Well, it's over and done people. We lost. Congratulations to England, we were well and truly outplayed at Lords and at the Oval. We should have closed the deal at Cardiff, but couldn't.
We'll be back in 18 months.
I hope.
I'm not a sore loser. I say I am, but really I'm not. Australia didn't play well and, thus, didn't deserve to win. Actually, I think the two teams were as poor as each other most of the time and it could have gone either way. England were the better team at the Oval and at Lords and that won them the series.
I live in the UK and what annoys me is the locals who feign interest in cricket as soon as the going is good. I'm all up for a little banter with true fans, but the johnny come latelys can actually be quite nasty. “Sing when you're winning” was my favourite line in 2005.
Within 20 minutes of England winning today, I had had 3 text messages from people who had never had an interest in cricket jeering at me over Australia's loss. One of them had even made fun of me for writing a cricket blog, several weeks ago, and had taunted me for only ever talking about cricket on facebook!
My cricket fan friends will also have a go, but it is usually less nasty although still a bit obnoxious. I will never get an “Australia played well” or “you can be proud of that fight back but you were always up against it”. Why not?
I'm sick of England supporters telling me Australia is shit at cricket. My autistic son and his autistic mate call each other “retard”, but if anyone else does it they'll get a punch; A black guy can call another black guy “nigger”, but a white person can't. By the same token, I can say Australia are shit at cricket because I am an Australian. How dare anyone who isn't Australian say it.
This all makes me quite angry and then I get accused of being a sore loser. How is that, exactly?
I am Australian and we don't like losing at sport; we really don't like losing at cricket and we especially don't like losing the cricket to the Old Enemy (or the Kiwis, but that's a whole other post!). But I can give credit where credit is due.
I am not a sore loser.
Why must the Brits be such bad winners?
3 thoughts on this post:
Boy, have I had stick from Australians over the past 20 years for our cricket team. Ok, we've had some pretty awful players in the early 90s, and after that you had an incredible team that just about thrashed everyone, but the abuse kept coming. I was in Australia for the Ashes in 2002, I can't remember a kind word for our team from the crowd. If you lot use the big stick when you've got it in your hand, you can't be surprised when you get it back when we have it.
It also doesn't help that McGrath still pokes his head up to predict 5-0 results, that rankles with the English who would never be so brash.
As for this series, there were some seriously impressive performances from some of the Aussies, Hilfenhaus for one, and each of the batters put a performance in, but equally they all failed at important times. Essentially Australia choked at the key moments, which has not been a thing we've come to expect. That Australia has returned to the pack is hard for their fans, but good for cricket as a whole.
There's always 2011 :-)
Cheers
I have to admit, I have seen some awful comments from some Aussies on facebook this last week, but they did really surprise me. I think because I, personally, wouldn't dream of behaving so thuggishly I was surprised to have it all aimed at me. Clearly some Aussies are just as bad as those I have encountered over here.
A bit of banter is fine, but I would expect someone to at least to say something like "well done" "better luck next time" (because that's what I do)... I think maybe I expect too much of people from either end of the world :-)
Thanks for your comments, by the way.
Miserable performance by us, eh? I totally agree that we lost the series during that first test when we let England get away with the draw. Till today, I cannot fathom why Ponting bowled North! We gave England a moral victory with the draw and it's been downhill since (inspite of the one win). Let's hope we come back in 2011!
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