It is easy to throw our sports people on the fires of our indignation
Now, everyone – even those who do know not the difference between a maiden over and a googly – has an opinion regarding sandpaper and cricket
A pastor is gunned down in cold blood by the same people to whom he gave a lift to.
A farm is ‘attacked’ and looted. Town Councils throughout the country stumble around from one incompetent decision to another while rates shoot up over 120% in some cases.
Yet the real outrage is when cricket players admit to sandpapering cricket balls to give them a swing advantage. The self-righteous take to their keyboards to hammer away their comments and to join the flood of incredulity… would the Aussies really take the gentleman’s game down the dust pipe – just as the Pakistani teams of former years and Hansie Cronje, sadly, did? Apparently so.
People produce ‘swing difference’ graphs to prove that the sandpapering by Bancroft did make a difference.
Not that it helped the Aussies, of course, they got hammered, sandpaper and all.
Expressing outrage over a sporting misdemeanour, no matter how sick (as the sandpaper one is), is just a lot easier than commenting or being prepared to offer a public opinion on issues such as crime outrages, municipal chaos.
Now, everyone – even those who do know not the difference between a maiden over and a googly – has an opinion regarding sandpaper and cricket.
It sort of acts as a relief valve to all the other nasty stories people have read out over the past months – the murders, the Council bust-ups, park parties etc.
Yah! At last a sports controversy we can really use to ventilate our opinions – thank goodness for that.
You cannot be really wrong. The sandpaper was there for everyone to see – down his pants and all. Yet the tampering, say of Council minutes, does not elicit the kind of indignation – despite the fact that maybe the wrong decision that impacts on the pockets of all ratepayers is made.What we need is live television with replays of every Council decision.
Social media has given rise to the fact that everyone has an opinion and left alone, can give rise to the Penny Sparrows, the guy who said whites must be exterminated and a myriad of other keyboard warriors whose actions, strangely enough, have not been taken up by the SA Human Rights Commission. Unfortunately for the sports people, it is easy to throw them on the fires of our indignation.
Sadly, Sandpaper Gate leaves a rough taste in the mouth and one that sets a poor example to the many young cricket players who look up to these players as role models. I can just see hundreds of Steven Smith and Cameron Bancroft posters being ripped off walls of teens bedrooms everywhere Down Under.
To be replaced by whom?
