4th Test at the Gabba, Brisbane, 15 - 19 Jan 2021

[GoodAreasShane]

And as for Turnbull, who tf ever thought he knew anything about any sport? Should stick with what he knows, like 18th century french poetry. Or classical harpsichord music

 

[Senile Sentry]

re starc vs johnson

there's this too

think johnson was straight up just stronger as a bowler

pics:

View attachment 26969View attachment 26970

also a funny bit of info

if you google mitchell starc shirtless, the first result is johnson shirtless lmao

Bumrah looks yummy.

 

[Smudge49]

I think this misses just how intense and overwhelming the public anger and backlash was in the immediate aftermath of the news breaking, well before CA had even so much as responded officially. That Whateley SEN talkback program that morning, for example, was absolutely white-hot, tons of people wanted all three banned for life. Even Turnbull weighed in, sponsors were dropping etc etc. I don't really regard this version of events as especially plausible.

CA was indeed looking out for themselves, but only in the sense that there was a serious risk that the bottom was about to fall out of CA's entire sponsorship and thus revenue structure, such was the level of public outrage at the time. That the opposition captain had actually been caught and punished twice before for the same offence was totally missed by the broader public.

Shahid Afridi captain of Pakistan was caught on camera munching into a cricket ball like an apple during a game in Australia, can't recall Pakistan cricket board making him do a press conference and admitting he did it with an intention to cheat and his senior players were also aware about it, same with Du Plessis.

Cricket Australia antagonised their own players, by throwing them in front the press and making them admit their guilt in great detail. Such embarrassing public admissions were only reserved for players admitting their guilt to match-fixing before this incident.

Without creating such public hate against them, there is no way Cricket Australia could have banned these guys for a whole year, for an offense for which max punishment is a ban of one game according to ICC rules.

 

[Gnske]

TBF in regards to throwing them in front of the press (at the end of play after it initially happened), I don't think anyone in that dressing room staff or players alike had any understanding of just how the reaction would be and how bad just owning it in the hope of absolution would look. Must have thought the risk of throwing themselves under the bus wasn't that great.

In short, I don't think CA threw them under the bus in that case. The press conferences thereafter however were utterly needlessly humiliating.

 

[Shri]

yeah **** ca for that smith interview where there were tears

**** off

 

[Starfighter]

The level of outrage was absolutely stupendous, especially considering how trivial it was compared to some of the political outrages that have cropped up and gone over the years (heck, the whole past four years was just a Donald Trump hate boner from a large portion of the media). I can't remember anything quite like it. And like just about all media outrages, they'd moved on in a week and a half. I do wonder where the people who called for life bans get the idea that it was proportionate from. (And I'll be unpopular for saying this, but the same goes for those here who were calling for them for the person who abused Siraj). I still see blow ins elsewhere on the internet (aside from non-Australian trolls) saying they should have got life bans.

I must say it's that sort of thing which makes me question just how popular cricket actually is, or certainly the public's understanding of it. I hate people who abstract games into something holy. It's entertainment for ****'s sake.

TBF in regards to throwing them in front of the press (at the end of play after it initially happened), I don't think anyone in that dressing room staff or players alike had any understanding of just how the reaction would be and how bad just owning it in the hope of absolution would look. Must have thought the risk of throwing themselves under the bus wasn't that great.

There is one thing very unfortunate with today's ability to confect media outage. Admissions and apologies are signals to attack, not to stand back and calm down. Add in the way it was done and you could only get, well, what happened.

 

[jimmy101]

Dunno what made me lose faith in society more, the overreaction to sandpapergate or the toilet paper panic buying from last year. Humans are derelict as it gets.

 

[OverratedSanity]

@Starfighter you really had to throw the Siraj thing in didn't you?

Agree with the rest of your post. The reason guys like afridi get away with it is exactly that. Him and the Pcb treated it like what it was... a minor transgression in a game. Australia's reaction was as expected as it was over the top. Too many people in the system bought into the idea of the game being way more important than it is. And they always have done.

 

[Senile Sentry]

@Starfighter you really had to throw the Siraj thing in didn't you?

Agree with the rest of your post. The reason guys like afridi get away with it is exactly that. Him and the Pcb treated it like what it was... a minor transgression in a game. Australia's reaction was as expected as it was over the top. Too many people in the system bought into the idea of the game being way more important than it is. And they always have done.

Yeah lame to bring Siraj conversation into it.

 

[Gnske]

There is one thing very unfortunate with today's ability to confect media outage. Admissions and apologies are signals to attack, not to stand back and calm down.

Oh sure, like even I'll admit I criticized Smith harshly for how he handled it, particularly in handing the first part of that presser into the hands of Bancroft to explain the whole fiasco. But you know, they're just human beings under pressure really. I can flip a coin at the best of times as to how I react under pressure with barely anyone looking. Just unfortunate all around.

