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Howard has been rejected, not Australia

WENDING his sorry way back from Singapore, after having been roundly snubbed by the International Cricket Conference after his bid to become the vice-president was rejected, former Australian prime minister John Howard is now trying to paint his rejection as a snub for Australia and New Zealand.

There is a one-word answer to this claim: bullshit.

It was the Australasian region’s chance to nominate a candidate and it was time for New Zealand to have a chance considering that, in the past, on both occasions when it was the region’s chance, an Australian took up the job – first Malcolm Gray and then Malcolm Speed. New Zealand had an excellent candidate, Sir John Anderson, a man who has worked with the ICC and shown remarkable aptitude as an administrator.

Howard claims that the cricket board of Australia approached him. This seems highly unlikely. What seems more likely is that Howard pulled a few strings in order to get his name put forward. He is a person who never wanted to leave public life; indeed, well before the 2007 elections, there were more than enough indications that if Howard continued to lead the coalition, it would meet with electoral disaster.

But Howard did not care; he hung on and suffered the ultimate ignominy. A sitting prime minister, he lost his seat to a political novice, former ABC newsperson Maxine McKew. If he had not been defeated, he would no doubt have hung on as an MP – the fact is he has no other skill other than being a politician. He has no administrative skills, no inter-personal skills, he can only manipulate public sentiment based on the lowest common denominator. And he has the imagination of a dry cucumber.

If any person other than Howard had been put forward as the nomination for ICC vice-president, there would have been no issue. But consider:

  • Howard did not support sporting sanctions against apartheid South Africa but was willing to back sanctions against Zimbabwe, leading to the obvious conclusion that it did not bother him when discrimination against blacks was being practised;
  • he used the military to board a ship full of asylum-seekers – Afghans and Iraqis – which was moving into Australian waters
  • he made no secret of the fact that reconciliation with Aborigines was not a priority of his, despite the fact that Australia has given its first people the raw end of the stick;
  • he has been known as someone who discriminates against people of colour
  • he never did a thing when Pauline Hanson was spreading the message of xenophobia across the country;
  • he was a staunch supporter of the illegal invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, a gross injustice against a Muslim country;
  • he has been the greatest fan of shock-jock Alan Jones who, on more than one occasion, has been guilty of backing racist thugs. most notably those who were responsible for the riots in Cronulla.

These are just a few of the things which make it clear that Howard has a distinct problem dealing with people of colour. He would have been a disaster dealing with an organisation where the majority of the members are non-white – and the ICC is just that.

If Mark Taylor had been nominated would he have been rejected? Allan Border? Steve Waugh? Bill Lawry? Ian Chappell? Dennis Lillee? Jack Clarke, the current president of Cricket Australia? Damien Fleming? Paul Reiffel? Was Malcolm Speed or Malcolme Gray rejected? Howard is the problem, not any competent Australian.

Howard can continue to make brave noises about not withdrawing his nomination. In truth, he has nothing to do with it; only the boards of Australia and New Zealand can advance or withdraw it. By wheedling his way into contention, he has put the two boards in an awkward position.

Given that India is among the countries that has given Howard the thumbs-down, there is little chance that he will succeed in becoming the ICC vice-president. Had India not objected, Howard would have been accepted. But given all the reasons above, it is no wonder that Asian and African nations feel uneasy about accepting him as the chief of world cricket.

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Howard’s rejection by the ICC is reason to rejoice

WORLD cricket has finally shown some commonsense in rejecting the bid by former Australian prime minister John Howard to become the vice-president of its governing body.

The post of vice-president serves as a two-year incumbency for the next president and the nominations for this position come from different cricket-playing regions in turn. This time it was the turn of the Australasian region and Howard was nominated by Australia while New Zealand put forward an eminent administrator, Sir John Anderson. Politicking ensured that Howard, the worse of the two candidates – by more than a mile – was put forward.

This happened in March. It was assumed that the vice-presidency was a shoo-in but it was not to be. Six countries put their names to a letter on June 29, objecting to his nomination and saying that he was not a suitable candidate. They have asked for the name of another candidate to be put forward.

