It's not what you say...

The life of the modern elite cricketer is different from most of our own. At an early age, usually before they leave school, they are hand picked from thousands of other hopefuls to be their country's Best New Hope. They're often sponsored before they can drive, they pay more attention to the location of their off stump than their school lessons, and ultimately they are bred and nurtured to be athletes. They are ushered into state cricket, national A sides, and eventually the national team itself, collecting money along the way. Mundane goals such as holding down a regular job, are at best secondary to goals such as maintaining a 50+ average, or consistently taking wickets. Cricketers evolve differently as people as a result of these different priorities, it's inevitable. With the bulk of commentators everywhere made up of former athletes, are we kidding ourselves to expect anything else?

While many elite athletes are still capable of maintaining society's standards for morals and ethics, plenty cling on to the school boy mentality they were never forced to relinquish due to the all-forgiving cocoon they're wrapped in. Ego and arrogance are justified as self belief, stubborness as grit & determination, and humour such as Dean Jones' thought of as larrakinism. After life in cricket finished for Jones, he moved into coaching and commentary after a quick public relations course in how not to make an arse of yourself. It either didn't include a lesson on always treating the microphone as though it's on, or Deano didn't listen that day.

So is it really fair to single out Jones? Judging by the reaction to his "terrorist" remark, you could be forgiven for thinking that this was the first time in history a cricket commentator had behaved in a politically incorrect manner, though a quick stint down memory lane tells us otherwise. He's far from alone when it comes to saying the wrong thing on air, as the following examples show:

Mike Gibson & Ian Chappel: The 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth games was set to the domestic political back drop of native land rights for Indigenous Australians, and when a troope of Aboriginal dancers entered the arena Gibson exclaimed "I don't know what that chant is, but I hope they aren't about to claim that piece of land out in the middle." As Gibson was off-air at the time, and this was just sport in general, not cricket, this would have escaped the list and public knowledge, if Ian Chappel hadn't thought it humourous enough to include in a collection of anecdotes published entilted "Smile Sport!" in 1983. If this sort of humour is good enough for Chappel to print, and nobody objects, with the pepetuation of racial stereotypes and socially inflammatory repercussions, why are the Word Police so vigourously chasing Jones for the same crime? Is it just because it's in a different media?

Jeff Thomson: During the 2001 Ashes tour, Thommo was waiting on the field for the cameras to start rolling so he could tell viewers it was raining, and play had been delayed. At least, he thought he was waiting for the cameras to start. Unknown to the great blond quick, while English viewers were watching commercials, their Australian counterparts could see and hear him exclaim "F*#%ing rain! Great weather for f*#%ing ducks!". When the coverage next crossed to the Australian studio, the best that could be mustered was a joke about how, like the rest of us, Thommo was frustrated by the rain, and obviously didn't realise he was on air. If there was an apology attatched, it went unnoticed, and the slip up certainly didn't create the uproar that the latest incident has. Given that the broadcast was in the middle of the Australian night, perhaps it's not what you say, but when you say it.

Tony Greig: On the 10th October 1999, dUring his commentary on a game at North Sydney Oval for Channel 9, the television coverage of the game was being spliced with scenic footage of the surroundings. During one such venture, the cameras spotted a couple of newlyweds standing outside a nearby church, and zoomed in. As the image of Mark and Marlene Cases Zorn became clear, the sight of an a woman of Asian decent marrying a Caucasian man prompted former English captain Greig to ask "Do you think she’s been flown in?", a reference which was interpretted by many, the bride and groom included, to be a vulgar and tasteless insult. Greig was asked for a personal on-air apology, but one was not forthcoming, with Greig and Channel 9 instead apologising through an executive via phone - more than a week after the incident. Greig was briefly suspended from commentary as a result, and while it's said he faced an internal inquiry over the incident, he's back as a permanent member of the Channel 9 team.

It's a common cliche for a commentator to say a bowler is 'terrorising a batsman', and it seems a logical progression to call bowlers in such form terrorists. Sadly for Jones though, Amla's appearance and religion meant the comment has been interpretted perhaps more strongly than intended. The married couple targeted in the previous example did take offence and were deeply insulted by Tony Greig's comments, unlike Hashim Amla who seems unscarred by the recent events. In many ways Greig's incident was worse than any of the other examples because there really wasn't any other interpretation for the remark, it was sloppy in that it was caught on microphone, and the apology was badly handled at best.

So why do all of these people have futures in sport commentary while Jones is abandoned like a Tuesday afternoon run chase? Is it simply due to the political incorrectness of such a statement, at best inappropriate, at worst racial vilification? Perhaps South African Cricket saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate how far removed current policies are from those of Apartheid in years gone by. Whatever the case, this has set a new precedent for commentators to live up to, and television networks to enforce. Whether or not this new standard can be maintained while former players make up the bulk of international commentary teams waits to be seen.