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Sunil blasts the Australians

Do you agree with Sunil Gavaskar’s assessment of the Australians?


  • Total voters
    84

Ikki

Hall of Fame Member
Yeah. One thing i've never seen Australia as a side display is humility. This isnt just about jealousy of success - its that Australia has a genuine attitude problem when it comes to sports. You see similar comments about the Socceroos as well. But you sure don't see such impression about West Indies team of the 70s/80s or the Brazilian soccer team or the Giants. All these teams are just as successful as the current Aussie team, if not more but none of them are maligned as they would be if it were 'jealousy and pot shots'.
What about the Socceroos? You're starting to talk a bit of crap here.
 

Ikki

Hall of Fame Member
Aussies are #1 - biggest reason to hate them. WI weren't angels - I really doubt any team has been angels. Aussies have been no better or no worse than anyone else.

The problem with being the #1 team and being the best in every single aspect is that it will lead to enviness and jealousy. People start picking at you and exaggerating, like the Aussie behaviour.

I think Sunil has to start repairing his glass house and a few people should join him for tea.
 

C_C

International Captain
What about the Socceroos? You're starting to talk a bit of crap here.
Commented during the world cup for their 'overly-aggressive' attitude and playing style.
You simply cannot accept that Australian sporting culture is way too win-oriented and as a result, produces way too many yobs who are loud, boisterious and totally uncouth compared to any other culture i've heard of.

Aussies are #1 - biggest reason to hate them.
No. Aussie team = uncouth. Thats the biggest reason to hate them.
WIndies were #1 for longer and in more comprehensive fashion than the Aussies and they were loved.
Brazilian soccer team is #1 and its loved.
 

archie mac

International Coach
Nope, Only Aussie player from current generation that can get close is is Shane Warne.




I must have missed that..did it happen in the 70s-80s ? Mcdermott was no saint either when it came to sledging.
What Lehmann said about the Sri Lankans only white was the first word. Late 80s, it was Viv I think
 

archie mac

International Coach
Commented during the world cup for their 'overly-aggressive' attitude and playing style.
You simply cannot accept that Australian sporting culture is way too win-oriented and as a result, produces way too many yobs who are loud, boisterious and totally uncouth compared to any other culture i've heard of.



No. Aussie team = uncouth. Thats the biggest reason to hate them.
WIndies were #1 for longer and in more comprehensive fashion than the Aussies and they were loved.
Brazilian soccer team is #1 and its loved.
Hate is a very strong word, and I don't love the Brazilian soccer team, they dive like most of these teams. The Aussies play it hard but fair. Can anyone tell us the team that has had the most players charged with dissent in the last 10 years?

Have you ever been to Aust.?
 

social

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Commented during the world cup for their 'overly-aggressive' attitude and playing style.
You simply cannot accept that Australian sporting culture is way too win-oriented and as a result, produces way too many yobs who are loud, boisterious and totally uncouth compared to any other culture i've heard of.



No. Aussie team = uncouth. Thats the biggest reason to hate them.
WIndies were #1 for longer and in more comprehensive fashion than the Aussies and they were loved.
Brazilian soccer team is #1 and its loved.
The Socceroos were a credit to their country during the World Cup

In days gone by, they were justly accused of attempting to compensate for a lack of skill with an over-vigorous approach but they're longe gone.

On the other hand, the performances of Croatia and Italy (dived their way to victory) versus Oz were a disgrace.

BTW, the Windies were not universally admired.

Several of their players (Richards, Greenidge, Haynes, Croft etc) were regarded as surly and arrogant whilst many regarded their tactics (pitiful over rates, coordinated appealing and incessant bouncer barrages to stem run scoring opportunities) as amongst the most cynical the world has seen.

In actual fact, part of Shane Warne's popularity can be traced to people's joy at seeing such tactics nullified to a degree by sheer skill rather than brute force
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
And I dont care what Slats/Mcgrath were going through..It's just an excuse...nothing more nothing less.
Dire tbh... You realise that they are humans, and will be prone to lapses in judgement. You keep on throwing McGrath in when I'm talking about Slater. McGrath was a different case because he definitely STARTED that particular slanging match using completely unacceptable comments and then got upset when someone returned fire. It was understandable that a comment about his wife upset him, but I have no sympathy for him because he created that situation himself. McGrath is one of the "gooses" I referred to earlier in this thread - he's a great player who I generally admire enormously, but he sledges too much and says foolish things sometimes on the field.