Howard has had little to do with cricket. He is the type of man who will confess a love for anything if it gains him political mileage and cricket is one game that is very popular in Australia; indeed, many people describe the Australian cricket captain as the second most powerful man in the country.

The Australian media is trying to make out that Howard is an extremely principled man and that the cricket boards which have objected to him are trying to prevent the entry into world cricket of a man who will try to put the house in order. Rubbish.

Howard showed during his 11 years as prime minister that he was willing to sleep with the devil if it would keep him in power. He had no principle – apart from that of doing anything to stay in control of his party. He did nothing to fight against the xenophobic policies of a woman politician named Pauline Hanson, put Aboriginal reconciliation back by a few centuries, was as anti-asylum-seeker as they come, sent the military to board a ship carrying refugees to Australia and did everything possible to discriminate against non-whites.

When it comes to things cricketing, there are a couple of things about Howard’s past which are unlikely to have endeared him to the six boards – Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa, and the West Indies – which objected to his nomination. One is his crude comment about Sri Lankan leg-spinner Muthiah Muralitharan, calling him a chucker. Howard’s words were, “they proved it in Perth with that thing.” If anything, the reverse was true.

The second thing is Howard’s refusal to let Australia tour Zimbabwe in 2007. At this point, white farmers were being dispossessed of their land by blacks, with official support from the government of Robert Mugabe. While this decision is certainly justified, it must be borne in mind that Howard was deeply enamoured of South Africa during its apartheid era and only constant advice that it would harm his political prospects kept him from making a visit there in the 1980s. He opposed sanctions against South Africa but was more than willing to institute sanctions against Zimbabwe once Mugabe came to power.

It is, thus. difficult to avoid the conclusion that he was disturbed only by one kind of discrimination. When blacks were the target, it did not seem to bother him.

Cricket has always been a political game. It was taken up by countries colonised by Britain and for a long time Australia and England had veto power over decisions taken by the world body. Power has slipped from these two countries as the ability to generate finances to support the game has grown in India. Today, four-fifths of the money in the game comes from India which distributes it to all the cricket-playing countries.

As the old English proverb goes, “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” Once India decided to reject Howard, it was only natural that Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh would go along. That would have been sufficient to sink his candidacy.

There are other factors why India has decided to reject Howard. It is doubtful that Australia commands a great deal of respect in India, following the attacks on students which have taken place over the last three years. Additionally, all the Australian kow-towing to China and its refusal to treat India on the same level would hardly have gone down well in New Delhi.

Despite all the righteous talk that politics has no place in sport, the reverse is true. A politician who wants to keep his options open as a sports administrator later on in life would do well to be more circumspect than Howard has been.

It’s worthwhile remembering here that Australia and England ran world cricket for a long time with a condescending and patronising attitude towards the other non-white nations. South Africa was part of the clique and the fact that it would not play against non-white nations caused no disquiet either in London or Canberra.

More than once, rule changes were introduced to curb the rise of the West Indies in order that England, Australia and South Africa could continue to be the dominant powers. The first time in the 1950s, when Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine were bamboozling the opposition, the front-foot lbw law was changed. Not many seasons after that, at Edgbaston in 1957, Colin Cowdrey and Peter May used their pads to negate everything which the two spinners could throw at them in a partnership of 411. The spin twins never recovered from this.

The next time the West Indies threatened to dominate was in the 1960s and Wesley Hall and Charlie Griffith were their spearheads. A campaign began to label Griffith a chucker (Richie Benaud was in the forefront); it succeeded to some extent but did not daunt the fierce Barbadian. Then the front foot no-ball rule was introduced. The pair were reined in.

The last time the cricketing authorities attempted to rein in the West Indies was in the 1980s. Clive Lloyd’s fearsome four-man pace battery had started its triumphant run and the question of bouncers was raised. Mind you, world cricket’s governing body had never been exercised about bouncers when England’s John Snow and David Brown were running amuck, nor when Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson were causing havoc in the ranks of opposing teams. The number of bouncers per over was clipped back to one but that did not get in the way of the West Indies finally squashing all and sundry under their heels.

