All Out Cricket’s Englishman in Melbourne, Paul Winslow, has been taking great satisfaction in the Aussies’ misfortune.
Schadenfreude is one of my favourite words because it has that perfect combination of wonderful pronunciation and delicious meaning. If you’re a sports fan then it is an essential part of your make-up. I remember going berserk when Bulgaria knocked Germany out of the 1994 football World Cup, not because I had any affinity to the Bulgarians but because Germany lost. More recently, the footballing fraternity enjoyed a good laugh at Manchester United’s expense when they were beaten 6-1 by City, not because they were City fans but because it was funny to revel in United’s capitulation.
Now, Aussie sports fans have had plenty of opportunity to practise it during England’s sporting wilderness years. Every embarrassing batting collapse was met with smirks by those supporting the world’s best cricket team. How they laughed when they beat us at football in a friendly game that they still talk about. How they enjoyed our continuing football mishaps in major tournaments. And then the tide slowly turned.
We won a rugby World Cup and subsequently knocked Australia out on our way to consecutive finals. We started to win more Olympic medals. But more importantly than all that, we won the Ashes in 2005. We may have handed them back two years later, but since then we’ve slowly but surely overhauled them to become the world’s number one team as they have dropped down the rankings. Now England batting collapses are a rarity while Australia’s are a dime a dozen.
All of which means it’s a wonderful time to be an Englishman living in Australia. Mention the Ashes and desperate attempts to change the subject ensue. Cough “47 all out” at a dinner party and even the biggest sports fan will begin talking politics. Talk of Phil Hughes (or ‘Phil Hughes c Guptill b Martin’, as he is now known) and eyes glaze over. And now they’ve lost their first Test to New Zealand in 18 years.
Not that you’d know all this from watching the coverage over here. It remains heavily biased towards the Aussies; if you weren’t aware of the match situation you’d never be able to work out what the score was as they extol the virtues of the Australian team even as they lose their last seven wickets for 74. The ultimate bias came in the award of the Man of the Match to Dave Warner. Awesome innings though it was, Doug Bracewell’s match return of 9-60 was clearly the performance that mattered most as it carried his team to victory.
To be fair, the commentators had already made it clear that out of the two players, the one who ended on the winning team would be deserving of the award. The fact that Warner won it was down to the fact that it was not decided by a panel of experts, but instead by the general public using Vodafone’s smartphone app – which, quite frankly, is a joke. It’s a joke for two reasons. In a game such as this people should not be voting on the Man of the Match until the denouement and they were busy pushing buttons before the last wicket fell when they should have been concentrating on the drama unfolding in front of them. The second is that you’re inevitably going to get bias towards the home country if it’s predominantly their fans that are voting. It doesn’t take a genius to work that out.
I’m sure Bracewell was far too busy revelling in the victory to get too upset, and it was noticeable that the Man of the Match only got an ornamental bat – there was no cheque involved so he didn’t miss out financially. But it makes a mockery of the award. I can’t wait to see which Australian will win it when Sachin Tendulkar reaches his 100th hundred during the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne…
Meanwhile the Big Bash kicks off this weekend. Warney has burnt his hand which may mean the star attraction can’t play, but I’ll be there to see him if he is. Watch this space with bated breath and if you can’t wait for that then why not follow me on Twitter.
Paul Winslow is a freelance journalist based in Melbourne. Check out more of his work at www.thewinslowboy.com.au.
Schadenfreude
All Out Cricket’s Englishman in Melbourne, Paul Winslow, has been taking great satisfaction in the Aussies’ misfortune.
Schadenfreude is one of my favourite words because it has that perfect combination of wonderful pronunciation and delicious meaning. If you’re a sports fan then it is an essential part of your make-up. I remember going berserk when Bulgaria knocked Germany out of the 1994 football World Cup, not because I had any affinity to the Bulgarians but because Germany lost. More recently, the footballing fraternity enjoyed a good laugh at Manchester United’s expense when they were beaten 6-1 by City, not because they were City fans but because it was funny to revel in United’s capitulation.
Now, Aussie sports fans have had plenty of opportunity to practise it during England’s sporting wilderness years. Every embarrassing batting collapse was met with smirks by those supporting the world’s best cricket team. How they laughed when they beat us at football in a friendly game that they still talk about. How they enjoyed our continuing football mishaps in major tournaments. And then the tide slowly turned.
We won a rugby World Cup and subsequently knocked Australia out on our way to consecutive finals. We started to win more Olympic medals. But more importantly than all that, we won the Ashes in 2005. We may have handed them back two years later, but since then we’ve slowly but surely overhauled them to become the world’s number one team as they have dropped down the rankings. Now England batting collapses are a rarity while Australia’s are a dime a dozen.
All of which means it’s a wonderful time to be an Englishman living in Australia. Mention the Ashes and desperate attempts to change the subject ensue. Cough “47 all out” at a dinner party and even the biggest sports fan will begin talking politics. Talk of Phil Hughes (or ‘Phil Hughes c Guptill b Martin’, as he is now known) and eyes glaze over. And now they’ve lost their first Test to New Zealand in 18 years.
Not that you’d know all this from watching the coverage over here. It remains heavily biased towards the Aussies; if you weren’t aware of the match situation you’d never be able to work out what the score was as they extol the virtues of the Australian team even as they lose their last seven wickets for 74. The ultimate bias came in the award of the Man of the Match to Dave Warner. Awesome innings though it was, Doug Bracewell’s match return of 9-60 was clearly the performance that mattered most as it carried his team to victory.
To be fair, the commentators had already made it clear that out of the two players, the one who ended on the winning team would be deserving of the award. The fact that Warner won it was down to the fact that it was not decided by a panel of experts, but instead by the general public using Vodafone’s smartphone app – which, quite frankly, is a joke. It’s a joke for two reasons. In a game such as this people should not be voting on the Man of the Match until the denouement and they were busy pushing buttons before the last wicket fell when they should have been concentrating on the drama unfolding in front of them. The second is that you’re inevitably going to get bias towards the home country if it’s predominantly their fans that are voting. It doesn’t take a genius to work that out.
I’m sure Bracewell was far too busy revelling in the victory to get too upset, and it was noticeable that the Man of the Match only got an ornamental bat – there was no cheque involved so he didn’t miss out financially. But it makes a mockery of the award. I can’t wait to see which Australian will win it when Sachin Tendulkar reaches his 100th hundred during the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne…
Meanwhile the Big Bash kicks off this weekend. Warney has burnt his hand which may mean the star attraction can’t play, but I’ll be there to see him if he is. Watch this space with bated breath and if you can’t wait for that then why not follow me on Twitter.
Paul Winslow is a freelance journalist based in Melbourne. Check out more of his work at www.thewinslowboy.com.au.