Cricket XXXX Cricket (13 page)

The Labour administration, whose political fortitude over such issues bears all the hallmarks of a confectionery jelly baby, but without the backbone, is still vacillating on the fence of political expediency, presumably still deciding on which side the more votes lie; in fact, I asked Bob Hawke about his government’s track record on Aboriginal land rights a few weeks later, at the Prime Minister’s XI v. England one-day invitation match at Canberra. In March of 1986, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Clyde Holding, announced the federal Labour government’s decision to dump the idea of implementing National Land Rights Legislation. With this complete volte-face, the federal government effectively abandoned Australian Labour Party (ALP) policy and the five basic principles embodied therein. Those principles, outlined by Holding in Geneva in 1984, one year after Labour swept to power, are Aboriginal control over mining and mining royalties in their lands, compensation for lost lands to be negotiated, guaranteed inalienable freehold title and the protection of freehold sites.

The federal government, in truth, caved in under the enormous economic pressure of the mining and agricultural lobbies. Mr Hawke, busily watching David Gower bat, would admit to no such thing.

‘We have decided to leave such issues to state governments,’ he explained. ‘If we do things at federal level, there is generally a backlash against the Aboriginal population in each state. I believe that the Aborigines themselves know that is true.’

Oh, dear Bob, really! Surely you must know that most states’ past performances have demonstrated a lack of generosity and compassion in dealing with this question which posits the absolute necessity for federal intervention? As I have already mentioned, however, Aboriginal issues, and it bears repeating, are not a vote catcher. Well-publicised cocktail parties, hobnobbing with international cricketers at The Lodge, most definitely are.

There are few politicians nowadays, however, who have the stature to be guiltless of such blatant expediency. Perhaps, with our present democratic system of government by media approval, there is none left at all.

If a self-professed Labour government refuses to grasp this uncomfortable political nettle, the future looks bleak indeed for a group of people who want neither to be eliminated, nor segregated, nor protected, nor assimilated, nor subjected to any of the white-conceived policies mis- and dis-informed bureaucrats dream up on their behalf. They merely want to the right to be equal and different. In a country as large as Australia, surely this need not be too much to ask.

It is easy on a cricket tour to remain immured from the harsher social and political realities of the host country. In India, for example, in order to survive the visual assaults of poverty and misery, it is almost imperative to scurry for the cosmopolitan tranquillity of the hermetically sealed Intercontinental hotel. Conversely, on the island paradises of the West Indies all but the most assiduously high-minded may remain jovially oblivious to the internecine political wrangling and the socio-economic strife being played out all around. Similarly, in a country such as Australia, with its generalised affluence and widespread well-being, the Aboriginal issue would escape most tourists, indeed even most Australians’ attention. Few Aborigines stray away from their reserves. Those who become urban dwellers are generally involved in menial tasks, selling newspapers on street corners and the like. The incidence of drunkenness and petty crime is disturbingly high in this disaffected, vagrant population, and the statistics on Aboriginal deaths in police custody even more so. Until such times as these gentle, childlike and noble people are allowed the right to live somewhere on their own vast continent in peace and prosperity, Australian governments must hang their heads in shame.

Back at the Gabba a victorious England cricket team was making very merry. Past player–press antagonisms and paranoias were, at least temporarily, forgotten, as the captain invited the British confraternity of cricketing scribblers into the dressing room for celebratory champagne. Notable by their absence were Thicknesse of ‘boorish bully’ fame, and Johnson of ‘can’t bat, can’t bowl and can’t field’ notoriety. Not that either of them was necessarily wrong in what he had penned, of course, but that no one cares who or what is right or wrong when a team has just won.

Everyone in the media has developed an exaggerated tendency to focus exclusively on the exploits of Ian Botham. Truth to tell, his was a magnificent century, but people often forget other equally worthwhile contributions by other less high-profile players. John Emburey, for example, took five wickets in the second innings, on a track not hitherto noted as a spinners’ wicket, and many correspondents felt that he, along with Botham, should have shared in the Man of the Match award. Interestingly enough, there is little indication that any of the team resents the excessive attention devoted to Botham. Perhaps recent past history has demonstrated that the media microscope is a double-edged sword, and few players would welcome the degree of personal history exposure to which Beefy is constantly subjected. That is the obverse of the very lucrative coin.