Discrimination has always been part of cricket since its inception as an international sport. Australia, thus, has no reason to whinge now and complain that it is not getting a fair deal. The wheel has turned and both Howard and Australia should just shut up and cop it sweet.

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How long is a piece of string?

WITH the end of the league phase of the ongoing World Cup, more than half the tournament is over – 48 out of 64 games are done with. But how much football have we seen?

The game of football runs for 90 minutes by the referee’s watch. But if one looks at the half-time or full-time stats, then one realises that the ball is in actual play for anything from 28 to 35 minutes. And rarely is that upper limit reached.

Time is wasted when the ball goes out of play. Players take their own sweet time to get to the sidelines and take a throw-in, especially if they are ahead on the scoreboard. The goalkeeper wastes as much time as he can when taking a goalkick.

Players who have to take a corner kick show no sign of urgency – unless the score is against them. When an indirect free kick is involved, the drama is even more as players go through the motions to take one.

Hence while the 90-minute game is sold as such, what the spectators get to see is anything from about 56 to 70 minutes of play.

Here’s where Australian rules football makes sense. The time is counted only when the ball is play. The game is split into quarters and is an 80-minute affair. But this is actual playtime, not the time wasted on players’ dramas, not the time when the ball is out of bounds.

The time is maintained by a timekeeper in the pavilion and the beginning and end of each quarter is marked by a siren which is sounded by the same individual. The ball does not need to be in play for the game to end as it does in football. Neither does the ball have to go out of play for the game to end as it does in rugby union.

This is why even players from rugby league, which looks terribly physically demanding, have stamina problem when they cross over to Australian rules – the game may look physically less taxing but given its duration it is awfully draining physically.

If football were to adopt the system of time-keeping followed by Australia rules, the game would probably run to about 110 minutes or even two hours to accommodate all the time-wasting that goes on.

That’s how long a game that goes into extra-time lasts – two halves of 15 minutes each are played if a knock-out game does not end with a result after the regulation 90 minutes. And such a game does leave the players really drained.

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Football world cup gets down to business

THE world cup in South Africa is slowly coming down to the business end with the conclusion of the group matches in a day. Four groups have finished their fixtures, two more will complete their engagements in a few hours and the rest will finish off tomorrow.

Australia bowed out as expected, leaving everything to the end by expecting to record a big win and also be helped by a result from the other game in the group. The team was humiliated in its opening fixture and that put paid to any chances of going into the round of 16.

Thus far, the traditional powerhouses Brazil and Argentina have looked the goods. Germany put up a horrible show in their second group tie but are still a force to be reckoned with, and teams like Portugal, Holland and Paraguay are also showing signs of being competitive.

Holders Italy, normally a sluggish starter, have to win their final game to qualify, with a shock draw against minnows New Zealand putting them somewhat off their stride. Pre-tournament favourites Spain have also left it to the end to qualify.

The teams from Africa have been a disappointment – only Ghana will be there when the knockout phase begins. Ivory Coast was the strongest contender but unfortunately is in a group with Brazil and Portugal. The other African team to perform well in the past, Cameroon, looks like a shadow of what it used to be. The hosts, South Africa, have been knocked out as well.

But none of the games played so far have produced classic soccer. There have been upsets a plenty – Switzerland defeated Spain, New Zealand drew with Italy – but the kind of top-drawer performance that one sees at every world cup is yet to be seen.

There is no star player either. Nobody can yet call this world cup his own. It’s a reflection of the fact that football is now a game which attracts so much money that not losing has become paramount.

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A football mirage

THERE are times when mismatched teams go up against each other in sporting contests and the team expected to get massacred gets the expected whacking, but only after putting up a fighting performance. But if the lower-ranked team capitulates without a fight, then there is reason for despair, reason to panic, reason to think that the defeat will affect more than just that game.

