“Cheer up, things could be worse” they said, so we cheered up and sure enough, things did get worse.
Four Aussie cricketers on the Indian tour dropped for failing to complete their PowerPoint assignments on time.
Update: From Radio 2GB, Shane “Watto” Watson is reported to be on the way to the airport to come back to Sydney. So the vice-captain is taking his bat and going home!
Not a good move by a vice-captain. Perhaps he will rethink at the airport and go back. He must have contractual obligations that he will breach if he keeps going.
Good to see Cricket Australia has its priorities right. Compliance with make work management tasks is so much more important than all that batting, bowling and fielding stuff that players normally get to do.
Sinclair Davidson
11 Mar 13 at 8:12 pm
If the other players had any balls they would refuse to play.
Fred
11 Mar 13 at 8:15 pm
Oh for goodness’ sake.
Are these people for real? The idea is to hit a ball with a bat and then make runs. Lots of runs.
Just let them do it.
nilk
11 Mar 13 at 8:15 pm
I hope coach took away all their good behaviour gold stars too
JamesK
11 Mar 13 at 8:18 pm
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sack-Mickey-Arthur-and-John-Inverarity/573012202711037
for you facebookers
Yobbo
11 Mar 13 at 8:22 pm
The team hasn’t played well since Katich justifiably grasped Clarke by the throat. Clarke’s a very good batsman but not a Captains arsehole. I hope the selectors resign in protest at the power given to the couch and the child king Clarke.
jumpnmcar
11 Mar 13 at 8:30 pm
I agree with the sanctions. The coach set some work down for the players to do individually. Most of the squad did and some didn’t, so they are in effect making themselves bigger than the team. Just like when James O’Connor decided that he didn’t need to front up to a team photo and got suspended by the ARU.
tbh
11 Mar 13 at 8:31 pm
He’s a terrific captain tactically. Whether or not he’s a good leader of men I couldn’t say.
tbh
11 Mar 13 at 8:32 pm
Some pseudo-psychological corporate management bullshit. This is a cricket team.
Yobbo
11 Mar 13 at 8:35 pm
Doesn’t matter does it? Why would they be any different to any other group of professionals?
tbh
11 Mar 13 at 8:38 pm
Will Al Gore open or come in at first drop?
Grant B
11 Mar 13 at 8:38 pm
Because they are athletes, not clerks.
The only homework they need to be doing is training in the nets.
Yobbo
11 Mar 13 at 8:39 pm
No, he’s not.
jumpnmcar
11 Mar 13 at 8:39 pm
Is this a joke?
C.L.
11 Mar 13 at 8:40 pm
This is a cricket team.
Not if some decide they are above the team and are too precious to toe the line.
1735099
11 Mar 13 at 8:41 pm
I think he is because he takes the game on and usually goes for the more aggressive option. He’s a much better captain than the bloke before him IMHO.
tbh
11 Mar 13 at 8:41 pm
Failing to turn up for a team photo probably meant that the shot had to be re-scheduled, a nuisance and probably worth a fine rather than suspension. That was an over-reaction as well, but not as silly as this effort.
Poor Old Rafe
11 Mar 13 at 8:43 pm
Pro sport is more than just that now. The game is as much mental as it is physical and if you aren’t analysing your own as well as the other teams performance then you’re only doing half the job.
tbh
11 Mar 13 at 8:43 pm
Rafe, I disagree with that and the reason why is that there is a generation of young sportsmen who seem to think that they are above team rules and that they run the place. O’Connor, Quade Cooper et al are prime examples. They aren’t the bosses and occasionally a marker needs to be set down.
tbh
11 Mar 13 at 8:45 pm
The coach asked the players how he should coach, and they didn’t, so sack the player?
Ask yourself if the best coaches in any sport would do that.
And how many Captains would condone it?
Answer none and none.
jumpnmcar
11 Mar 13 at 8:46 pm
I can’t imagine anything like that happening in a company. Certainly not in any I worked in or managed. You don’t treat people like schoolchildren.
Australian cricket is in deep deep trouble.
ken n
11 Mar 13 at 8:50 pm
Pardon my ignorance of cricket…
Dropped from the Indian tour?
The ‘Gorillas’ will decide that result…
Forester
11 Mar 13 at 8:50 pm
ROFL, it is the coach who should be writing their training plans, not the players…
Cricket Australia is going down hill badly…
mundi
11 Mar 13 at 8:51 pm
A cricket team is like any other collective. The individuals don’t matter, it’s the collective that counts. Obedience is important. They deserve what they got – actually very light punishment. They should have been sent home and suspended for six months at least.
hammygar
11 Mar 13 at 8:55 pm
Probably more than you might think. It’s customary for sporting teams to have debrief sessions that may or may not involve the players to come prepared. So if three-quarters of the team decide to do it and one quarter don’t then isn’t that an issue for the minority group?
Now if all the players had revolted and decided that they weren’t doing it then you’d probably sack the coach because he’s lost them. That happens in footy teams all the time.
tbh
11 Mar 13 at 8:55 pm
lets have a referendum that allows us to pick our cricket team
NoFixedAddress
11 Mar 13 at 8:58 pm
Not all of us follow cricket.
