
Issue No 16		04 June 1999

Sport

Aussie Bastardry - A Kiwi Responds

By Noel Hester

Steve Waugh is the latest Australian cricket leader - !!!!!!!! - who just doesn't get it. Winning unscrupulously isn't worth a crock of shit. Who has any respect for a cricketing giant like Australia beating a minnow like New Zealand using the disgusting tactics of the West Indies game?

'Waugh forces changes to system. Rules gave Australia no choice,' propagandised the Daily Terror in classic Goebbels-speak the next day. The real headline should have been 'Waugh fixes match.'

But wooah, a bit touchy that. We've already been through that one once this year.

The Australians have been let off the hook with the focus on the flaws in the tournament rules. These rules were framed, not unreasonably, with the assumption that elite internationals would be trying their best to win cleanly.

The Australians now look like the dodgy tax accountants of world cricket - looking for loopholes, cooking the figures and totally immoral. All legal but not a good look and lacking in class. (When you think about it Steve Waugh's got the personality of an accountant. Just like Shane Warne's got the personality of a bookie.)

The saddest thing about all this is one day cricket just isn't worth it - even the World Cup. Let's face it - the underarm match was probably the only unforgettable one day game ever. The rest of them just blend together like individual notes in a bad ABBA tune.

Even sadder is what this sort of behaviour does to great cricketers. History despises them. It overwhelms the sublime performances. They are remembered as an embarrassment. Ask Greg Chappell. He (and Australia) still hasn't lived down the underarm skullduggery of TWENTY years ago.

The underarm, the sledging - choo choo - the bookie's weathermen and now winning by wides. There's only one thing left in this spiral from unscrupulous to irredeemable.

Step up Don King, the manager's job is waiting.

Footnote:

Declaration of interest time. I'm a Kiwi. And if they'd done the same thing they'd equally be deserving of contempt.

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  Issue 16 contents

Interview: Opening Australia
Lindsay Tanner talks about new ideas, new policy and new politics in the Information Age.

Unions: An Educated Fightback
A visiting US trade unionist reveals how training better union delegates is the key to reversing the membership slide.

Legal: A Fair Case for Free-Rider Laws
The proposal to enable unions to charge non-members a service fee for negotiating enterprise agreements is consistent with the principle of freedom of association.

History: New Ideas in Labour History
See the latest from the May issue of Labour History, A Journal of Labour and Social History.

International: Tiananmen Square Ten Years On
We remember the massacre and the role that working people continue to play in fighting injustice.

Review: Organising Our Future - What Use the US??
A new paper looks at what Australian unions can learn from the experiences of their American colleagues.

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