Australia is bleeding this morning after its national football team, the Socceroos, gave as abysmal a display as possible in their opening World Cup fixture, getting a 4-0 hammering from world football powerhouse Germany. There have been bigger defeats in the World Cup, there have been more mismatched contests. Yet this defeat is going to ensure that Australia finishes bottom of the group as it would have lowered the team’s morale to zero.

Some factors which have never been highlighted have masked the definciencies in the Australian team. In 2006, after 32 years, Australia finally managed to qualify for the finals. The coach, the canny and experienced Guus Hiddink, had a clever mix of defence and attack and knew the limitations of the team. Hiddink came to Australia after having guided South Korea to the semi-finals in the 2002 tournament and earned that country’s praise in buckets.

For the 2006 tournament, Australia was in the Asia-Oceania group for qualifying, a much tougher set of opponents than the current set in its Asia group. Politicking enabled Australia to compete in a less difficult group for the 2010 qualifying process but that has also resulted in masking several weaknesses in the team and allowed the new coach, the ultra-cautious Pim Verbeek, to retain older players instead of focusing on the essential process of team renewal.

Verbeek has still retained the team’s dependence on players who are at, or near, the ends of their careers; he has also infused the team with a cautious style of play, that has not done it good at all. And he hasn’t made any effort to bring in new blood, probably since he knows he cannot be deemed a failure if the team qualified for the Cup.

Going up against a German team that was without its captain, the mercurial Michael Ballack, things were not made easier for Australia by Verbeek’s decision to experiment by leaving out any genuine striker for the toughest match that Australia will have in the group. Most national teams play a lone striker these days. It looked as though Australia had come to play for a draw. Expecting a roving midfielder like Tim Cahill to play striker was a silly decision.

Germany’s pattern of play surprised everyone. Deutschland has a reputation for dour, solid performances; the young team played with a freedom that one would expect from a south American team. They were given ample space to play in by the Australians whose sole tactic seemed to be one from the dark ages, that of catching their opponents in the offside trap. Professional players of the calibre of Mesut Oezil and Lucas Podolski spend hours and hours practising the right moment to break for an overhead pass and hence this tactic was clearly a waste of time.

The Germans were dynamic in their approach, constantly forming and re-forming pretty patterns as they roamed upfield in a quest for goals,. They could have scored a dozen if Miloslav Klose had been on target half the time and the gifted Oezil had done likewise. They exposed the gaping gaps in Australia’s defence and the foolishness of the use of the offside tactic. And they kept physical play down to a minimum.

The Australian goalkeeper, Mark Schwarzer, put up a poor show as well but then that was not much different from the rest of the team. Disappointingly, the Australians resorted to far too much physical play, their frustrations increasing as the Germans made them look like amateurs time and time again.

The red card for Cahill was probably a bit harsh given that he had touched the ball less than half-a-dozen times before that. But referees have been asked to clamp down on contact, especially when it involves key players, and there is no-one more central to the German team than Bastian Schweinstager. Cahill has probably played his last World Cup match; the FIFA panel that sits down to decide on his punishment will probably out him for the remaining two group games.

But the scoreline apart, one doubts if any Australian would have been disappointed had the team turned up to play, fought and lost. That was not the case. They had clearly come looking for a draw and any team that does that in the World Cup deserves to lose and lose badly.

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The voice of an angel

NOT since I heard the music of a young Harry Chapin or an equally youthful James Taylor have I listened to a voice as clear and beautiful as that of the Aboriginal blind singer Gurrumul Yunupingu. He has been around for some time, as part of the well-known band Yothu Yindi, but it is only after he went solo that his name has become better known.

Gurrumul, who like many other Aborigines who rise to prominence, has now been christened with an English name, Geoffrey, has a voice that is haunting, that speaks directly to the soul, that makes one weep.

For anyone with even a slight knowledge of the history of dispossession that his people, and all the Australian Aboriginal tribes have endured ever since the white man stole their land, his voice also speaks to that part of his people’s history, without ever having to write lyrics either angry or accusatory.

His lyrics lose a lot when translated into English; on the surface they appear to be simple and, at times, even puzzling. But it is the music that counts, the music that endures, the voice that carries everything before him. His tones are at times strident, but mostly mellow, stirring and pure.

