IRONY OF CANDICE TRYING TO LAND AN EARLY KO

At a time when you wonder which will come first – the police making up their minds whether or not to prosecute Ben Stokes or Christmas – there are some things in life which take a mere nanosecond by comparison with Plod finally sorting out his paperwork.

Such as the time it takes for a member of the Warner family to start spouting without engaging the filter system between brain and mouth.

If you had to compile a list of the 1,000 best qualified people to pass judgment on the Stokes affair, then Mrs Candice Warner, of Sydney, New South Wales, would not come close to being on it.

Nonetheless, the wife of the batsman who took an inebriated swing at Joe Root in a Birmingham nightclub was recently invited onto an Australian Sunday morning sports programme, where she denounced Stokes’ behaviour as “disgusting”, and pronounced him unfit to set foot upon the soil of her shy, gentle, and easily offended country.

To anyone who’s been to Australia during an Ashes series, this is an all too familiar example of how their media turns itself into a national cheerleader, whose role is not to make impartial judgments, but to promote their team as a collection of bronzed, superhuman surfies, and the opposition as a bunch of toffee-nosed snobs with a serious aversion to soap and water.

There are few more patriotic countries on the planet than Australia, as you’ll find out merely from watching the telly. A Shirley Temple lookalike holds up a packet of breakfast cereal and warbles: “I love my corn flakes, and I love Australia”, while another advert, for the national carrier Qantas, is full of images of Ayers Rock, kangaroos, sun-kissed beaches and the Sydney Opera House, to the musical accompaniment of a heavenly choir belting out a chorus that sounds more like the national anthem than the national anthem itself.

And this all comes over in their cricket coverage, especially when the Poms are in town. There is nothing unbiased about it, and losing is the equivalent of a bereavement in the family. During the 1986-87 Ashes, one defeat left one correspondent so bereft he was unable to write his close of play article, and the host broadcaster eventually gave up on the cricket and started showing tennis instead.

The reason being that Allan Border’s boys were getting a hiding, while Pat Cash was winning the Davis Cup for Australia.

This, though, turned out to be the start of two decades of England getting routinely stuffed on Australian soil, and quite a different approach from the home media. It got to the point when, if England did something good for a change – like take a wicket in a session – one of the local journos would come up to you and say, with irritating

There are few more patriotic countries than Australia and this comes out in their cricket coverage, especially when the Poms are in town

condescension: “Hey, it’s really great to see you guys putting up a bit of a fight for a change.”

It was no fun, I can tell you, which is why I got a bit miffed with Alec Stewart when he said: “I reckon you lot prefer it when we’re losing. Gives you more to write about.” To which I replied: “If you think we enjoy sitting in an Australian Press box listening to the guffaws when you lot are playing, yet again, like complete tossers, then I suggest you’re talking out of your hat.” At least, I think I said “hat”. It would be wrong to say that the Aussies don’t have a sense of humour, but it only comes out when they’re winning. One of the better lines during the disastrous 1994-95 tour came in the Melbourne Age, commenting on England’s build-up to the Boxing Day Test. “England trained and grass grew at the MCG yesterday. Two events virtually indistinguishable from each other.”

And when Martin McCague, a player brought up in Australia, was selected by England for the 1994 Brisbane Test, he was famously described by the Sydney Telegraph-Mirror as the “only known instance of a rat joining a sinking ship”.

The headline writers also enjoy getting stuck in when their team is on top. Examples include: “Attention Pommy Batsmen” (above giant photograph of a ball) “This Is What It Looks Like!” and, on a rare day when England scraped together a halfway decent total: “A Strange Day At The Cricket. England Fail To Collapse.”

However, they are quick to turn on their own, and if the boot is on the other foot it is one of life’s great joys to be a Pom in Australia when England are winning. In 2010-11, before the series began, one of the newspapers ran an article headlined: “Ten Reasons Why The Poms are Duds”. Then, when they lost, photographed the four Australian selectors with fried eggs superimposed on their heads. Not sure why they chose fried eggs particularly, but maybe it was their equivalent of The Sun’s turnip award for England football managers.

Before the age of ships and planes, Australia might as well have been as far away from, say, Chipping Campden, as Uranus. It’s a still a fair old hike, and it’s this sense of remoteness that makes Australia a country so anxious to make the rest of the world sit up and take notice. Hence the hysterical media hype during that same 2010-11 tour, when a very large American TV chat show host flew over on her private jet to stand on the steps of what the papers instantly renamed the Sydney Oprah House and gush: “Australia, you’re arrrsome.”

In Australia, it always comes back to patriotism. It was their former opening batsman Michael Slater who started the trend for kissing the badge on the helmet after making a Test match century, and it certainly looked more natural than it did watching the likes of Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen do it.

The Aussie Press can be even more vicious than ours, though, when their team loses. In 2010-11, sample headlines were “Rotten To The Core!” and “Rank And Vile!”, so fingers crossed for some more of that kind of stuff this time.

And if England need any further incentive, just think of Mrs Warner being rolled out again to call for the entire disgusting bunch to be deported. Including her husband.