So – is this a joke?
Is there a link?
C.L.
11 Mar 13 at 8:58 pm
Whoever is doing Hammy, stop it, it’s distracting ( sure, a little funny, but distracting )
jumpnmcar
11 Mar 13 at 9:03 pm
Another sport hit with the problems of “professionalism”.
Coaches aren’t actually capable of teaching the sport. AND don’t try. (Buchanan never actually coached.)
Players extending their careers so that they never need a real job.
Talented ex-players who could coach busy moving into the overpaid media.
Juniors with talent starting at the top levels at 30.
Looks good!
dismissive
11 Mar 13 at 9:05 pm
CL – here.
Sinclair Davidson
11 Mar 13 at 9:07 pm
Here if you don’t have a sub to the Australian.
Sinclair Davidson
11 Mar 13 at 9:08 pm
It’s a test match the coach is in the team box for days with the team.
And he needs feedback in written form ?
jumpnmcar
11 Mar 13 at 9:10 pm
How many hundred years has cricket been played, and they still don’t know how?
Biota
11 Mar 13 at 9:29 pm
can we appoint Cricket Australia to test the politicians?
NoFixedAddress
11 Mar 13 at 9:33 pm
Chappelli would have told them where to stick their powerpoint. Mickey Arthur is coaching for which team?
stackja
11 Mar 13 at 9:40 pm
It’s possible to engage in self-criticism without writing a fucking essay or powerpoint presentation about it.
Yobbo
11 Mar 13 at 9:40 pm
Perhaps Cricket Australia have been modelling their operations on the Commonwealth Government. That would explain the inexplicable.
Can you imagine Chappell, Border or Warne copping this sort of psycho-babble during their playing days?
Empire Strikes Back
11 Mar 13 at 9:43 pm
Imagine telling Doug Walters, Dennis Lillee or Keith Miller they had to hand in a report.
Infidel Tiger
11 Mar 13 at 9:44 pm
Here’s my presentation:
Sack the coach.
Sack the selectors.
Sack the board.
Infidel Tiger
11 Mar 13 at 9:47 pm
Lehmann and M. Waugh:
’’This has been the toughest decision that myself, manager Gavin Dovey and captain Michael Clarke have ever had to make.’’ Some former players were incredulous about the punishment.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/watson-heading-home-after-being-stood-down-for-third-test-20130311-2fw9i.html#ixzz2NE8nBFKq
Infidel Tiger
11 Mar 13 at 9:49 pm
Actually it doesn’t say anything about PowerPoint. It seems that they were told to write three points on what the should do better and had five days. That’s not an unreasonable request and I would sack staff who failed to comply.
Samuel J
11 Mar 13 at 9:50 pm
But they are not Walters, Lillee or Miller. They are a third rate amateur team. So it seems quite reasonable to kick them into shape. It they were playing like Walters, Lillee or Miller they wouldn’t have been asked to write three points because they would have won.
Samuel J
11 Mar 13 at 9:53 pm
Australian cricket has been on a downward spiral since 1948.
Samuel J
11 Mar 13 at 9:53 pm
Yeah if these blokes were of the standard that Lillee (the greatest fast bowler who ever drew breath to paraphrase Fred Trueman), Chappell (x2), Miller, Walters etc then we wouldn’t be in this predicament. At a couple of these blokes are not test standard IMHO (Watson and probably Johnson) but should know better. The others are young and will learn a hard lesson.
tbh
11 Mar 13 at 9:57 pm
I remember Keith Miller from my own childhood days and saw him play many times. He would come in to bat at 2/367 and deliberately go out first ball.
He wouldn’t have waited for the deadline to not comply with this type of instruction. He would have said immediately “shove it up your arse”, and go out and have a beer (or three).
He knew what pressure was – “it was a Messerschmitt up your arse” (OK you’ve all heard that a thousand times – but it still says it all about Keith).
whyisitso
11 Mar 13 at 10:01 pm
Actually, James Pattinson might be, if allowed to bowl and not spend his entire fucking life filling out forms.
Yobbo
11 Mar 13 at 10:01 pm
Sack Arthur – the man is a joke. Since Kawhaja and Johnson didn’t play in either of the first two tests, what possible ideas could they have to improve their performance?
Aynsley Kellow
11 Mar 13 at 10:02 pm
Pattinson’s the big loss they won’t miss the others.
sdfc
11 Mar 13 at 10:03 pm
Here’s mine.
1. Play a test match like a test match, not a ODI.
2. Selectors pick the team, coach coaches the team and picks captain, captain executes game plan on field and ad-libs when necessary.
3. Game plan concocted by coach and captain.
4 Sledge relentlessly on field.
5 Shut up off field.
jumpnmcar
11 Mar 13 at 10:04 pm
.
James Pattinson has 8 wickets in this series at an Average of 23.95. His test average and strike rate are world-class.
We have sacked one of the best bowlers in the world because he didn’t send an email to the megalomaniacal foreign coach.