There is a plaintive quality about his music, creating a sense of sadness, loneliness, and at times there is the upward lilt that transports one to a realm of hope. But above all, the music is pure, untainted by technology and crosses the boundaries of many genres – blues, folk, rock and reggae – without ever sacrificing its own heritage.

After his first solo album, simply called Gurrumul, was released, he has attracted a remarkable amount of attention, played with Sting, taken a turn at a concert with Elton John, and is shortly due to tour the US. Exactly how he will fare in that land where fluff is more important than substance is uncertain.

He is a shy, retiring type even though he is a year short of 40, and the adulation of those he has admired – bands like the Eagles, Sir Cliff Richard and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits – probably would mean much more to him than the meaningless media merry-go-round which is geared towards extracting the soul from the soul musician.

His music is essentially simple; he plays a regular guitar left-handed as he could never obtain a left-handed instrurment when he was growing up. His mastery of the instrument is plain once one has listened to just a single one of his ballads.

The mix of a little English and his own Ylongu language which he uses is basic but powerful; the lyrics are unimportant, the voice is everything. Truly, these are tones from above, the voice of an angel.

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Why the music has died

“In Mozart’s time, word of mouth built an audience. People found him and heard him play. Then someone came along and said, ‘We can sell this experience.’ Right there, you’ve got trouble. Music comes from the spirit, but where does the guy selling the music come from?” – Prince

THE music that you and I hear on radio, on TV, in the theatre is strictly controlled by the four big music companies – Sony Music, EMI, Warner and Universal.

These companies specify how often various songs should be played on public radio. They determine which artists should be promoted and which should take a backseat. And if you do not get one of them to sign you on, the chances of making it big are all but zero.

Musicians need advertising dollars, they need marketing, they need to travel and play gigs in order to become known. The big four pay these costs but recoup them more than adequately. If a musician has no chance of making money for the companies, he or she will not get a contract.

That’s why there is little or no innovation in the music industry these days. What is produced is like the food from McDonalds – all in the same style, tasteless crap. As with all other industries once consolidation takes place and huge monoliths start running the show, everything tastes or looks or sounds the same.

The period from the 1960s to the mid-1980s was a glorious one when there were creative bands galore like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Dire Straits, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, to name just five outfits. And there were Santana, Hendrix, Marley, Guthrie, Clapton, Sting, Baez, Frampton, Lightfoot, Croce, Taylor, Chapin, Winwood…

What equivalents does one find these days? Those that do produce music are plastic imitations of each other. Oasis and Coldplay are garbage. So too Lady GaGa, Beyonce, and their ilk. Buble is forced to sing songs from the 70s when he wants to create a hit album.

Commoditisation works for some things. Not for creative trades like music. The McDonaldisation of the music industry has put the lid on human ingenuity.

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Why do people drive four-wheel drives in the city?

THERE’S a trend that is common in the US – driving four-wheel drive vehicles in the city – that seems to be spreading to other countries. These vehicles are meant to be driven on sand or gravel, they are very high-powered and are slow to take off from traffic lights.

They are very heavy, built of steel and will wreck an ordinary car if a collision eventuates. They also make visibility for those cars behind them impossible. Yet there are plenty of idiots who travel in these monstrosities in a city. Why?

With some, it appears to be the fear factor, so common in America, where people are pumped full of fear by the government, the media and everybody who has a voice in society. People figure that they have a better chance of survival if they are travelling in a four-wheel drive vehicle – not realising that when their time to die comes, they will croak no matter if they are bunkered down in a nuclear shelter.

Then there is the desire to do as others do, not to appear different. If one fool buys a four-wheel drive, others follow. And people like to appear “normal”, whatever that means. If everyone owns a four-wheel drive vehicle, then that becomes the norm. Keeping up the with the Joneses is another way of putting it but that doesn’t go down well with those who endeavour to do so.

