh Sarwan, whose defiant century was rudely interrupted by Glenn McGrath’s finger-pointing indignation.
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Voices from Down Under
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McGrath’s gesture was a very natural Australian thing to do. If somebody did say something about his wife then I would understand fully his reaction. There seems to be some debate as to who started (it) and who said what but anybody who says something about somebody’s wife who’s had cancer, that’s pretty bad and I can understand a man defending his wife. I would, I’m sure you would, and it’s a very natural Australian thing to do. Regardless of the result, the Australians have done nothing to enhance their reputations as sportsmen. If victory cannot be achieved without recourse to the sort of antagonism seen in Antigua then it is not worth bothering about. Cricket searched for a champion team and found only an unscrupulous aggressor. |
The jury’s still out on what Sarwan said but, although two wrongs don’t make a right, McGrath and his teammates will do well to put it in perspective; for help, they can ask just about any opposing batsman who has been subjected to sledging — or what Waugh prefers to call ‘mental disintegration’. When the Aussies do it, there are rarely any limits.
The sledging becomes particularly nasty when the team is heading to defeat (though that’s a rarity). When Australia were last heading towards defeat, against England at Sydney last winter, Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist were disciplined for indiscipline.
Aussie coach John Buchanan has admitted that Australians can’t handle losing too well. ‘‘It happens to us occasionally when either individuals or the other side basically confronts us in a sense of challenging the emotions of the players and…we tend to lose our composure’’, he said yesterday. Essentially, what he implied was that they can’t handle it when people stick it up to them. Not the mark of champions.
The West Indies were almost as successful in their winning years but were were loads more fun to watch and were fallible, thanks to an intermittent desire to self-destruct. Yet when they did self-destruct, and they did so spectacularly on the biggest stage of all 20 years ago, it was without any rancour or pouting; a shrug of the shoulders, a puzzled look on the face was all that interrupted the perpetual party.
That’s why the neutrals, who can’t forget their feats of 25-odd years ago, wept for West Indian cricket in its darkest days and are smiling now. There’s no reason to believe, yet, that the Aussies are heading for a fall — they are too good for that. But one day, as with all sporting eras, this one too will end. And 20 years after it does I, for one, will not wax nostalgic about their heydays.