Unfortunately, doesn't prevent the same reaction happening next time (I dare say I'll be dead before they're caught again) thanks to all the tripe that came thereafter in the name of preserving the high moral ground upon which Australian cricket is alleged to lay. No damage done to the precious jewel if you react enough to it.

 

[Starfighter]

Yeah lame to bring Siraj conversation into it.

He who has no sin can cast the first stone. Fact is people can blow something out of proportion if it's an issue they feel strongly about, and seeing people opining here when they did the same just a couple of weeks ago shows a certain lack of self reflection.

 

[honestbharani]

View attachment 26974

Pfft. Others are Alphas till the real Alpha arrive.

Alpha Pav.

 

[quincywagstaff]

It's always been in Oz cricket's interests to have this level of pretension about it as even though other sports are popular in certain parts of the country, cricket is perceived as THE most significant team sport in the nation.

There are a lot of benefits to that and that's why the cricket establishment have only been too happy to intermingle with the political class - whether it be John Howard and Mark Taylor chumming around in the late 90s, having the PM commentate during the Sydney Test, the very concept of a PM XI - all these CA have allowed because it gave their sport a status that no other sport in Oz did.

Of course the big downside of treating cricket as like a reflection of the national psyche is that when Sandpapergate, total hysteria occurs because media, government and public treat it like Australia's international standing has been damaged and people must be punished.

 

[Starfighter]

Don't forget that we almost turned the 32/33 Ashes into a diplomatic incident.

Why people think that sports scandals matter, especially what should have been a small one like that, baffles me. It's not like we were cutting off trade relations with Europe or something. While there are quite a few cricket mad places it's not something that would have affected any their daily lives. Sure the English press might have attacked, but not like the 99.95% of the UK who don't watch cricket would care.

 

[Senile Sentry]

He who has no sin can cast the first stone. Fact is people can blow something out of proportion if it's an issue they feel strongly about, and seeing people opining here when they did the same just a couple of weeks ago shows a certain lack of self reflection.

Siraj s case was an inexcusable one and in an ideal civilised world would lead to criminal action on the perpetrator. But the guy gets away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Anyway credit to Indian team and board, and particularly Siraj, not to spend more time on pursuing what was inherently a lost cause and instead divert it all to their cricket

 

[sunilz]

Siraj s case was an inexcusable one and in an ideal civilised world would lead to criminal action on the perpetrator. But the guy gets away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Anyway credit to Indian team and board, and particularly Siraj, not to spend more time on pursuing what was inherently a lost cause and instead divert it all to their cricket

Siraj statement just now

 

[Spark]

He who has no sin can cast the first stone. Fact is people can blow something out of proportion if it's an issue they feel strongly about, and seeing people opining here when they did the same just a couple of weeks ago shows a certain lack of self reflection.

This is a really terrible take IMO given that the immediate media reaction was to concoct a manifestly absurd story that Siraj was mad about being told "welcome to Sydney".

Racial abuse and racism is also a fair bit bigger a concern to broader society than ball-tampering in a cricket game, and on the flipside being banned from watching games of cricket at one stadium is a trivial punishment compared to being publicly humiliated and being banned from a sport that you play at the highest level for a long time, perhaps even life. It's not as if the people in question were publicly identified and targeted.

It's a really bad false equivalence.

 

[Smudge49]

TBF in regards to throwing them in front of the press (at the end of play after it initially happened), I don't think anyone in that dressing room staff or players alike had any understanding of just how the reaction would be and how bad just owning it in the hope of absolution would look. Must have thought the risk of throwing themselves under the bus wasn't that great.

In short, I don't think CA threw them under the bus in that case. The press conferences thereafter however were utterly needlessly humiliating.

Mate.... there are media managers, social media teams, press handlers with the squad at all times.

Even if the players were naive enough to not know how quickly this whole thing escalated, surely those guys knew.

Back in the day, if Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were made to sit in a press conference and admit how ashamed they were to have shared information with bookmakers for a quick buck, pretty sure the townfolk would have encircled them with pitchforks.

 

[h_hurricane]

Perhaps not mentioned earlier, Sir Ravindra Jadeja averaged 85 with the bat and 15 with the ball in this epic series, along with that ATG run out of Smith.

Arise Sir RJ !

 

[Senile Sentry]

Perhaps not mentioned earlier, Sir Ravindra Jadeja averaged 85 with the bat and 15 with the ball in this epic series, along with that ATG run out of Smith.

Arise Sir RJ !

So much domination that nobody could average even the difference between his batting and bowling average in the series.

#JustJadejaThings