Australia’s attitude toward NZ cricket condescending
As I told my new caddy friend, my issue with Australian cricket is not the underarm incident, but the fact that our closet geographic rivals have so seldom condescended to play us.
Late last year, during happy hour at a bar on Bora-bora, I met a professional Australian sportsman.
Caddy to one of the world’s top golfers, he claimed acquaintance with both Tiger Woods and Woods’ one-time New Zealand bag man, Steve Williams.
At no point in our conversation did he volunteer his employer’s name. This was a man of uncommon discretion, with a type of modesty not normally associated with those from the lucky country.
With my knowledge of golf limited to gossip about Woods’ infidelities and the caddy being above such nonsense, talk turned to cricket. He immediately brought up the under arm incident, the goto banter between rival Australasian sporting enthusiasts of a certain age meeting for the first time.
An apology was proffered. I demurred. Over the years my view of that 1981 fiasco has evolved. Greg Chappell’s decision to have his brother Trevor emulate a lawn bowler for the concluding delivery of a tight One Day International could not be mistaken for courage but it was well within the rules of the game.
A lot of nonsense is spouted about the ‘‘spirit’’ of cricket. Such sentiment is too often just ill informed nostalgia. Let those who wax lyrical about golden ages or the gentleman’s code or how this or that is not done look up the antics of W. G. Grace.
To put things another way, the bowling of a ball along the ground was as legal, as useful and as ultimately successful, as the English body line tactics of the early 1930s or those short pitched balls employed by New Zealand’s finest the other day against the Bangladeshi lower order.
In any case, Greg Chappell was the most stylish batsman seen in the last half century and had an uncompromising technique when it came to dealing with streakers.
So he was stressed and had a bad day and made a decision he would later regret. At least we pushed him that far. What greater respect could an Australian captain pay a New Zealand side than to resort to tactics not called upon since the 1820s?
As I told my new caddy friend, my issue with Australian cricket is not the underarm incident, but the fact that our closet geographic rivals have so seldom condescended to play us.
Australia waited 16 years after New Zealand’s test debut before it sent a team across the ditch. A further 27 years elapsed before the next encounter. This was neither the behaviour of a friendly neighbour nor that of a country looking to grow their favoured sport internationally.
We were deemed beneath Australia and not just on the map.
In more recent times, in the shorter format of the game, this pattern of condescension has repeated. The Chappell-hadlee series, an annual ODI competition first established in 2004 to redress past wrongs, itself fell into abeyance after a mere half decade.
Regular series became one-off games at World Cups as Australia reverted to type, refusing to sustain the competition in its original form. It took New Zealand’s performance at the 2015 World Cup to bring them back to the table.
With us making the final, it became difficult to maintain the argument that we were not worthy opponents. New Zealand’s rather pathetic display in Australia in early December did much to undermine this line of reasoning but on Monday night, against an admittedly injury hit and otherwise depleted opposition, the Black Caps won a fantastically close game.
Australia’s attitude toward the Chappell-hadlee series is all the more puzzling given that the competition has historically thrown up a number of such tight encounters and that New Zealand has more often than not been on the winning side when playing at home.
Time and time again we are underestimated or asked to face an Australian side deprived of its superstars.
In 2007, for example, Ricky Ponting relinquished the Australian captaincy to Michael Hussey and powerhouse keeper Adam Gilchrist was likewise rested for their New Zealand tour. Australia were beaten 3-0, the series concluding with a memorable, record-breaking chase at Hamilton’s Seddon Park.
Tomorrow, a decade on at the very same venue, the Black Caps square off against a side without captain Steve Smith, form opening batsman David Warner or even stand-in leader Matthew Wade.
If injuries can account for two out of three of these absences, there remains the lingering feeling that we will never be a cricketing priority for Australia, however often we prove competitive.