How exactly does a ball make headlines? Malcolm TurnBALL – oops, Turnbull – must have been delighted that it was the leader of the Aussie cricket team, and not the country, copping the heat for letting everyone down.
Hey, here’s something you may have missed with CRICKETGATE occupying a ridiculous amount of air time and social commentary. After the 28th consecutive newspoll Malcolm has pulled a miserable 37 per cent as preferred PM. He’s sanding his balls for extra swing while we speak. He’s been swaying out for a while now; he’s going to need to find a way to get his ball to swing in. He might need a little chat with Warner himself.
Seriously, can we stop talking about cricket and talk about stuff that matters? For the last week every media source has blasted us with stories of outrage about a few blokes who had a crack at sanding their ball to gain some winning advantage.
Who cares? I certainly don’t. It’s a game. I don’t think that’s been mentioned. A game means that in the scheme of things it’s a meaningless leisure activity where someone wins and someone loses. And by the way, when it comes to integrity and role models, I don’t look to sports players. Who does? It’s sport for Christ’s sake. It’s (usually) a bunch of over-paid men chasing a ball. If they want to restore integrity in sport then stop paying them so much.
Women at the same level don’t cheat. Sportspeople are good role models for BALL CHASING. Perhaps they are role models to fellow ball chasers such as border collies and Labradors and should be apologising to them.
When did we start expecting sportspeople to act like diplomats? Since when did behaviour on the pitch become the benchmark of the highest attributes of human behaviour?
Personally I reckon if you can put $5 on a team through Sportsbet I don’t think you’re talking Henry Kissinger. You might win a trophy but you ain’t getting the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s a game. If you get caught cheating you lose. End of story.
This ridiculous baying for blood by the Australian media is a beatup. What do they want to see happen to Steve Smith and David Warner? Would they be happy with a Game of Thrones-styled walk of shame at the MCG?
Humiliation is great for ratings. I can’t believe Australia finally cares about integrity. We’re sending coal ships through the Barrier Reef FFS. We’re fracking farmland. We’re killing children in detention. Two fellas kill their wives every week and we don’t raise a sweat. A bloke cheats in cricket and now we’re the Integrity Nation? What a joke. Shouldn’t we be looking to our political leaders instead of cricketers for integrity?
The prime minister is more appalled by the cricket team’s cheating than he was about Barnaby Joyce’s recent ball pampering with his media adviser. The PM was quick to bleat: ‘Our cricketers are role models and cricket is synonymous with fair play’. Really? Fair Play? What is fair play exactly?
Personally if you can sand a ball and make the game finish a bit faster I’m happy. Why do we hold our sportspeople to higher account than our political leaders? Steve Smith got 12 months’ suspension for tampering; John Howard got two more terms after his Tampa incident. Why wasn’t he suspended?
The government has been the architect of some horrendous acts of cruelty, namely our migration policy, which saw the UN Human Rights Council implicate Australia as part of an escalating cycle of repression and deference that has caused a massive abuse of migrants. That was reported at the beginning of March. There was no nationwide shame.
Did we have Malcolm Turnbull on the telly crying that he was sorry and he’d do better next time? No, because we value competition more than we do human lives.
Maybe if we can find a way to get refugees competing so we can gamble on them through Sportsbet we might give a shit.
I just don’t get it. Human beings lie and cheat to get ahead. It’s part of what we do to gain advantage. Who hasn’t lied about their kid’s age to get a cheaper movie ticket, broken something at home then taken it back to get a refund, or told their boss they’re sick when they’re hungover?
Ball tampering? It’s so bloody Aussie. Let’s not forget many of us still have convict blood. It’s how we roll…
And by the way – no-one died. It’s not news. It’s Spin.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
