The Australian Cricket Board is considering taking legal action against their English counterparts. The dispute is over an alleged breach of contract which saw England take the trophy in the best-of-3-game CBS One Day International Final played out on the world’s largest island prison earlier this year.
As good a cricketer as he was, Flintoff just couldn't master the high-five.
England arrived in Australia in November 2006, seemingly ready to defend their ashes victory of 2005. All the talk was of beating the Aussies in their own backyard, of England having turned a corner and the Australian team being too old and therefore ripe for a whooping. What followed was a master class of test match cricket, the pupils – England – all too reluctant to take any notice during the lessons being administered by their teachers. But with the test series over and the bruises still showing, the one day internationals began, albeit with slightly more parity as far as the opposition was concerned as the Kiwis entered the fray. Maybe all the hurt was at an end for England. Of course it bloody wasn’t. New Zealand took to doing much the same as their antipodean cousins, i.e. tonking English bowlers around whatever ground England had dragged themselves to that day. Things looked bad for English cricket, as did the tournament league table. With Australia on 456 points from 7 games, England and New Zealand were left to scrap amongst themselves for the honour of being the team Australia could bend over and have a saucy time with in the final. It was at that stage that it happened; the beginning of the implausible run that would see the Aussies seething and dropping their three-quarter-pint ‘scooners’ of under-strength beer. England managed to beat an Australian team devoid of ‘first-team’ talent and, frankly, any kind of serious effort due to their having qualified for the final after the first over of the first game. Cruelly, that gave the English hope (and the English fans a reason to stick around and spend more money – and cynics say Australian cricketers take their orders from the Aussie tourist board, tsk). England and New Zealand played out the final game of the ‘Round Robin’ stage of the tournament to see who would play in the ‘Stretched Starling’ stage that was the 3-game final. Somehow England won and set up the intriguing spectacle of half empty stadiums as the Aussie ‘cricket fans’ (i.e. vest-wearing, married cousins carrying coolers full of kangaroo steaks and $4 boxed wine) would surely have run out of original insults to throw at the English by then. In all fairness they reached that point in 1976 but hey, ‘if it ain’t broke’ and all that.
The Australians are reportedly annoyed at the English because the arrangement, agreed in a poorly lit underground car park in Luton just days after England cheekily stole the Ashes in 2005, was that there would be no real contest in the latest fight for the historic urn. Australia would walk all over England and nothing less than a whitewash would suffice to make up for the humiliation of losing to England 18 months previously. England held up their side of the bargain and the Ashes were duly returned to the stick-and-ball playing convicts. That was where the details of the deal became cloudy and England actually decided to try striking and bowling the ball with a modicum of accuracy and pride. Not only had they beaten Australia and New Zealand to set up an unprecedented 2-match winning streak never before seen in the land of the illiterate bushwalkers but they had the audacity to go and beat the Australians again. Only this time there was actually some significance to the game and the Aussies had fielded a full strength team which had actually put some effort in. If that wasn’t enough, England then went on to try even harder in the second game and ended up winning that one, with a little help from Mother Nature. Catches were spectacularly taken, run-out opportunities were taken at an alarming rate and Paul Collingwood in particular was proving that he was missed off the list of recipients when the memo was sent round.
We managed to catch a few quotes from the major players in the whole debacle after England had won the final. Glenn McGrath was philosophical…for an aussie, ‘Look, at the end of the day, your boys have proper screwed up my retirement party but I can’t be bitter. When the pigeon flies west against the ancient breeze of the antipodean dragon’s breath, you must look within yourself…’ (We walked away at this point)
Ricky Ponting was as unsporting as usual, ‘You make arrangements, you shake hands on a bloody deal and then you get stiffed. I’m not happy. It’s not just that they went back on the deal, but they showed us up to be beatable. I’m not having that, mate, not in a month of Sundays. It’s a bloody liberty, bloody trying and everything. There’s no place for that kind of thing in international one day cricket.’
John Buchanan, the Australian coach and allegedly the main deal negotiator, was his usual bullish self, ‘We’re still better than the bloody English. I don’t care that you beat us and are taking a trophy home but when professional and honourable sportsmen go back on a match fixing arrangement, that’s just not on. I mean that really chokes the croc. You expect a certain amount of co-operation when you set up this kind of thing. I’ll never trust you bloody Poms again. This never would have happened in Warnie’s day.’ He then went completely off the radar. ‘And another thing you flaming gallah, my Sheila plays a didgeridoo and waltzing matilda’s a cobber and ripper and I’m not gonna dob her in to Fisher!’
As England’s dismal three month tour of Australia drew to a close, the positive upturn of fortunes for the visitors can only serve them well this coming summer. One statistic, however, will surely stick in the throats of all the loyal fans who turned up to the matches. For the first time in nearly 40 years, there were no streakers during an Australian cricket tour, a fact that will send shock waves all the way to the top echelons of Australian cricket. NJ