Proteas fume over Faf charge Cobber, take some free advice
Behind the mirth evoked by Australian cricket’s demise are serious issues to resolve.
Captain Faf du Plessis’ ball tampering charge has overshadowed the South African tour match against a Victorian cricket XI at the MCG.
While the tourists have an unbeatable 2-0 test series lead, they are furious about the controversy.
The ICC laid the charge on Friday afternoon, not long after team-mate Hashim Amla had mocked the allegation as ridiculous.
The stand-in skipper has pleaded not guilty and the ICC is yet to confirm when du Plessis will front match referee Andy Pycroft to plead his case.
ICC chief executive David Richardson laid the charge, with the allegation du Plessis had breached the rules by changing the condition of the ball.
‘‘The alleged incident happened on Tuesday morning when TV footage appeared to show du Plessis applying saliva and residue from a mint or sweet - an artificial substance - to the ball in an attempt to change its condition,’’ the ICC said in a statement.
Before the charge was announced, Amla had stood in front of his team-mates at an MCG media conference and strongly defended du Plessis.
‘‘The reason everyone is here is to stand together, really, and to show solidarity to something ... we thought was actually a joke,’’ Amla said as du Plessis stood to one side.
‘‘It’s not April, but the allegation against Faf was ... a really ridiculous thing.
‘‘To a lot of people, it’s sounding more like sour sweets.’’
The tourists prepared for next week’s Adelaide test with the oneday game under lights against a Victorian XI at the MCG yesterday.
Amla also said on Friday that the tourists are determined to complete a 3-0 series whitewash in Adelaide.
‘‘For us it’s very important, we’ve come here on a mission,’’ Amla said. - AAP It’s not so long ago that Mitchell Starc was splintering Brendon McCullum’s stumps and the MCG was howling like a pack of rabid dogs and Brad Haddin was calling New Zealanders every name under his evil New South Wales sun.
So forgive us if we now hold our sides and jump up and down on the baggy green and roll about in our cow paddocks bellowing with mirth.
At some point I might get to the bit about how a feeble Australian team isn’t good for test cricket, but for now it’s all just too enjoyable. They call it hubris, don’t they? You were swaggering about the cricketing earth like you owned the place, doing back-room deals with India and patronising little New Zealand with the occasional cricket match, but not on Boxing Day, mind. Wouldn’t want to ruin Christmas.
And then you got kicked up your Fannie Bays by South Africa.
And Sri Lanka. And you would have lost to Indonesia, too, if you didn’t keep half their people locked up on an island.
So it’s hard not to laugh. the Spirit of Cricket, But in that’s Australian cricket, mind would like to offer some patronising advice.
Firstly, get rid of your captain. I don’t mean drop Steve Smith from the test team. He’s your best batsman by a country mile.
He’s the only bloke who actually seems to know how to not play a shot at a dangerous ball that’s missing the stumps.
But he is not a captain. I laughed when some of your commentators praised Smith for the attitude he showed at the press conference after the second South Africa debacle. I would have called it the Second Boer War but that would have implied that both sides were fighting.
Were they watching the same body language. Smith’s eyes were shifting about all over the place. What a milksop. The bloke has a reedy mumble like he’s just turned up for his first day at primary school. If Winston Churchill had sounded like that they would have pulled stumps on World War II after a week.
The sports editor here at the Star Times told me that he met Smith a few years ago in Sydney. He honestly thought the guy was a kid who had come into the office for work experience. There was a complete lack of presence. Smith looked like a little boy and still does.
The guy can bat and he’s got balls, a point he seems intent on reminding himself of after every delivery. But he is about as inspiring as a deceased barramundi. It’s not good enough and he’s sick of saying it, apparently. And then a sentence later he says the same thing. So not that sick.
You guys need another Allan Border. When Dean Jones was hallucinating from dehydration, pissing in his pants and vomiting on the side of the pitch, Border told Jones that he would ‘‘get a Queenslander out here’’ if he couldn’t handle a bit of Indian sun. When Ray Bright was doubled over in the changing room with stomach pain, Border called him out and out Bright came. Follow the leader.
Sorry, you may say, follow which leader? you, we free and
Do you mean Smith or Boof Lehmann or chief executive James Sutherland or maybe Pat Howard, the bloke in charge of high performance?
Howard reminds us he has a business background, if running the family’s pharmaceutical company for a year or two counts as background.
Howard also said: ‘‘We’ve got a young captain with a coach that’s wanted to give the team and squad some stability. I make no apologies for that, I made the decision and I take accountability for that.’’
Howard then said he wasn’t even contemplating resigning as it would be a distraction.
The Aussie idea of accountability is clearly to give a good account of yourself, to big yourself up, rather than actually to be accountable.
Howard’s position was created on the basis of the Argus Report. What the Argus Report didn’t anticipate was that the man in charge of high performance would then bypass the report’s recommendations on the captain being a selector and on there being lots of Sheffield Shield games in the runup to the test summer.
At least Rod Marsh had the decency to resign as head selector. Every time the Australian batting got in trouble they left out Usman Khawaja. Drop the Paki, seemed to be the cry. Khawaja could have been a great test player, but he never gets a run in the team. Khawaja has top-scored in two of the four innings Africa, so he’ll chopped again.
Just about every bloke in his thirties has now played test cricket for Australia, so shambolic has been the recent selection process. Former T20 captain George Bailey said: ‘‘There’s only so many times you can hand caps out to guys telling them ‘you’ve earned this, you deserve it, it’s an honour’, when you’re doing that for three or four guys in the same game . . .’’
Look, Smith is a bit of an arse, so you might as well stick David Warner in as captain. It might even persuade him to stop playing daft shots outside the off stump.
‘‘It’s the way I bat,’’ won’t cut it. Proper test batsmen assess the against South probably get pitch and adapt accordingly. But he’s got a bit of bristle and has done well with the one-day team. A lot better than Smith.
You then need to pick a couple of the young kids like Kurtis Patterson and Hilton Cartwright.
And give them a proper go. And get Khawaja to help mentor them. And chuck out half your support staff and sports scientists, because your fast bowlers are always on the medical couch. Any sign of Pat Cummins or James Pattinson or James Faulkner?
Oh, and when you get towelled, don’t blame it on a boiled sweet. Stop whingeing. Get over yourselves.
No, please, here to help. call any time. We’re