Yobbo
11 Mar 13 at 10:06 pm
Three points? Gee that would be batting, bowling and fielding I guess. So not difficult to answer, but what’s the point?
Let’s not over complicate this. The selectors pick the best 11 and the team plays the match. Winning is fun, losing sucks. Perhaps the problem for these guys is that losing pays too well.
Empire Strikes Back
11 Mar 13 at 10:10 pm
This story at least tells why the team has done so badly in India. They are demoralized by this stupid coach who is treating them like year 10 school kids. Good on Watson for showing the finger. He’ll finish his playing days making a motza in smash and bash. Test cricket needs him much more than he needs it.
whyisitso
11 Mar 13 at 10:11 pm
Watson’s overrated as a test batsman.
sdfc
11 Mar 13 at 10:14 pm
Watson is rubbish IMHO. If he can’t bowl then his value to the team has halved. He’s not a good enough batsman to be in the top order of any current leading test team. Would the Poms, Indians or Saffers have him? Absolutely not.
tbh
11 Mar 13 at 10:15 pm
He’s a good enough batsman, but he doesn’t have the concentration to face 200 balls. He should bat at #6 or #7 and bowl.
Yobbo
11 Mar 13 at 10:17 pm
We have one genuine world class batsman in the team, Clarke. The rest have some possibilities.
Watson needs to be opening or batting 6 AND bowling. Otherwise get a youngster in and build a batsman.
dismissive
11 Mar 13 at 10:18 pm
Exactly. Yet he’s treated by some in the press as the answer to all our problems at the top of the order.
sdfc
11 Mar 13 at 10:28 pm
And that’s the real issue with him. He’s a “not, not” player: not a batsman and not a bowler. We’ve become England and they’ve become us. The Poms used to pick bits and pieces players who weren’t of the required standard in a single discipline and could do a bit of this and that. No wonder they got flogged. We used to pick six good batsmen, a good keeper and four good bowlers. Now we don’t, we pick guys like Watson and Maxwell who are masters of nothing.
We are settling for mediocrity way too much now I think. Australia is to cricket like the All Blacks are to rugby and standards have to be maintained.
tbh
11 Mar 13 at 10:29 pm
Watson saved the team a season or two back. He was the only one making runs then. I think at the time he’d just come back from injury. If i was him i’d tell where to go.
Free Advice
11 Mar 13 at 10:33 pm
And fuck of dropin pitches if they can’t replicate the variety of old.
Is the a turning pitch in Australia any more?
No, all belt-a-thon T20 crap.
Note to batsmen;: “You don’t have to score at 6/over in every over,sometimes you have to grind out a score Husseylike “
jumpnmcar
11 Mar 13 at 10:38 pm
On that we are completely agreed Jump.
tbh
11 Mar 13 at 10:39 pm
He obviously has.
whyisitso
11 Mar 13 at 10:40 pm
Sorry.
Watson is a tool.
Always has been.
Plastic hamstrings and glass jaw doth not a Test player make.
Public lobbying for a teammates spot was the last straw.
Leigh Lowe
11 Mar 13 at 10:43 pm
Words fail.
Sort of.
This is, after all, almost a perfect representation of modern Australia.
I mean it’s sissiness, its sanctimony, its floundering, stupid pseudo morality.
C.L.
11 Mar 13 at 10:43 pm
Unbelivable. Not that players were suspended, but rather Coach Mickey (yeh Mickey, go Mickey), was delusional enough to expect a PowerPoint presentation from folk who hit a ball with a stick ? Hasn’t Coachmickey seen the state of the Austrayan education system ? I think these chaps would be hard pressed to fill out a school tuck shop order, let alone do all that Mckinsie konsulting stuff.
Jack
11 Mar 13 at 10:46 pm
FTFY
Huckleberry Chunkwot
11 Mar 13 at 11:00 pm
If this is the kind of corporatised BS that Clarke agrees to he’ll have a hard time getting the players to fully support him from now on and to the play their best for him (no matter how many tons he scores). Seems he’s Cricket Australia’s man, not the players’.
Mick H
11 Mar 13 at 11:03 pm
One of us is a tad old!
NoFixedAddress
11 Mar 13 at 11:07 pm
He left to be with his heavily pregnant wife.
pete m
11 Mar 13 at 11:11 pm
Our current team has 4 openers in the batting line up. None who can defend.
One batsman.
A wicketkeeper with hands made of stone.
Two all rounders who I assume have been picked for their fielding.
A good ordinary bowler with bitch tits who has turned vegan.
One young world class bowler.
A better than average spinner who gets less support than Gillard in western Sydney.
The team is a fucking schemozzle.
Inverarity has to go. I remember reading a story about him that he used to take his children to an ice cream shop an when they asked if they could have one, he would reply “maybe tomorrow” and they would leave.
Infidel Tiger
11 Mar 13 at 11:12 pm
I’m curious that so many cat regulars here think it is appropriate for team members to defy their boss and not get sacked. In the private sector, the workers would be expected to follow instructions and could be sacked for deliberately ignoring such instructions. So should it be with cricketers. They are there as part of a team, not individuals, and there are many others who would be as good or better willing to take their place. We shouldn’t second guess the coach, he has the authority to give these instructions and the sight of Watson dumping his bat and running off is a terrible indictment on Watson’s judgement and ethics. He should never be selected for an Australian team in the future.
