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Cricket Australia have spent several months, a bunch of money and a hundred-and-odd pages attempting to track down the near-mythical “line” in the wake of that whole cheating-at-cricket thing.
Recommendation number one was that they set up an Ethics Commission to consider the matter further.
All that talk of knowing where the line is and not crossing it – turns out they lost track of the line ages ago. Someone may even have accidentally put it in the recycling.
The most obvious manifestation of the ongoing confusion was when David Warner stormed off the pitch last week because somebody sledged him (Phil Hughes’ brother, weirdly), only to almost immediately storm back on again. Is sledging okay or not? Poor Davey has no idea any more.
This is where the Ethics Commission comes in and oh my will it have some clout. The recently-completed review into Australian cricket’s culture says it should have no formal power. “Its influence would lie solely in its capacity, in private and/or in public, to approve or disapprove of: Certain practices occurring on or off the field of play…”
The power of disapproval is one that should not be wielded lightly.
We can now exclusively reveal that Cricket Australia has secured the services of The Disapprover to head the commission.
If you don’t know The Disapprover, he’s a former headteacher who once happened upon a bunch of kids mucking about in the school chemistry lab and developed three special powers as a result of the ensuing chemical explosion.
Those special powers are as follows.
- Flight
- A near-deafening tut
- A disapproving glare that makes the target feel instantly sheepish and forces them to think long and hard about what they’ve done
From this day forward, whenever someone threatens to break someone’s arm on the field of play or does something liable to compromise the reputation of Cricket Australia in the boardroom, The Disapprover will instantly fly in, tut and give them a bit of a look.
Australian cricket will be saved.
Re: David Warner storming off and on the pitch.
What exactly did he expect? Having read the reports about it, by the standards of Aussie cricket it ranks somewhere below “Expect a broken fucking arm” on the scale of sledging. I can’t imagine him enjoying playing pretty much anywhere in the UK next year, and I hope for his sake his captain doesn’t ask him to field near the Hollies Stand.
From the Sydney Morning Herald:
“Fairfax Media understands Hughes said to Warner, “You’re a disgrace, you shouldn’t be playing cricket.”……….
Warner’s wife Candice Warner said on Sunday that remarks directed at her husband had crossed the line between sledging and abuse.”
Is passing the custodianship of the line to Candice part of CA’s new strategy? Maybe she’s the new Disapprover.
I’ve never been so qualified for a job before in my life. I’ve got years of experience disapproving of Australian cricketers. Where do I send my CV?
Was The Disapprover inspired by a Prince Prefab tale?
No. Interesting that you thought that.
It seems that CA have completely failed to understand that the problem was not the ball tampering, or the lying afterwards, or sledging, or any of that stuff. The problem was totally, fully, 100% their holier-than-thou attitude towards everyone else for doing exactly the same thing. If anything, this Ethics Committee is going to make it worse, on call with a steady supply of halos to hand out after every test. They don’t need a disapprover, they need someone to tell them to stop looking like they’ve been butt-fucked whenever someone does it back.
As regards David Warner, I read some articles that suggested his upset was a sign that the “former” attack dog had changed his tune. In fact, his storming off is absolutely par for the course for him, and several other members of that Australian team. Sledge, abuse, insult, cheat, but when someone does it to you, run crying to the teacher.
This is all precisely correct.
The Disapprover has taken the scalp of CA’s chariman.
Extraordinarily powerful disapproval from The Disapprover to actually influence someone’s actions.
There was this guy who wrote a blog on Cricinfo called Andrew Hughes. This post might almost have been written by him — the language is not dissimilar.