From toffs to slobs: Cricket's unbecoming demise
Harold Hark
13 August 2003

Making sure I'd correctly programmed the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer last night for my daughter's crack-of-dawn viewing this morning, I caught Chump 7 newsreader Anne Fulwood's 10:30 update. There, limping along on crutches was Cricket Blob, David Hookes, defending his blokey defence of Shane Warne's alleged sexual harassment of Helen Cohen Alon, by describing her as "some dopey, hairy-backed sheila."

Her response: "[Hookes] will want to be very careful, I may just sue his ass." If only she would.

In The Age this morning there is an update on the feminocide taking place in Juarez, Mexico, where some 370 young women have been tortured, raped, murdered and mutilated in the last few years.

Sorry, but to me the difference between Hookes' view of women and the Juarez women-killers is one of degree. They reside at opposite ends of the same spectrum, that of a mindless objectification of women.

Beyond that, Hooke and Warne, are perfect examples of a sport that has gone to seed. Plagued by years of petty scandals, the sport of toffs is looking more and more like a relic of the 19th century. (Another headline in The Age: "Scandal hurts the game...". How often have we seen the same headline?)

Britain, where the sport originated, hasn't produced a first rate team in a decade, nor have the West Indies. Australia ranks as unassailable number one in the world by sheer virtue of its being the only nation that still takes the sport seriously. And that is in no small part due to its iconic benefactor, John Howard.

Styled a "cricket-tragic", a pathetic appellation suitable to the man, Howard has acted the role model for his boys in white through his natural instincts for sledging opponents in and out of Parliament (and even his supporters--the mob, as he often refers to Australians), and prevaricating at every opportunity. It will be interesting to see how Howard-like is Warne's version of the Helen Cohen Alon affair.

Let's face it, Cricket has had its day. The recent series with Bangladesh was a laughing stock. It should have been an embarrassment for Australia to be playing such a minor league team. Apparently they have become desperate for opponents.

Yes, the five day test is a wonder to behold for suspending time in an idyllic setting, but the world is moving too fast for it any more. The financial output is too large to accommodate a handful of duffers who like a snooze in the noonday sun while a couple of dozen colonial remnants stand around doing exercises on the field.

Packer's one day matches infused a couple of decades of energy into Cricket, but in the end, the only excitement resides in the last ten or so overs of the team to bat second. Its American analogue, Baseball, a bit of a bore itself, at least alternates teams through nine innings, giving each a chance to catch up as they go.

Cricket remains a great pastime for weekends in the backyard or for holidays at the beach, and as a character building sport for children. But as a national sport, it should go the way of the dodo. Ironically, it belongs to the era so longed for by John Howard, the man whose unethical behaviour has become a symbol for its demise.

PS: So Buffy didn't die after all. Perhaps Australians with a heart, a conscience, a brain, and all the rest that go with being human can enlist her to drive a stake through John Howard's heart.

A letter to The Australian, 16-17 August, perfectly sums it all up:

Shane Warne is typical of his milieu, the supercilious Anglo-Celtic middle class. Ignorant, self-obsessed, grasping and lacking insight, he is unable to understand what the fuss is about. Were it not for his role in our moronic obsession with sport, his comic book lifestyle would be indistinguishable from millions of others in this sorry place.
Michael Edwards

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