Samuel J
11 Mar 13 at 11:12 pm
What you are missing Samuel, is that the coach is not the “Boss” of a cricket team.
The captain is the boss.
And Mickey Arthur is not their employer either. He is just an employee like any of the players, and the lowest paid and least important one at that.
Yobbo
11 Mar 13 at 11:44 pm
Sure, the coach has the right to sack the players. But is this really how they want to run things?! Issue dubious instructions to players and then sack those who don’t comply? Way to go guys.
Sure they should review performance but to make it compulsory? Even for Khawaja who didn’t play the tests? Maybe not all players felt they had something meaningful to contribute – especially in writing.
Here’s a thought… how about making it optional so that they’d hear from those who had something to say?
Or, if they really do want to hear from all, how about the coach doing one-on-ones with each player to analyse that player’s performance, areas to improve, or any other team/culture issues they want to address… By the looks, they’ve made a complete hash of this.
Mick H
11 Mar 13 at 11:44 pm
That’s like saying we shouldn’t second guess the Prime Minister.
Yobbo
11 Mar 13 at 11:45 pm
If they were asked to write down their strategy for some indian bookmakers, they could have filled 20 slides with pie graphs and sound effects.
Splatacrobat
11 Mar 13 at 11:48 pm
Why would he do that?
What role can he possibly play in the process?
C.L.
12 Mar 13 at 12:00 am
Hopefully he fairs a bit better facing up to her delivery.
Infidel Tiger
12 Mar 13 at 12:03 am
The difference is that the PM works for us. We pay her salary.
tbh
12 Mar 13 at 12:03 am
It is Arthur who should go home.
Setting “compositions” on how to make HIS duties easier.
These guys are elite cricketers, not grade 7 schoolkids.
I think the whole team should have come home at the insult and am disappointed at the ones who had so little self-respect as to do his homework
kevin
12 Mar 13 at 12:11 am
Carry the drinks? He’s not much good at anything else.
Splatacrobat
12 Mar 13 at 12:13 am
This is what you get when you appoint ‘coaches’ and ‘high performance specialists’ to be in charge of training.
There are numerous examples in both cricket and football of bone-headed decisions about training schedules that have lead to poor on-field performance.
I recall being totally dismayed as a Hawthorn supporter that 2 years ago Buddy Franklin was instructed NOT to practice hois goal-kicking (and indeed at one point had some peanut who had never played the game ‘coaching’ him and trying to change his kicking style! Compare and contrast to Jason Dunstall who used to spend 2 hours AFTER the regular training kicking for goal from various angles and distances. If Buddy was allowed to do the same, he’d be easily kick 100+ goals a season…
It’s the same with Australian cricket. Too many ‘coaches’ who don’t coach; too much emphasis put on ‘fixing’ a player’s batting/bowling style; and not enough in actually practicing and training in the actual skills needed to play the game.
By all means study the opposition and learn to spot weaknesses in their styles… but don’t do it to the exclusion of strengthening your own playing style.
The players should spend the majority of their time practicing their skills, while the ‘management’ spends its time studying the opposition and building the game plan.
As it stands the current team has it all back-asswards… They are spending all their time building a game plan, while the ‘managers’ practice their ‘skills’…
Brian of Moorabbin
12 Mar 13 at 12:14 am
Did Boony ever give a Powerpoint presentation?
Dougy Walters?
Goodbye old Australia.
You were great while you lasted.
C.L.
12 Mar 13 at 12:17 am
Don’t get me started. This whole rotating the bowlers is a massive load of wank.
Bowlers should be bowling more to condition the body and create muscle memory. Instead they have them doing every other kind of training except bloody bowling.
I would ban sports science and reintroduce piss-ups and games of cards for team bonding.
Infidel Tiger
12 Mar 13 at 12:20 am
Interpretive Dance would be done in person. Missed opportunity.
Harold
12 Mar 13 at 12:22 am
And yet the use of coaches, centres of excellence and sports science in cricket had its genesis in Australia. It led to nearly 20 years of dominance in the sport and all the leading nations copied the concept, even nicking some of our coaches.
tbh
12 Mar 13 at 12:24 am
One of my favourite photos (newspaper) – never been able to find it online – showed Wally Lewis back in his days with Fortitude Valley. He was on the reserves’ benches during a game having a durry.
C.L.
12 Mar 13 at 12:25 am
Are you sure?
East Germany, I would have guessed.
C.L.
12 Mar 13 at 12:26 am
If Boony ever did a powerpoint this would be the first slide
Splatacrobat
12 Mar 13 at 12:27 am
As I said, in cricket. Australia was the first country to have a full time coach of the national team (Bob Simpson), an academy (run by Rod Marsh) and all the sports science of the AIS to go with it. All the other nations have done it as well and often with Australian coaches.
tbh
12 Mar 13 at 12:31 am
Jeez, they could have subbed out the homework to some Indian online assignment mill.
