Opposites?

For a big dose of cricketing cliche about the difference between those carefree, ebullient Sri Lankans and those grim, determined Australians, check out this piece, written ahead of the Australia-Sri Lanka clash which ended in such a whimper (to the credit of some of the folks making comments on that page, the cliches get nailed). I wonder how long it will take before some of these fade away from the cricketing scene but given their persistence in other domains of writing I think we are stuck with this particular one. What doesn't seem to have sunk in as far the journos who keep trotting out these cliches are concerned is that these ultimately come to work against the teams they think they are praising - for following in the trail of these virtues that he ascribes to the Sri Lankans come those damning charges of lack of discipline, organization and the like, all of which are used to take them a little less seriously.