Yes, we can rewrite history! Let’s make a start at the MCG

AStuff investigation has revealed that a rag-tag band of New Zealand cricket fans plans to abduct the statue of Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee from outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground in the hope that doing so will erase a history of decades of Australian cricketing supremacy.

Lillee, one of Australian cricket’s greatest sons and described as the ‘‘outstanding fast bowler of his generation’’, dominated New Zealand’s batsmen in the 1970s and early 80s, embarrassing the top order and sending many a tail-ender back to the dressing room with an involuntary case of the squits.

At Eden Park in 1977 he took 5-51 and 6-72. But it’s hoped that woeful history will be wiped out and the collective memory of Kiwi cricket enthusiasts cleansed once the audacious band of saboteurs carries out its scheme to saw off the statue of Lillee at the ankle and drop it in the Yarra River.

The plan has been hatched in the midst of a global debate about the removal of once-celebrated historical figures who now, in the fullness of time, are thought to occupy a spectrum ranging from ‘‘complicated, multi-faceted and worthy of nuanced discussion’’ to ‘‘an absolute d...head from day one’’.

As part of that debate a number of loud voices who are happy to remind anyone listening that they read George Orwell’s 1984 in the third form have insisted that removing statues will invariably lead to history being erased. It’s those assertions, explained ringleader Bruce Midoff, that gave him the germ of an idea.

‘‘All these people were saying, ‘You can’t take down statues, that’s erasing history!’ Well, I thought, hold all tickets. I’ve sat through years of watching New Zealand being demolished, outclassed or just being unfairly pipped at the post by Australia. That’s some history worth forgetting right there! Frankly if there’s some way of erasing it, count me in.

‘‘To be clear, we’ve got nothing against Mr Lillee, apart from the fact that watching him bowl to New Zealand No 11 Peter Petherick with an attacking field of nine slips probably put the wind up a generation of Kiwi cricketing kids and turned them into a bunch of softball players. I’m sure he’s a nice bloke, but noone needs to remember that.’’

Mr Midoff admits that he remains uncertain as to exactly how the toppling of the Lillee statue will purge the cricketing record of New Zealand’s serial humiliations by the Baggy Greens, but is certainly willing to give it a crack, Nigel.

‘‘Yeah nah, I’m not exactly sure of the details of how it’ll work. I think what’ll happen is we’ll wake up the next morning and all the cricket record books will have big black blanks. And when you google ‘Cricket Australia beats NZ’ you’ll get a 404 Page Not Found error. That’s how erasing history works, right?’’

If his scheme succeeds, Mr Midoff is keen to erase further embarrassing incidents from the collective consciousness by toppling monuments to those responsible.

‘‘I’m actually making a list of targets. I’d be really stoked if someone could point me to a statue of Rodney Hide wearing a low-cut canary yellow shirt on Dancing With The Stars. That’s something that just shouldn’t be part of New Zealand’s history.’’