Slater is a bit different because through the majority of his career he was a pretty friendly affable kind of guy who didn't have or cause problems with his behaviour. His nadir in India in 2001 is something that he's been honest about afterwards, in terms of acknowledging how far out of line he was, and it pretty much ended his international career (first hand accounts make it clear that after India he was on borrowed time in the team and he was dropped during the next tour for good). So he's admitted his error, he paid a hefty price for it, and has discussed, WITHOUT SEEKING TO EXCUSE HIMSELF, the various things that were going on in his life. That includes the end of his marriage, an ongoing struggle with a chronic disabling illness that left him in pain most of the time, and the beginning of a slide into a form of depressive illness.

Now you can right all of those things off as "excuses" and then use this specific incident as an fig-leaf to cover your generalisations, but to be honest, I think doing so says more about you than it does about Slater...
 
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Johnners

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Commented during the world cup for their 'overly-aggressive' attitude and playing style.
You simply cannot accept that Australian sporting culture is way too win-oriented and as a result, produces way too many yobs who are loud, boisterious and totally uncouth compared to any other culture i've heard of.



No. Aussie team = uncouth. Thats the biggest reason to hate them.
WIndies were #1 for longer and in more comprehensive fashion than the Aussies and they were loved.
Brazilian soccer team is #1 and its loved.
Haha, what an example, the "overly aggressive" ploy was one adopted by the Japanese management in order to swing the ref bias their way. If you took off your anti-australia glasses might realise that the Socceroos didn't dive their way to victory as so many of the other teams attempted to do, and Italy acheived.

FTR, i know plenty of people who don't love the Brazil Soccer team.
 

Salamuddin

International Debutant
I didn't think there was anything wrong with Sreesanth's behaviour personally. Thought it was gun, tbh.
Exactly - I didn't see how it's any different to what Mcgrath gets up to.
Sreesanth didn't indulge in racial abuse which is something McGrath has done - yet friend Social conveniently forgets that.

As I said before, you dish it out - you gotta expect it in return.
 

Salamuddin

International Debutant
On the other hand, the performances of Croatia and Italy (dived their way to victory) versus Oz were a disgrace.

If you honestly don't believe that Socceroo players don't dive, you're kidding yourself.
In the World Cup, both Viduka and Emerton went down rather theatrically in the games against Italy and Croatia.
The fact that we lost due to a penalty due to an Italian tumbling, makes everyone forget that our players do it as well.

And please get over the idea that we only lost because of that penalty - we had Matterazzi sent off (ratrher harshly) and yet we couldn't even create a single chance on the Italian goal (tells you something about the quality of their defence). Italy took their chances - we didn't simple as.
 

R_D

International Debutant
Oh yeah, FYI Malcolm Marshall said to David Boon on his Test debut that if he didn't do the right thing, he would be forced to come around the wicket and kill him.

So there you go.
sorry my cricketing knowledge isn't that great, When this happend weren't helmets already around ?

Anyway i harldy would call that insulting someone, it would scared the **** of the batsman but nothign more.
 

social

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
If you honestly don't believe that Socceroo players don't dive, you're kidding yourself.
In the World Cup, both Viduka and Emerton went down rather theatrically in the games against Italy and Croatia.
The fact that we lost due to a penalty due to an Italian tumbling, makes everyone forget that our players do it as well.

And please get over the idea that we only lost because of that penalty - we had Matterazzi sent off (ratrher harshly) and yet we couldn't even create a single chance on the Italian goal (tells you something about the quality of their defence). Italy took their chances - we didn't simple as.
Virtually everybody dives (one of the many reasons why the game has, until recently struggled for acceptance in Australia) - some players do it better than others, others do it more often (Christian Ronaldo and Robben, for example) and sometimes a blatant theatrical moment is unjustly rewarded (Italy for example)

No-one is disputing that Italy werent a better team nor deserved to win the World Cup BUT they were given a gift against Oz when the game should have been decided by penalties. Had it gone that far, who knows?

As for Croatia, 2 send-offs plus a third player remaining on the field with 3 red cards plus complaining at being beaten by a better team on the day hardly reflects well on them.
 

social

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Exactly - I didn't see how it's any different to what Mcgrath gets up to.
Sreesanth didn't indulge in racial abuse which is something McGrath has done - yet friend Social conveniently forgets that.

As I said before, you dish it out - you gotta expect it in return.
When has McGrath racially abused anyone?