Steve of Glasshouse
12 Mar 13 at 10:52 am
This is the reason the Cricket team is in the shit.
You learn from your mistakes – if you are too busy analysing what you have to do or what the other team will do, then all instinct will be gone from your game and you’ll play like a automaton AND HAVE THE RESULTS TO MATCH
Maws
12 Mar 13 at 11:16 am
Arthur and Clarke are both selectors.Thanks to their incompetence in that role Australia fielded a team in both Tests with virtually no spin capability but overloaded with quicks.A predictable failure in the making on Indian pitches but easy money to be had courtesy of my friendly on-line bookmaker.And it was!
Lew
12 Mar 13 at 12:16 pm
So we get flogged in a test, and the coach’s reaction is to dump 4 of our best players because they were late providing him with ideas on how to do his own job?
Is Mickey on the BCCI payroll or something, as for India this is an absolute gift from the cricketing gods!
The correct punishment is more training/net time – lazy/inconsistent players like Johnson badly need it in any case.
ugh
12 Mar 13 at 12:47 pm
“And yet the use of coaches, centres of excellence and sports science in cricket had its genesis in Australia. It led to nearly 20 years of dominance in the sport and all the leading nations copied the concept”
The academies started after we started dominating.
I think players like Warne, McGrath, the Waughs, Ponting et al were the reason we were dominant for so long – we won on freakish talent – how many cricket academies did the West Indies have in the 80′s?
ugh
12 Mar 13 at 12:53 pm
Warne was kicked out of the academy. McGrath never invited. The Waugh twins never went.
The Academy is a wank stain.
Infidel Tiger
12 Mar 13 at 1:03 pm
Incorrect IT, the list of graduates of the academy would make a very very good test team:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Cricket_Academy#Australia
Warne did indeed go, but had disciplinary dramas (remember Rod Marsh was head coach there). Some of the useful players who are products of the Academy:
Clarke, Hussey, Ponting, McGrath, MacGill, Martyn, Lee, Slater, Katich, Langer and Gilchrist. All of these blokes played a massive role in Australia being number one.
And it was started in 1987, before we started dominating and it was needed.
tbh
12 Mar 13 at 1:11 pm
I’ve given up watching the Australian cricket team. It’s an utterly excruciating activity akin to pulling teeth.
The appointments of clarke as captain and arthur as coach/manager were the final straw.
A few years ago I might have seriously given a rodent’s about this latest news.
Now, not so much.
Rabz
12 Mar 13 at 1:20 pm
My Powerpoint presentation would have told Arthur and Pup that anyone who picks four quick’s on an Indian dustbowl should resign.
(But if anyone made that suggestion they’d have been sent home).
Bill
12 Mar 13 at 1:42 pm
Jack the Insider responds to Micky Arthur.
Infidel Tiger
12 Mar 13 at 2:01 pm
Thank you CL – I was thinking exactly the same thing, but have been busy catching up.
Winston SMITH
12 Mar 13 at 2:03 pm
“Jack the Insider responds to Micky Arthur.”
Eddystone
12 Mar 13 at 2:25 pm
I have no particular objection to them being suspended. Team rules are team rules, even if they are particularly stupid ones. It’s not like we have any chance of winning the series in any event, so as good a time as any to make the point.
It is the underlying implication that is worrying. These guys didn’t forget, they quite clearly chose not to complete the assignment. From which one can only deduce that Arthur has lost at least part of the team… and probably more than just the quartet.
Arthur must go, Invers along with him.
mct
12 Mar 13 at 2:44 pm
Another Australian sports science first…
I must not go out for a duck
I must not go out for a duck
I must not go out for a duck
I must not go out for a duck
x 1000
Harold
12 Mar 13 at 3:12 pm
Harold
12 Mar 13 at 3:12 pm
GOLD, Sir, Gold!!!!
Mike of Marion
12 Mar 13 at 3:16 pm
Today I’ve been speaking to a couple of Shield cricketers I know.
Rumour is that there is a massive rift in the team.
There are those who like Clarke and those who do not.
The belief is that these 4 are in the latter group.
Maws
12 Mar 13 at 3:16 pm
Not surprised in the least. I know a bloke who has in the recent past played Shield and test cricket and he rates Arthur highly and is quite positive towards Clarke as a captain. I know of another bloke in the exact same situation who thinks the opposite.
tbh
12 Mar 13 at 3:24 pm
Doug Walters on 2GB with Chris Smith, no audio yet, Walters not impressed by this episode and said Australian cricket needs a clean out like NSW cricket.
stackja
12 Mar 13 at 4:12 pm
Samuel J, good leaders Lead. One thing I am constantly annoyed by is leaders that make poor decisions, then try and diversify their responsibility by asking for “reports” or paper shuffling by the other members of the team. The reason for their losses are obvious…can’t catch, can’t bowl, can’t bat. They sack people for not writing the obvious…that’s nanny state stuff going on. May I add, corporate world is full of it. My company always wants reports on why we don’t write new business, but at the same time won’t spend money on new business activities due to cost cutting. Before we merged, when I owned half the business, we used to write Amazing amounts of new business….but then it all changed…corporate world! Reward the managers of capitalism not the owners of capitalism! The similarities with cricket are amazing.
