Drip-feed of drivel masks the real contest
Greg Baum in the Melbourne Age on pre-match blithering, which traditionally lacks spontaneity and grace
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
Greg Baum in the Melbourne Age on pre-match blithering, which traditionally lacks spontaneity and grace. So why, he ponmders, has the ICC given it credence:
The "war of words" is predictable, well rehearsed, lame and boring. It is a ritual, a cliche. It serves no purpose other than to while away the hours until the series begins. It is hard to know why the ICC bothered. Its crackdown has invested it with a gravity it is not due.
He concluded:
The war of words is a phoney. With exceptions, sportsfolk get along well enough most of the time. Spats happen, as they must, but they are superseded by events. The war of words is pseudo, a fake, an exercise in marketing. Call it off and let the real game begin.
And an editorial in South Africa's Business Day is thankful that criticism is aimed in another direction:
It’s nice to see a torrent of Australian abuse (sledging) being directed at someone other than SA for a change — and a collective someone who truly deserves it. That someone I allude to is, of course, the International Cricket Council, or ICC as most of us know that bunch of distracted disconnected people now sitting in Dubai rather than London.
But Peter Roebuck praises the ICC for stepping in:
The only body with the guts to call a halt has been that most derided of institutions, the ICC. Everyone else has been busily fanning the flames in the manner of men — it is usually men — unaware of their responsibilities.
Martin Williamson is executive editor of ESPNcricinfo and managing editor of ESPN Digital Media in Europe, the Middle East and Africa