The ground you walk on
All hail thee, Ricky Ponting. Thou art master of the bat and the mind. Or so think your courtiers - the cricket writers at Fox. In the US, we have the White House Press Corps (funnily, Fox distinguishes itself out here as well with its "Fair and Balanced Coverage"). In Australia, we apparently have the Australian Captain Press Corps. Is this really the defiance of authority, the larrikin spirit that distinguishes the Australian character? Sorry, I forgot; its the grand, cosmic, collective sledge, delivered by paper, television and whites-wearing sportsmen.
posted by Samir Chopra at 9:02 PM
5 Comments:
Come on, as much as i try not to listen to anything that Rupert Murdoch owns. The article does have a point. India fell for every mental trick Australia played.
Look at the form of Roy, you can't tell me that isnt about how sreesanth provoked him.
POnting said before the series that fitting the three old guys back in would affect the fielding, he was 100 percent right. This series was played in the press as much as it was on the gorund.
JRod: I think the difference is that while the Indians were sledging/snarling on the field, and chatting to the press - just like the Aussies - they weren't aided and abetted by the Indian press corps. Thats the only point I was trying to make. The steady supplementation of the Aussie captain's sledges by the Aussie press was what I was trying to get at. Not the success of the sledging strategy. All success in that regard is measured by cricketing results. Australia won, India didn't, so thats that (had the results been 4-1 India with exactly the same set of sledging incidents, we'd have been talking about how India's strategy worked). The issue for me is the way the Aussie press started writing like they were an embedded press corp or something. Its the hagiographic tone of the article with regards to Ponting (and the corresponding disdain for everything Indian) that was I getting at.
My only comment would be not to pay too much attention to what the Australian media says. They don't have a grat reputation here, so don't give them too much credence.
A lot of the media is focused on hyperbole in order to gain attention - more rationale viewpoints and discussion doesn't gain the necessary exposure and is therefore not considered worthwhile. Sad really.
Samir, Well lets not forget Murdoch learnt the newspaper craft in australia before taking it to the states and making fair and balanced fox broadcasts.
This isn't a new thing either Samir, every test captain who comes to Australia has trial by media from the moment they arrive. Our media likes to picka side and run with it.
And only when Shane Warne drops his pants do they stop attacking vistiting teams. Like stuart said, we really don't take much notice of them here.
...and chatting to the press - just like the Aussies - they weren't aided and abetted by the Indian press corps.
This is the best analysis I have read on one aspect of the issue.
Of course Indian players shot their own foot in arousing a relatively out of form Symo.
In the balance, it wasn't Matt, it wasn't Gilly who made the difference, but Symo it was. To an extent Mitchell Johnson as well but could he have been the same bowler without Symo ensuring the total would be 300+ rather than a 260?
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