Julian mclaren
12 Mar 13 at 4:24 pm
Mickey is a Seth Efrican and culturally out of his depth around Australian Cricket…..a much more complex environment than RU.
A little self abasement in front of the management, perhaps Mickey thinks this is good for the soul.
A Mickey led Truth and Reconciliation Tribunal …..it certainly allows better control of the subjects when their confessed sins are filed for future use…….
Alfonso
12 Mar 13 at 6:03 pm
Yes, because it was a stupid assignment that treated them like schoolchildren.
This was an overbearing, patronising, contemptuous thing to do to the players. It reeks of managerialism and authoritarianism. Making them do it was a dumb decision. Firing them for not doing it was a dumb decision. Anyone who defends this idiocy has a screw loose.
dd
12 Mar 13 at 6:08 pm
On the other hand, anyone who thinks we can remain competitive in- with a population of 22 million – against a country of 1 billion in a sport that’s popular in both countries isn’t thinking realistically either.
Time will come when we’ll get whalloped every time by India and it won’t be news.
dd
12 Mar 13 at 6:12 pm
How many past Captains have endorsed this move ?
Zero, quite the opposite in fact.
jumpnmcar
12 Mar 13 at 6:13 pm
And yet the All Blacks dominate world rugby with a population of 4 million and a bunch of sheep. The financial resources that the European teams (especially England and France) have are considerably greater.
tbh
12 Mar 13 at 6:19 pm
More people play rugby in New Zealand than in any other country in the world.
Rugby is just not very popular, even in the countries that play in the world cup.
Cricket, OTOH, is the national sport of India.
Yobbo
12 Mar 13 at 6:26 pm
Not according to this.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yeSN53py7PI/TmXJ4UMiD1I/AAAAAAAAAgs/54kHw_zo9AY/s1600/IRB+Player+Numbers.jpg
Statistically India are a shithouse cricketing nation. They travel about as well as Guiness and have only produced a couple of good bastman and one or two passable spinners.
A B Grade district side in Australia would field better and have a better pace attack. Luckily they have lots of money to chuck about.
Infidel Tiger
12 Mar 13 at 6:35 pm
They also have a massive home ground advantage, which tends to work against them abroad, as IT alluded to.
tbh
12 Mar 13 at 6:42 pm
It’s not surprising that they are shithouse now, as they are a developing nation and starving peasants do not typically make for great athletes.
DD and I were talking about the future, which will dominated by India. They already dominate the game off the field, it won’t be long before they dominate on it as well.
Yobbo
12 Mar 13 at 7:19 pm
You have to have the genetic disposition, Yobbo. Indians don’t strike me as the most athletic people on earth.
It’s almost like saying a Chinese will win the 100 meters because they are a billion people.
They may be good in some years but I bet they won;t dominate the game overall.
Frank walker from National Tiles
12 Mar 13 at 7:26 pm
The way to look at it is not so much the over all population, but who plays cricket in India. How athletically predisposed to the game is this cohort compared to say Australians of Brtis?
Frank walker from National Tiles
12 Mar 13 at 7:29 pm
What I find weird is that Pakistan has produced some of the greatest fast bowlers of all time and India has produced Kapil Dev and Rubbish Binny.
Infidel Tiger
12 Mar 13 at 7:43 pm
@Yobbo
Only if you are part of the elite.
Exactly the same as Pakistan.
Wait until China get their leg and length!
NoFixedAddress
12 Mar 13 at 7:44 pm
The Windies dominated cricket with pot smokin party animals.
jumpnmcar
12 Mar 13 at 7:55 pm
Did anyone explain to Watto that if you are going to carry on like a prima donna you have to be of some value to the team?
H B Bear
12 Mar 13 at 7:58 pm
I know that there is no place for this in Liberty quotes, but surely there has to be somewhere where this quote can be recorded for posterity, pure unadulterated gold.
Huckleberry Chunkwot
12 Mar 13 at 7:58 pm
Rubbish. You can see homeless kids playing cricket on the streets of any slum in India.
It’s hot in India, and fast bowling is hard work. That said, Zaheer Khan and Javagal Srinath were no slouches.
Yobbo
12 Mar 13 at 8:01 pm
Which is why they are good at cricket. Granted, height can be an advantage in fast bowling. Then again, it didn’t seem to worry Malcolm Marshall or Dale Steyn.
Part of the reason that cricket is a great sport is that any body shape can be good at it. Look at Arjuna Ranutunga, David Boon, Inzamam-Ul-Huq, Mark Coscgrove. Also, look at a bowler like Bruce Reid, with a body too fragile for any kind of contact sport. He could have been a high jumper I suppose.
Sachin Tendulkar,is 5ft5in tall. Too small to be good at any other competitive sport. Yet, he is the best cricketer that’s been seen for 70 years.
Yobbo
12 Mar 13 at 8:07 pm
I think we are getting a bit carried away. We went through 20 years having an exceptional crop of cricketers.
