‘Mollycoddled’ Aussies face media backlash

sydney — Australia’s media lashed out at the country’s “mollycoddled” cricketers on Wednesday, saying they were a “disgrace” and heads should roll after crashing to a fifth successive Test defeat.

With the sport in crisis after a dismal performance against South Africa in the first two Tests of a three-Test series, the press was unrelenting in its criticism.

“Humiliating”, the Sydney Morning Herald screamed in a front page headline, while The Australian said: “Disgrace to the Baggy Green.”

The tabloid Sydney Daily Telegraph called the team “a bunch of amateurs”, with cricket writer Robert Craddock saying they had become pampered and lost their backbone.

“Australian cricket is facing its greatest crisis in 30 years, and it only has itself to blame,” he said, adding that there were no longer any of the “flint hard Test players that once did our nation proud”.

“Australia’s players are overpaid and mollycoddled to the point where the priceless quality that separates the great from the good - resilience - is almost invisible.

“Australia is facing the reality that old fashioned, stone-faced Test match warriors like Allan Border and Steve Waugh are a dying breed.”

Sydney Morning Herald cricket correspondent Greg Baum followed a similar theme.

“It is the meekness that was so shocking. For so long, the Australian cricket team’s hallmark has been its swagger and braggadocio,” he said.