As for Sreesanth, sledging is one thing (even though it becomes tedious when it happens a few times every over) but doing a jig repeatedly in front of a bowlers face because you happen to hit a few runs or intentionally running into people as some misguided form of intimidation (the guys knee-high to a grass-hopper ffs) or rolling around on the ground for minutes as though you've been shot because your hoping the umpires will call the light during the delay you've caused was just pathetic.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Dire tbh... You realise that they are humans, and will be prone to lapses in judgement. You keep on throwing McGrath in when I'm talking about Slater. McGrath was a different case because he definitely STARTED that particular slanging match using completely unacceptable comments and then got upset when someone returned fire. It was understandable that a comment about his wife upset him, but I have no sympathy for him because he created that situation himself. McGrath is one of the "gooses" I referred to earlier in this thread - he's a great player who I generally admire enormously, but he sledges too much and says foolish things sometimes on the field.

Slater is a bit different because through the majority of his career he was a pretty friendly affable kind of guy who didn't have or cause problems with his behaviour. His nadir in India in 2001 is something that he's been honest about afterwards, in terms of acknowledging how far out of line he was, and it pretty much ended his international career (first hand accounts make it clear that after India he was on borrowed time in the team and he was dropped during the next tour for good). So he's admitted his error, he paid a hefty price for it, and has discussed, WITHOUT SEEKING TO EXCUSE HIMSELF, the various things that were going on in his life. That includes the end of his marriage, an ongoing struggle with a chronic disabling illness that left him in pain most of the time, and the beginning of a slide into a form of depressive illness.

Now you can right all of those things off as "excuses" and then use this specific incident as an fig-leaf to cover your generalisations, but to be honest, I think doing so says more about you than it does about Slater...
Matt79 sums-up my feelings about cricketers having lives off the field better than I've ever been able to.

Would be worthy of a sig-addition if mine wasn't so bloody full already...
 

sirdj

State Vice-Captain
Haha, what an example, the "overly aggressive" ploy was one adopted by the Japanese management in order to swing the ref bias their way. If you took off your anti-australia glasses might realise that the Socceroos didn't dive their way to victory as so many of the other teams attempted to do, and Italy acheived.
I for one saw the socceroos matches and from an neutral position can safely say that they played fairly.

But I would also like to point out that they were underdogs for most of the matches that they played.

Aussies tend to behave differently when they happen to be the champions/favorites as compared to when they are rank underdogs.

They do have this 'win at all costs' & 'take no prisoners' attitude. While I can understand their desire to win games, I think they take a 'game' far too seriously.

I would never sledge/insult someone to win a game, because I value the relationship with another human being over a win in a 'game' anyday.

Why is it that the West Indians never sledged Gavaskar and Co? could it be that the Indians never sledged themselves and never made comments such as making the opposition grovel?
 

adharcric

International Coach
social said:
As for Sreesanth, sledging is one thing (even though it becomes tedious when it happens a few times every over) but doing a jig repeatedly in front of a bowlers face because you happen to hit a few runs or intentionally running into people as some misguided form of intimidation (the guys knee-high to a grass-hopper ffs) or rolling around on the ground for minutes as though you've been shot because your hoping the umpires will call the light during the delay you've caused was just pathetic.
It was awesome tbh.
 

social

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I for one saw the socceroos matches and from an neutral position can safely say that they played fairly.

But I would also like to point out that they were underdogs for most of the matches that they played.

Aussies tend to behave differently when they happen to be the champions/favorites as compared to when they are rank underdogs.

They do have this 'win at all costs' & 'take no prisoners' attitude. While I can understand their desire to win games, I think they take a 'game' far too seriously.

I would never sledge/insult someone to win a game, because I value the relationship with another human being over a win in a 'game' anyday.

Why is it that the West Indians never sledged Gavaskar and Co? could it be that the Indians never sledged themselves and never made comments such as making the opposition grovel?
I dont really think that being an underdog comes into it that much - sledging, etc is part and parcel of many sports in Australia and it's not that easy to turn that attitude on and off.

What is apparent is that Australians, in general, have a different attitude towards things that happen on the ground, i.e. they dont take it personally and forget about it until they next cross the ropes.

However, this "attitude" does not pervade all sports or all sportsmen.

By way of example, there are 2 Australian golfers in the world's top 10 and numerous others in the world's top 100. Fortunately, intimidation of any sort is not part and parcel of that sport and, as a result, players world-wide are criticised for being robotic more than anything else.

Likewise, Hewitt has acted like a jackass on numerous occasions whilst virtually every other top Australian tennis pro has been universally regarded as a gentleman.

BTW, if you want to witness sledging on a grand-scale, attend a tennis tournament and listen to the way that many players talk to each other - just because it isnt publicised doesnt mean that it doesnt happen
 

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