There were shield players during that time who couldn’t get a look in yet would be a walk up start to this team.
That era is over, just like the great era of the 70s was followed by the underperformers of the 80s.
sdfc
12 Mar 13 at 8:19 pm
It certainly makes it harder to win when you write off half of the talent pool in the country because Michael Clarke doesn’t like them.
Yobbo
12 Mar 13 at 8:26 pm
Clarke is going to shape the team in his own image:
http://fabulousmaguk.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/fabulous-one-direction-poster2.jpg
Infidel Tiger
12 Mar 13 at 8:30 pm
How Keith Miller might react to being asked to submit a report.
Yobbo
12 Mar 13 at 9:57 pm
That’s awesome.
Infidel Tiger
12 Mar 13 at 10:15 pm
Sachin Tendulkar,is 5ft5in tall. Too small to be good at any other competitive sport.
What about a jockey?
On the topic of Keith Miller and team discipline, one night on the 1948 tour Miller and Lindwall went out for a drink and returned on the eve of a county match at about 6 in the morning, time for a few hours of sleep. They went up the external fire stairs to avoid being seen, but on the stairs they met the captain, Don Bradman, starting the day with his Swedish exercises.
He didn’t say anything but when they lost the toss and took the field he let the two lads bowl unchanged through the morning session.
On an Indian tour Doug Walters upset Ian Chapell and he was placed at longstop for both bowlers so he had to run the lenghth of the field between overs.
Rafe
12 Mar 13 at 10:29 pm
Watson’s child-like behaviour does not surprise me.
I took an instant dislike to the overpaid, underperformed boofhead in 2009, after this: http://p.imgci.com/db/PICTURES/CMS/111600/111659.jpg – look where he ended up, as bowler, to yell at Chris Gayle merely because he had taken his wicket.
He then ran alongside Gayle (here http://resources0.news.com.au/images/2009/12/21/1225812/333920-shane-watson-chris-gayle-incident.jpg ) as he left the field, screaming at him, his face contorted like a deranged fool.
This was during the Third Test at the WACA in December 2009, Watson was 28 years of young and naive.
Then they made him Vice Captain, and paid him a retainer of $2,000,000! Contributory negligence on the part of Cricket Australia, I say.
There’s a strange shift in professional sport, back to modern school classroom practices, in which it is very, very ungood for the boss to criticise players (because they are special, as is everyone in the team - oh, and all yet-to-get-runs people not in the team) and to penalise them (because that is discriminatory … and disproportionate).
Conversely, if the players are having a yet-to-perform-on-the-field experience/event, it is invariably someone else’s fault – like the coach, the selectors, the captain, the Asian girl in the not-hot-pie shop and the Board of Control.
QLD rugby’s, and several times policepersons’ person-of-interest, Quade Cooper, signed a contract with the same Clause 19(b). Last year he announced the national coach was as contaminated as Chernobyl (or something similar) complained he didn’t have his own dressing room, called the ARU a pack of poofs, and bagged every one of his Wallaby team mates for not acknowledging his unique brilliance. The ARU near peed their pants and that afternoon renewed his contract with much, much more money (and a strengthened Cl 19 (b) ).
Now, if the boss or the Board does not reveal all the off field
gross indiscretionsongoing not optimal choice learning experiences, and later acts unilaterally in eventual frustration, it is written (see “discriminatory” rule) that they are to be pilloried for a) not acting previously; b) not advising the public back then, each time; and c) named as incompetents who didn’t deserve their jobs anyway.Whilst all this is going on the Do Not Disturb sign goes up on the player’s financial rights and the sporting organisation’s obligation to ‘spect those rights. This is because players have lawyers who first present their case on Channel 7 News and loudly announce they are prepared to take it all the way to Four Corners. In Watson’s case I trust his is avaricious beyond belief, come invoice payment time.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
12 Mar 13 at 10:34 pm
Yobbo, wasn’t that Newc?
Grant B
12 Mar 13 at 10:41 pm
Childish is giving adult sportsman a homework assignment that would have been laughed at by under 12’s.
Watson’s reaction to Gayle was in response to some mouthing off in the media from Gayle. You’ll notice the whole team was giving Gayle both barrels.
Infidel Tiger
12 Mar 13 at 10:42 pm
Bullship Infidel Tiger, bloody bullship.
The whole team didn’t hurtle 22 yards down the pitch into the batsman’s crease to scream in his face and then run, crouched down alongside Gayle, to screech some more as he walked off.
Wee sensitive Shaney Watson was provoked by Gayle for giving the plodder some in the sports pages beforehand? Yeah, sure.
The coach is in the chair and can demand what he likes, especially with the mediocrity Watson and the rest offer.
If Watson doesn’t like the coach that much then he can make himself unavailable and move over to softball, or to long distance running where having a coach is less vital to his success.
If he is good enough, then in time, he can apply to be coach and play at being boss. He’ll perhaps find something he’s good at, eventually.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
12 Mar 13 at 11:16 pm
No he can’t. The coach is subject to the same performance constraints as anyone else. If he treats the players like children and fires them for stupid reasons, then he’s going to rightly be criticised.