England at last seem to have found a happy opening combination in Bill Athey and Chris Broad. Bill seems a quiet, thinking and serious chap. I notice he sometimes appears rather impatient with the puerile laughs and japes which so characterise our coach transfers to and from airports, and he has my every sympathy. Chris is a tall, strong, good-looking lad, the combination of patience and confidence which hallmarks the best opening bats. Another gem discovery is Leicestershire’s West Indian-born all-rounder, Phillip DeFreitas, whose most endearing quality is his patent and untrammelled joy in the game. It is heartening to see these born-talented rookies enjoying their cricket before all the clever-dick experts start coaching them. Remember Middlesex and England’s Norman Cowans before Willis et al. – with all the best will in the world – succeeded rather splendidly in mangling him?

Cowans, incidentally, a former England pace-man, is currently being sued by a Brisbane cricket club, Wests, for breach of contract. Wests’ players sought the Jamaican-born bowler’s services for the Australian summer and pooled their resources to meet his demands for airfares, accommodation and ‘suitable’ employment. Cowans, however, flew back to England after featuring in merely one and a half games, citing flood damage to his London apartment as the reason for his hasty departure. Pursuant to contract, his airfares had indeed been paid, and accommodation had been found in the home of Wests’ captain John Bell. Perhaps Norman’s precipitate departure may have been related to the suggested employment the Club had found fit to organise for him – as a bouncer at the local nightclub. This is probably a salutary tale for young players seeking overseas jobs to while away an English off-season. Job descriptions from 12,000 miles away, verbal contracts over the phone and flights into the unknown are a professional cricketer’s Russian roulette.

Another Middlesex casualty this tour looks set to be Wilf Slack. Phil, who has seen Wilf play over many seasons, is naturally heavily biased in his favour, but the West Indian-born opening batsman has done nothing to impress thus far, and is probably destined now to be sidelined for some time. It is so desperately depressing for those members of the team who know that, barring injury, a cataclysmic collapse or phantom pregnancies in the team, they are likely to be spending little time in the middle. Wilf is obviously upset, but bears everything with a remarkable degree of stoicism. The boys have nicknamed him ‘Bishop Tutu’ (I rather think that South African-born Allan Lamb was at the genesis of this), and Slack plays up to the title with tireless good humour. Somehow Legga (Lamb) prevailed upon him the other day to carry his kit and ghettoblaster on to the bus.

‘They can’t seem to get bossing out of their systems, these people,’ grinned Tutu. Earlier on in the tour, sweating together collegiately in a sauna, Lamb had asked Wilf to throw some more water on to the steaming charcoal. ‘Do it yourself,’ rejoined Tutu immediately; ‘we’re not in Soweto now, you know.’

The rest of the West Indian contingent have been awarded floral tags. Pencil-slim DeFreitas goes by the name of ‘Daffy’ and Gladstone Small inevitably cops ‘Gladdy’ or ‘Glad’. David Gower has been granted a further sobriquet to add to his motley collection. Percy Fender, Jardine’s patrician predecessor as captain of Surrey, was apparently wont to travel the country with his own cases of claret in tow. David, whose proclivities in matters vinous and especially Bordeaux are equal to my own, is thus referred to as ‘Fender’. I do believe he has put down a cellar of some 600 bottles in his Leicestershire home, and I most certainly did my best to create a dent in it earlier in the year at a barbecue David and his fiancée Vicki threw during a Test match at Edgbaston.

Yes, it is all very, very merry in the England camp at the moment, which I do believe goes to prove that all the talk about team spirit and good morale is the most unutterable hogwash. Winning teams exhibit these phenomena, losing teams do not. Forget about how they are playing the game; everything depends on whether they win or lose.

