Hey boys, keep your f@#%#’g mouths shut

It seems to me that the fairly obvious solution to the row going on over the 2nd cricket test in Sydney last week is to tell the players to keep their mounths shut on the field.  If they say nothing, they will offend nobody.  If they don’t sledge at all, they won’t cross the line into racist insults.  Why not just make a rule that says no talking to the opponents on the field (about anything apart from the game in play)?  Simple.

And why not give the umpires the power to enforce this and impose penalties?  Maybe something like this:

• first time – 5 runs deducted from batsman’s score or added as extras (where the bowling team is guilty)
• second time – 20 runs
• third time – if its a batsman, they are out, if a bowler they are removed from the attack for the rest of the innings, if a fielder, their side loses its best bowler of the innings for the rest of the innings,

This would only need to be applied a handful of times … unless of course the players are very dumb … and the problem would go away.

I really can’t understand why cricketers, and the Australians in particular, feel the need to behave like schoolboys and swear at and abuse their opponents.  They don’t need to, they are plenty good enough without it.   Cut it out of the game, its just rubbish.

And I think the Australian team needs to take a good, hard look at itself.  I don’t think it has dawned on anyone in it that “mmm, everyone else seems to be pissed off at us, wonder if we’re doing something to cause that?”  Certainly not captain Ricky Ponting.  Not Mike Hussey either.  I’m certain the prevailing thought within the team is “we’re ok, everyone else has the problem”.  Until there is some acknowledgement in the team that some things do need to be toned down, nothing is going to change …and it needs to, otherwise the Australians will only have themselves to play with.

While I’m on the subject, why do cricketers carry on like they’re having an orgasm whenever they take a wicket?  Umm, at least at the professional level, its their job, taking wickets is part of it, indeed it happens 10 times each innings.  Its not like at my work we carry on with exaggerated celebrations every time we finish a project or achieve a milestone …. we do celebrate major achievements, but not every single one in the way they do in cricket (and plenty of other sports).