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***Official*** Australia in South Africa 2018

Burgey

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Haha, this is complete and utter crap. Honestly, it is. Know how I know? Through the 90s and 2000s, there was great respect for Australian sides. During the 16 in a row, the World Cup wins, we respected those great cricketers. They played hard and well, much harder and better than the current crop and without the absolute douche baggery that Warner leads but Lyon, Starc, Smith also get involved in, and obviously Haddin decided to make a hallmark of his time. There's few more respected cricketers in this country than Allan Border, who scored runs for fun against us. Ditto Ponting, Warne, McGrath etc. Yeah we booed them etc but as you did with Hadlee, it was a sign of respect. So this 'tall poppy' thing or whatever, it's laughable. Mundine trots that crap out too, ignoring the fact that plenty of great sportsmen higher on the tree than him are adored and respected. But hey, if it helps you sleep at night I guess.

Are Australians lucky? No. Are they cheaters? Not generally. Are they bad people....
Rose tinted glasses here mate. The side Steve Waugh led was horrendous on the sledging front. Far worse than any Australian side since.
 

SteveNZ

Cricketer Of The Year
Rose tinted glasses here mate. The side Steve Waugh led was horrendous on the sledging front. Far worse than any Australian side since.
Maybe you're right, personal stuff though? My memory doesn't serve in that sense. Perhaps social media means it gets more of an airtime nowadays. Point stands on this 'tall poppy' clap trap though. That's always been a convenient excuse for sportspeople, like KP/Warner or someone like Mundine to justify behaviours. Then I look at someone like Federer or Kelly Slater, who have very few detractors and wonder why they're not dragged down.
 

Burgey

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Sledging has been going on for decades. Not defending it or condoning it, but it has. I’ve personally never seen the need for it, but obviously I’ve not played at anything like the top level.

There’s some weird **** gets said. Problem is most people aren’t sharp enough to reply in a way which both shuts the protagonist up and which makes the other bloke the object of laughter, like Ormond famously did to Waugh.

My own approach was always never to say anything unless someone said something to me, then I’d unleash hell. I can’t recall anyone ever taking pit shots at family though, in over 40 years of playing.
 

Arachnodouche

International Captain
Umpires ought to grow some balls/be given some authority to take immediate action too. Send players off the ground like in football, make teams play with a handicap. I mean, if you're going to tolerate sledging in the game, at least make it more relevant to the ebb and flow of the game.
 

TheJediBrah

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Oops, thought the stats I replied to were from you.

There's always a bias of some sort, whether or not it was intended. My selection bias in the op (intentionally) was choosing bats 3-6. Yours was choosing 4-7, and more particularly which bowlers you have selected.
4-7 logically makes more sense than 3-6. Why would you leave out no. 7 when analysing bowling the the middle order? Nonsensical. And no.3 comes out against the new ball very regularly.

You've picked the a bowler from each side known to be threats upfront and containing but not incisive in the middle plus Morkel.

You've left out kg, the best middle overs bowler from RSA (44.4% 4-7 wickets). Plus Cummins, the best from AUS (41.3%). Plus Marsh (57.6%). Starc does not look too good against the middle when you swap out the three you have picked for the other 3 that were playing.
Again, no. I didn't use Rabada or Cummins because they were change bowlers and (with Cummins at least) have usually been change bowlers, so of course they're going to have a higher percentage of middle order wickets compared to Starc. I picked other opening bowlers to compare to Starc, who also plays mostly as an opening bowler. (I think Morkel has been a change bowler a lot, but he opened this game which is why I chose him)

There was no bias here, stop trying to look for one because you'll get shot down every time. You're entire argument was based on a false assumption, just accept it and move on.
 
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TheJediBrah

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Important to note though that the stats we're working with are just the percentage of wickets taken, which is not directly how well they bowl against each batting position.

Ideally if we could get stats for bowling averages against each position (ie. runs scored by the batsmen as well as wickets taken) it would be more indicative. Again I would be surprised if Starc's was much different to other fast bowlers, but we might see a more pronounced difference between the lower order and top/middle order in terms of average against him.
 

Gnske

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Umpires ought to grow some balls/be given some authority to take immediate action too. Send players off the ground like in football, make teams play with a handicap. I mean, if you're going to tolerate sledging in the game, at least make it more relevant to the ebb and flow of the game.
Well they can send people off the field for unseemly behaviour now, I don't think namedropping a family member will quite cut the meat on that front.

It would take some Border-Gavaskar Trophy shenanigans for them to get involved.
 

quincywagstaff

International Debutant
I don’t know how anyone could argue that such controversies are atypical of Australian sides of recent decades; in fact, quite the opposite. Going by the modern captains:

Allan Border - Their 1991 tour of West Indies was notorious for abrasive behaviour by both sides. Merv Hughes was the Dave Warner of his day, unapologetically being in the face and antagonistic ofr the opposition; once he was accused of spitting in the vicinity of an opposing batsman. Border himself was fined in a Test for abusing umpires at the end of a tense Test match
And then there was Oz’s first tour post-readmission of South Africa which generated major headlines here with Merv’s confrontation with a spectator and Warne’s sendoff of Andrwe Hudson (iirc the Oz board actually increased the fines they initially got from the match referee).

