Aussie press brands their Cricketers "studs and duds"
The media in Australia reacted with shock and awe as its cricketers were humbled by Sri Lanka on the last day of the first Test match in Kandy, in game that had already made headlines Down Under for the recruitment of Muttiah Muralitharan - once demonised as a ‘chucker’ in Australia - as its spin bowling consultant.
Saturday evening television programmes, traditionally dominated by Australian Football, gave way to break the news of the Aussies’ defeat at the hands of a team ranked until yesterday as the seventh best in the world.
The Herald Sun called Australia’s batting display “hopeless” against spin and noted that “suddenly, the game’s No.1ranked side is battling to avoid defeat in the threematch series after starting as strong favourite to win the first Test”.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that “Australia was dealt a major reality check when they were flummoxed by spin and crashed to a 106-run defeat". It noted that Australia has “now only won one of their past 16 Tests on the sub-continent and have much work to do if they are to re-emerge in the threeTest series”.
The Daily Telegraph expressed its outrage at Australia’s performance by categorising its players as ‘studs’ and ‘duds’. Its top order, David Warner, Joe Burns and Usman Khawaja were branded as ‘duds’ while skipper Steven Smith, Peter Nevill and Steve O’ Keefe were labelled ‘studs’. The newspaper did not rate the individual performances of Sri Lankan players.
Noting that the victory “marks a big turnaround for No.7 Sri Lanka”, The Guardian commented that “the disappointment for Angelo Mathews’ team was there were so few Sri Lankan fans at the ground, with travelling Australian fans potentially making up the majority of the paltry crowd”.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) called the defeat ‘humiliating’ and noted that the game would have ended sooner if not for Stephen O’Keefe having ‘a large slice of luck’ when Umpire Richard Kettleborough refused to give him out following an appeal for a bat-pad catch off Dhananjaya De Silva.
The many blunders by umpires Kettleborough and Sundaram Ravi were noted in most media reports which detailed the many instances where their decisions were overturned after consulting the third umpire.
Most media outlets heaped praise on veteran spinner Rangana Herath who finished the game with figures of 9 for 103. Noting that Herath was the only Test cricketer still in action who made his debut in the 1990s, The Age complimented him on his steady spell and calm demeanour, describing his appeal for a caught and bowled against Adam Vogeswhich many thought was a ‘bump’ ball- as being in “hushed, almost apologetic tones, rather than as a man who believed he had made a crucial incision”.
Also earning plaudits was young Kusal Mendis whose bating master-class on a difficult wicket earned several rave reviews. The Australian commented that Mendis’s performance was proof that “there is life in Sri Lankan cricket” and said that “the kid was simply stunning”.
Rookie spinner Lakshan Sandakan also intrigued many. The Daily Telegraph noted that he baffled most batsmen while The Age observed that he “loomed as a difficult proposition” especially when bowling his ‘wrong-un’.
It was a day that Sri Lanka was very much in the news and expatriates domiciled Down Under for decades said the coverage was reminiscent of the rude awakening Australia had when Sri Lanka defeated the sports-mad nation at the World Cup cricket final in Pakistan twenty years ago.