There are plenty of reasons to avoid four-wheel drive vehicles. They consume much more petrol than the average car, are extremely expensive to maintain and are not meant for city travel. They are meant for negotiating desert tracks, mud roads and mountain paths. You only have to see a car that has been in an accident with a four-wheel drive to realise that anyone driving a four-wheel drive vehicle in the city is nothing short of an idiot.

One would think that with all the talk of peak oil and the oil price at very high levels, the car manufacturers would think twice about manufacturing such huge, unnecessary vehicles. But then, car manufacturers only look at ways of making money – if there are fools lining up to buy four-wheel drives, why the manufacturers will make them available.

Ultimately, it comes down to commonsense. Which is the commodity most in short supply, especially in the US of A.

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Breaking up is harder to do for some…

WHEN a heterosexual relationship breaks up, the man generally takes much longer to get over it than the woman. This may not be true in all cases but in a majority it certainly is. Why is this so?

I have a theory. Traditional relationships between men and women had men doing the task of earning a livelihood for the whole family while women were the ones who played the role of home-maker.

Thus in those days, it was more difficult for a woman to consider getting out of a relationship, even if she was getting the short end of the stick. She had to stick on, as she had no means of support. Even today, when many women are employed, it is very difficult for them to manage alone and bring up children while supporting them.

If women had also to cope with a massive emotional fallout from a broken relationship, it would make things even harder. I think it is nature’s way of compensating for the disadvantage – women take much less time to recover from a broken relationship and get together with someone else.

Men take a long time to get over a broken relationship and at times go through their whole lives unable to get over a particular woman, but then they generally do not have the problem of not having a job and having to raise children as well as courts generally give custody of the kids to the women.

One more example of how nature compensates people for natural inadequacies.

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Lies and the liars who tell them

IT APPEARS to be a feature of society nowadays that the trait of honesty has disappeared in toto. One of the major manifestations of this is in the utterances made by public figures – they say one thing and then, the very next minute, they deny they said it.

Else, they try to spin things – and the problem is, they actually believe their own spin. A small variation on the method advocated by the greatest spinmeister of them all, who once said, “if you tell people a lie repeatedly and they have no way of finding out the truth, then they will believe the lie.”

Two examples from the city in which I live: recently, Mick Malthouse, the head coach of a local Australian rules football team, called an opposing player a “fucking rapist” during one of the regular breaks in the game.

The coach first denied saying it; later, when witnesses came forward to contradict him and TV footage showed him mouthing off, he said he had denied it because what happens on the field stays on the field!

In other words, here is a man who dwells in two different worlds – you don’t need something like Second Life for him to live a virtual life or a virtual lie.

When the media quite rightly attacked him, the coach took things one step further – he wrote a column in a newspaper and claimed he had acted as Winston Churchill did, for the greater good. Yeah, sure. You can’t get more into denial mode than that.

And then we have the former commissioner of police in Victoria, Christine Nixon. who has been twisting the truth in testimony to a royal commission which is investigating the bushfires that took 173 lives in the state in February 2009.

On February 7. 2009, which has come to be known as Black Saturday due to the ferocity of the fires that raged, Nixon went out to the pub for a meal with friends at 6pm. To put this in context, at 5.45pm on that day, the emergency services commissioner, Bruce Esplin, had called the state’s police minister, Bob Cameron, to say that there was a ”very dire” fire situation and asked him to come to the emergency control centre.

For three hours Nixon was not contacted, despite her role as one of the senior people in tackling this emergency. It looks like her mobile phone was turned off though she will not admit it. But then she was reluctant to admit that she went out for a meal until it was raised by the commission. Talk of Nero fiddling while Rome burnt does not seem entirely out of place here.

Nixon stepped down from the post of police commissioner last year and now occupies a nice government-paid sinecure, in charge of rebuilding the area devastated by the bushfires. She refuses to quit and the lameduck state premier, John Brumby, a man who has been in power for 10 years and appears to be blind to her dereliction of duty, is backing her.

Many people reach a dangerous stage of being when they cannot see that there is some black and white alongside the grey. When they enter this nebulous zone, their conscience dies and they function in a manner that is essentially inhuman.