“They started it”

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Are England and Australia ever going to comprehend the concept of hubris? Australia finished day one shushing the Barmy Army. Have they not been paying attention to the way things have worked this year? They finished day two on 164-9.

Sportsmen aren’t exactly shot-through with dignity, but the Ashes seems to have become a goldfish-memoried in-your-face fest. Every wicket seems to be accompanied by some sort of taunting celebration of vengeance fulfilled. At the same time, players from both sides keep reminding their opponents that ‘cricket has a funny way of biting you on the bum’ – seemingly unaware that the advice is equally applicable to themselves. What’s a normal way to be bitten on the bum, incidentally?

All this talk of it being like a war out there. It’s not. It’s basically a playground squabble. Players react to whatever happened last, without ever seeing the long, tit-for-tat chain of events that led to the most recent slight.

It’s revenge for revenge for revenge for revenge and no-one’s got any perspective and it’ll never end. So actually, maybe it is like a war.

DON'T BE LIKE GATT!

Mike Gatting wasn't receiving the King Cricket email when he dropped that ludicrously easy chance against India in 1993.

Coincidence?

Why risk it when it's so easy to sign up?

9 comments

  1. More and more this year’s cricket has resembled one of those cross-over comics where Superman and Thor take it in turns smashing the proverbial out of one-another. I would be less than surprised if he Sydney test ends with Jimmy Anderson and Mitchell Johnson unconscious and slumped against one another while the square and outfield are smouldering around them.

  2. It is not a matter of life and death. It’s much more important than that. Hence all the ‘hilarious’ ‘banter’.

    Cricket’s always been more about pathos than hubris to me.

  3. damn you’re on good form man {{@@@}}

    excellence use of feedback-gathering-and-processing may i say ;-0

    i mean seriouslah

    keep it up! oh and hny 🙂

  4. If you think about it, wars require minimal ingredients. I’ll prove England have all of them – they only need to start acting on it.

    1. You need to identify a moustachioed man in another country (Johnson).
    2. You need to repeatedly claim he has a secret weapon that would absolutely flatten your countrymen (yorker). For this step, you’ve to remember it doesn’t matter if he actually has it. You only need to convince everyone in your camp that he does. Fear begets more fear.
    3. Having spread fear, you need to prove you’re a man of action: assault him repeatedly. Innocent women (Clarke) and children (Smith) might get caught in the crossfire, but being a proud man from a proud nation, you need to press along not letting these things bother you.
    4. You need to extend the fear mongering to include captains of other countries. International support for worthless causes is an absolute necessity.
    5. Well after the ashes war is over, it might come to light that Johnson never had the bouncer in the first place, and many Australians lost their careers because of the false propaganda and countless children have been scarred for life and will never play for Australia. But these facts don’t matter to you anymore as you are now enjoying retired life. Preferably in a ranch.

  5. Yesterday I commented on Twitter that there was a faint hope that England could go out on Day Three and be even more shithouse than Australia was on Day Two.

    They’d done it at the Gabba. They did it in the UAE against Pakistan. England, you bloody beauty.

  6. What you going on about, KC? Can,t see any ‘ubris out there. Just Aus beating England senseless to the ground.

    I suggest you *puts finger to lips*

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