Hit on Hockley unfair
Debbie Hockley is one of four female voices Sky TV has introduced to its cricket commentary roster over the past couple of seasons.
She’s also the greatest female cricketer New Zealand has produced, averaging 50 in tests and 40 in one-dayers over a 20-year career.
And right now she’s the subject of an ill-conceived online petition from a bunch of blokes who seem to think they know more about the summer game than her.
The change.org petition is calling on Sky TV to drop her from its cricket coverage and, in the month since its creation, has attracted about 450 supporters.
They all appear to be men who are not shy of hurling disgraceful insults and threats at Hockley, surely something they wouldn’t do if she were a man.
It’s true that Hockley’s introduction to commentary has been tough.
Unlike the classy duo Lesley Murdoch, a former New Zealand captain, and Rikki Swannell, she’s not a broadcaster by profession. She also apologised last year for likening a spectator to one of the Williams sisters.
But, given her success in the game, surely once she feels comfortable she could offer genuine insights into what’s going on out in the middle. Perhaps her male colleagues, some of whom tediously banter about what they were up to on the golf course, could devote more time to their female colleagues’ thoughts and less on old boys’ network wittering.
Hockley’s position as New Zealand Cricket president means she may shy away from controversies, but that’s a different issue to the puerile gripes straight out of a 1960s locker room that the change.org signatories are flinging her way.
The petition’s creator, a bloke called Chris Higgens, from Hamilton, complains of Hockley: ‘‘I listened to her talking about how Alastair Cook getting caught down the leg side was terrific bowling by Trent Boult and just poor batting by Cook. Like, are you actually taking the p...?’’
Actually, the dismissal Higgens referred to happened in a match Hockley wasn’t even commentating. He’s instead taken violent exception to Murdoch’s seemingly innocuous observation about the pressure Boult had built up. Maybe all women sound the same to Higgens?
Sports like cricket are, commendably, doing their best to diversify to stay relevant and welcoming in the modern world. Higgens and his band of boofheads show what they’re up against.