The coach isn’t the “boss” in the sense that a business owner is a “boss.”
Since you seem to be the only person in the universe who can’t see the idiocy, I have to draw very unflattering conclusions about your intellect.
dd
12 Mar 13 at 11:21 pm
You’ve not encountered Jack Gibson then, or experienced Warren Ryan’s tutelage.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
12 Mar 13 at 11:41 pm
I think I now understand the mentality that sees the drongos just swallowing any old pill the club gives them.
Half the people here would agree they should be sacked if they don’t toe the line and swallow.
“Coach said so”.
Infidel Tiger
12 Mar 13 at 11:46 pm
FFS Dave that’s drawing a very long bow. I happen to agree with much of what Mick is saying. I also agree with the comparison to a certain group of young Wallabies who have also disgraced the jersey through their antics in the last couple of years.
Watson is a sook and an overrated under performing player. I was astonished when he got the vice captaincy of the test team. The ODI team maybe, but the test team never.
tbh
13 Mar 13 at 12:21 am
And as is often the case, there is more to the story
http://www.news.com.au/sport/cricket/recent-sackings-a-consequence-of-cultural-breakdown-in-australian-cricket/story-fndpt0dy-1226595910548
tbh
13 Mar 13 at 12:25 am
Fuck me. This country has gone bananas.
Infidel Tiger
13 Mar 13 at 12:33 am
Wearing the wrong clothes and failing to fill out forms.
This is the Michael Clarke regime.
Yobbo
13 Mar 13 at 12:57 am
I was more focused on the overweight part. That’s not a good sign for any elite sportsman. Gone are the days when you can be a keg on legs and play test cricket. Mark Cosgrove would have played for Australia by now if he wasn’t such a fat bastard and a liability in the field.
tbh
13 Mar 13 at 1:00 am
Who says those days are gone?
Mark Cosgrove has consistently been in the top 5 runscorers in Australian domestic cricket over the last 10 years. He has scored 22 centuries and 46 fifties.
They just won’t pick him because he’s fat. It’s not his fault that CA are a bunch of sport science fanatics who value skin folds over talent.
Yobbo
13 Mar 13 at 1:44 am
A topical view tbh is “That was then, this is now – different generation with different expectations. It’s all good (yeccchhh!)”
We lose and lose the notion that every player selected has a high responsibility to dignify and protect the game; that they are there to build on what has been built. The last few years has seen that quaint and ancient oddity off.
After World Series bit Simpson re-entered to re-engender the Chappell-like ruthlessness in how the team ought to go about its business of winning. He focused, for example, on catching and chasing (to extrapolate: “How childish treating grown men like children, making them run about after a little red ball? And chastising them for dropping it now and then?)”
The good teams from then on built a reputation (and a reality) of accuracy in the field. It all started with the captain – a bloke in charge – deciding “you blokes need to do this” and expecting, reasonably, they would all do as he told them.
Then followed Border leading by example all the time and demanding similar grit from his charges – do not give your wicket away; Taylor with his master class in determination; Waugh much the same – uncompromising; Ponting (Warne) – a splendid bat but not quite the same captain as his predecessors; and now Clarke, who is developing as a reliable batsman with some capability as a change bowler.
The first three led blokes who expected to be led – by a bloke in charge – whose decisions delivered success. I suspect if Warne had captained he would have been as unyielding in his expectations of excellence and in his dismissiveness of whingers.
Early in this thread some commented that D K Walters, Lillee or Marsh wouldn’t accept homework but some respondents correctly pointed out that there was no need – self managed champion cricketers in a champion team.
Australian cricket has deteriorated to a point where the vice captain has walked out on an overseas tour* because he doesn’t like being dropped – doesn’t accept that there is authority to do that – and now he’s landed to bag yet another Cricket Australia appointee who was selected for his job in a competitive contest, bleating:
It’s fair dinkum Chopper Read grade “Now look what you’ve made me do!”
He and others were asked by the coach to write down three ideas for improvement. A dozen did and four didn’t, including a member of the “leadership group.”
The sad part is the problems will not be resolved because it appears players have Cricket Australia bound up with contracts which have little to do with them meeting reasonable performance requirements of the blokes in charge.
It matters not a jot whether Mickey Arthur coaches, or Darren Lehmann gets to have a beer with the boys and coach a bit, or Murray Bennett – I dare say those contracts are loaded very much in favour of players staying on until they no longer want to.
* forget the history rewriting spin about returning to be with his “heavily pregnant” (“heavily” – is she very fat or something?) wife. The baby is due in a couple of weeks. I imagine Watson was aware of that when he accepted selection to tour during that time.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
13 Mar 13 at 2:02 am
In other words, previous captains made their teams train hard, so it’s perfectly fine for Mickey Arthur to ask current cricketers to write essays?
Dumbest post ever.
Yobbo
13 Mar 13 at 6:09 am
Not real b-r-i-t-e are you? You don’t read and understand what is being said so you make it up to suit yourself.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
13 Mar 13 at 7:22 pm