Mark Taylor – His side was probably the best behaved; they had their moments (like against the West Indies and Lara in Perth in 1996/97) but generally they stayed out of controversy. I think the only player to get sanctioned by the match referee under Taylor’s tenure was Glenn McGrath for his abuse of Alan Mullally in the Melbourne 1998/99 Test

Steve Waugh – Certainly for all their success their on-field behaviour was a big source of criticism under his tenure. Only two incidents really became major controversies – the Slater/Dravid 2001 dustup and McGrath/Sarwan but Australia’s aggressive demeanour and Waugh’s unapologetic use of it was an issue for many.

Ricky Ponting – Obviously the India 07/08 SCG Test was probably the biggest modern controversy of all which is still debated today (and even in this thread), but overall I don’t think the sides under Ponting behaved that badly. Ponting himself could lose the plot a bit (with umpires as well as players) and there was idiotic events like Watson’s behaviour after dismissing Gayle in a WACA Test (and then still trying to justify it afterwards) but weren’t in controversy too often I thought

Michael Clarke – With Warner in the side from early in Clarke’s tenure, on-field incidents were fairly regular under his tenure. But things ramped up when Lehmann came on board with a conscious effort to be more aggressive on-field, leading to the 2013/14 series v England and SA with ‘broken f***arm’, the ‘pack of dogs’ allegation and various others.
 

quincywagstaff

International Debutant
The thing about all these incidents is that while many claim they’re essential to Australia’s on-field success, in this match at least when they started occurring Oz played their poorest cricket of the match.

When ABDV was run out, Australia were totally dominant and on the verge of humiliating South Africa. From that moment and Warner’s reaction, they seemed to lose the plot as evidenced by Starc in the middle session seeming to want to engage in verbals instead of getting wickets and it can’t be entirely coincidental that Australia had their worst hour of the match post-Tea after having to deal with Warner’s meltdown.

Australia eventually got things back on track but they let South Africa get some respect and self-belief out of the game when they could’ve mentally destroyed him and QDK managing to play his best knock in ages could be crucial for the rest of the series.
 

GotSpin

Hall of Fame Member
The thing about all these incidents is that while many claim they’re essential to Australia’s on-field success, in this match at least when they started occurring Oz played their poorest cricket of the match.

When ABDV was run out, Australia were totally dominant and on the verge of humiliating South Africa. From that moment and Warner’s reaction, they seemed to lose the plot as evidenced by Starc in the middle session seeming to want to engage in verbals instead of getting wickets and it can’t be entirely coincidental that Australia had their worst hour of the match post-Tea after having to deal with Warner’s meltdown.

Australia eventually got things back on track but they let South Africa get some respect and self-belief out of the game when they could’ve mentally destroyed him and QDK managing to play his best knock in ages could be crucial for the rest of the series.
I reckon old Lehmann has a bit to answer for this kind of stupidity
 

JBMAC

State Captain
I don't suppose any one on here has considered the whole incident was " a put up job" to help to increase attendances. Yes it may have gone a bit too far but consider it. Attendances are down and what sparks more national pride than your side being "picked on". People will go to next test just to see what happens and to boo Warner and any other aussie. Just a thought worth conjecture.
 

Burgey

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A false flag operation? Could be but I think unlikely overall.

Probably the best way to clamp down on poor player behaviour would be something brought in at my old association. That is, if a player gets suspended for their behaviour, prima facile the captain gets the same suspension. The skipper has the opportunity to defend himself by putting forward what he did to defuse the situation/ bring his player into line etc. but unless the panel is convinced he did all he reasonably could, he gets the same penalty.
 

MagicPoopShovel

U19 12th Man
I'd be interested to get everyone's views on getting a yellow card/red card type of process involved in cricket. Give the umpires some authority to give a formal warning to players - like we do with running on the pitch - 2 warnings and you miss the next game sort of thing. I think it will help defuse it at the root during the game and the captain and the rest of the team will police it on their own from there.

Obviously this particular incident seems to have happened out of the the playing arena so this is where the Match ref gets involved. I think Warner should be banned for 1 game. Whatever QDK said you simply cannot have this sort of thing going on which remians unchecked.

Like the idea Burgey has put forward too. The captian should always be held responsible for this stuff.
 

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Honestly I'm not defending Warner here but I don't think any player should be charged for non- criminal stuff that happens in the dressing room out of the public eye.

The leaking of the footage is the real problem here.

Completely different story if Warner actually assaulted qdk though.
 

MagicPoopShovel

U19 12th Man
I agree leaked footage stuff is a problem. Do we know when the exchange actually began? From the clip it looked like Warner got triggered pretty much when the clip started. I can only think that the two were jousting while walking off the field and up the stairs and QDK dropped whatever line he did to get Warner riled up. This is why I think we should not tolerate this sort of crap even if it happened outside of the ground..it's hard to draw a line on when something started in these situations. Hence why I think it should be snipped on the ground by the umpires if possible.
 

quincywagstaff

International Debutant
Footage has gotten released showing the players walking off for tea where Warner is calling QDK a "f***ing sook"; so presumably that triggered a QDK response and it all disintegrated from there.

As an aside in that link, Robert Craddock calls QDK "a really simple lad". I think he means it sympathetically, but Craddock quite often seems to define cricketers from certain parts of the world in patronising and condescending terms.
 

Spark

Global Moderator
This is classic SteveNZ


Yeah we're all bad people. What an idiot
Never forget how bouncing a tailender first ball is tantamount criminal, but only on one specific occasion where it happens to be an Australian bowler doing it.
 

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