Conceivably the tiniest of serpents had wiggled its way into the Garden of Eden that is currently the England dressing room. The federal government had just launched a nationwide ‘Operation Noah’, by which friends, relations or even acquaintances may ring a toll-free number, and inform the police of drug offenders they know, and their reprehensible habits. Colloquially referred to as the ‘dob in a mate’ operation, it may possibly have caused the odd quiet shiver down the odd victorious English spine, but who will ever know?

Down the road from the Gabba, England were involved in yet another victory, against Australia and against good taste. I had first heard about the sport of ‘dwarf-tossing’ when it came up as a motion for a resolution to be debated by the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The EuroParl has never exactly been immune from involving itself in abstruse debates, wacky even by international organisation standards, but this one definitely took
le biscuit.
Had it not been moved by an eminently sensible and conscientious Italian woman, Signora Vera Squarcialupi, who sits with the Communists and Allies, it would probably have been passed over as the Euro equivalent of an April Fool’s Day wheeze. As it was, the European Parliament dealt with it in a duly concerned, indeed outraged, fashion, and solemnly called upon the Australian government to put an end to this offensive practice immediately.

Dwarf-tossing, as the name implies, involves the tossing of persons of diminutive stature by persons of less restricted growth. I fail to remember the exact terms of the European Parliament’s motion for resolution, but in all probability it want something like this: The European Parliament –

having regard to the United Nations Convention on Human Rights

having regard to the treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community

having regard to the treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community

having regard to the treaty establishing the European Economic Community

having regard to anything else your research assistant can come up with

whereas it is naughty to toss dwarves about

whereas you would not like it if they did it to you, would you?

whereas Snow White would never have behaved like that, would she?

calls
upon the Australian government to put an end to this deplorable recreation immediately (otherwise we may have to send you yet another inter-parliamentary delegation, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?) and instructs the President of the European Parliament to find a stamp and send this off to Bob Hawke (if he’s not in his office, you’ll probably find him on the golf course) as soon as possible.

Dwarves involved in the sport were apparently not unanimously delighted with the EuroParl’s unsolicited interference in their chosen profession, and some even went so far as to claim that,
ab contrario
, it was their fundamental human right to be tossed around if they so desired. Legal eagles were quickly briefed to argue that any effort deployed to stop a dwarf being tossed might constitute a restriction of trade, with all that that implied in terms of compensation for loss of earnings.

And so the battle continued to rage, as the England versus Australia dwarf-tossing Test series got off to a start at Brisbane’s Manhattan nightclub. A variation called dwarf-rolling has apparently also been devised by the promoters. This involves the unfortunate dwarf being strapped to a skateboard and rolled head first at a set of ninepins. It seems as if in Queensland, at least, the age of the circus freak show is still going strong.

Happily, pressure from the public, the police and the Little People Association of Australia seems to have resulted in the cancellation of the rest of the Test series. A tasteless and undignified sport which holds little people up to ridicule, it nevertheless attracts a good following here in certain Aussie circles. This is also the country where another particular subspecies of man feels the need to get his rocks off watching virtually naked women wrestling in cream. With all the competition, it is no wonder the Australian selectors are having difficulties in cobbling together a quality Test team.

Talking about virtually naked women, and incidentally a competition feminists find equally as offensive as dwarf-tossing, I noticed from a television newsreel that Miss Trinidad and Tobago had won the 1986 Miss World Competition. A couple of months ago, I too received an invitation from organiser, Eric Morley, to grace the event. ‘Would you consider participating in the Miss World Competition,’ he had written (my spirits rose as I reached for the peroxide and the Clearasil) . . . ‘as the interpreter?’

The circus was on the road again the next day for a state match against New South Wales in Newcastle. Pope John Paul II had taken precedence over the England team and had been granted the Sydney Cricket Ground, so we were off to the sticks. Quite right too: one, he is a better performer, and two, he draws larger crowds. It was difficult to tell whether the other great showman and crowd-puller, Beefy Botham, was disturbed over the recent news from Shepton Mallet, where 1,800 Somerset supporters had voted in favour of their Committee’s decision to sack Joel Garner and Viv Richards, and a mere 800 had voted against. Despite his avowed intention of resignation should his two mates be axed, he did not look like a man with no options.