Don't wave to the fun police
During the Ashes it was said that the fun police were out in force but Cricket Australia’s latest edict takes things a step further
Brydon Coverdale
25-Feb-2013
During the Ashes it was said that the fun police were out in force but Cricket Australia’s latest edict takes things a step further. The Daily Telegraph reports that the Mexican wave has been banned from all games in Australia amid fears that fans could be pelted by items thrown high in the air during the wave.
Plainclothes police will mingle with fans to help enforce the ban and video footage and photos will also be used to help identify anyone who starts a Mexican wave. Offenders will be ejected and anyone caught throwing an object faces a $210 on-the-spot fine.
That move might not make Cricket Australia popular with the fans but according to Chloe Saltau in The Age, Australia’s players are also upset with some of CA’s rules regarding personal sponsorship deals.
Opening batsman Matthew Hayden and captain Ricky Ponting are both believed to have been forced to walk away from personal endorsement deals in the financial services sector because the Commonwealth Bank is insisting on a broad range of "category protection" in return for the estimated $6.5 million it is pumping into the game as sponsor of the annual one-day series.
On a lighter note, Richard Earle undertakes an interesting, if parochial, exercise in The Advertiser: he compares England’s woeful tour with South Australia’s abysmal domestic season and comes up with an interesting theory.
If [Darren] Lehmann returned to SA’s side to face Western Australia tomorrow it would boast 224 games of combined ODI experience. England's unit which lost to New Zealand in Perth boasted 378 games but would be hard-pressed to beat SA.
Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here