Neil Manthorp : Cricket
Shane Warne and Hansie Cronje shared the spotlight and the headlines in a week of fraught tension and frayed nerves as the pressure builds before the biggest Test series in South Africa’s history. Not that the Australians are taking it lightly.
The South African captain was accused of cheating for the second time on tour and the best leg-spinner the world has seen shown that he is also one of the most petulant cricketers the world has ever seen by mounting a massive sulking campaign over his weight.
Australians are more addicted to cheering the underdog than any other nation on earth. When Australia played Australia “A” at the SCG this week, the country’s erstwhile heroes – Steve and Mark Waugh included – became villains as the “next- best” sought to prove their points.
That is why Warne and Cronje were such easy – and soft – targets. Cronje was becoming far, far too “good” as an opposition captain. The timing of Channel Nine’s “ball-tampering” expos wasn’t, in reality, quite as clever as it appeared, but it was very suspicious nonetheless.
Cronje had made friends throughout the tour for nearly a month. Local journalists, sick and tired of their own national team’s all- too-common spoilt-brattishness, warmed to him and his approachability. It was allright to do that, though, because his own form looked, at best, scratchy, so the local hacks could afford to admire the man in the safe knowledge that his team would probably still be beaten and the captain certainly didn’t look as though he was going to score any runs.
The tingling style of victory in the one- day internationals also begged the admiration of Aussies, still smarting from the dropping of wicketkeeper Ian Healy and the controversial inclusion of young ‘keeper Adam Gilchrist and all-rounder Ian Harvey, among others. They were almost happy for an excuse to tackle their own players and give rare credit to the opposition.
That was when Channel Nine stepped in. Or Kerry Packer, to be precise. “Find some dirt and find it quickly.” Those words were probably never actually spoken, of course, because Packer has long since trained enough people to train the other people to do things his way.
As far as Packer was concerned, the Test series billed as the “World Championship of Test Cricket” just wasn’t simmering enough.
Channel Nine has the exclusive broadcast rights to the series and the series hadn’t started to sell itself well enough. The man who nearly split the cricket world in half with his creation of World Series cricket 20 years ago cares nothing for sentiment or personal reputation, and he certainly doesn’t need the money. Packer seems to transcend the creation of wealth and the collection of power as means in themselves – he does both these days for fun. Just for the kicks. If the dirt arrived on Cronje – so be it.
So some producer, keen to impress (and undoubtedly to be rewarded with a pay rise) has spent hours, maybe days, trawling back through every minute of footage in order to find something to “set the series alight”. And he found something. Cronje stood on the ball.
As sporting crimes go, it does not rank up there with steroid abuse! But it does rank. He is not innocent. Cronje, in many peoples’ opinions, did know what he was doing. His crime was to get caught by Packer’s money-driven manservants.
What Cronje cannot say, or ask, is what Shane Warne puts in his hair
to keep it so nicely under control at the
beginning of each session. And does any of it ever get onto the ball? Does Michael Bevan use some of the saliva from an unusually full mouth of gum on the ball? Saliva containing sucrose is known to create an artificial varnish effect that can help the ball swing. I don’t believe Cronje actually wants to ask any of these questions, but if you watched any player who regularly fields the ball in the inner- circle for a whole match, and I mean really watched them for every second that they handle the ball, you are likely to see worse than Cronje’s crime.
Personally I have spoken to players from five countries, all either current or past international players, who have revealed ways in which they achieve reverse-swing. Scuffing up one side of the ball is the most obvious way and if that is what Cronje was doing, then he is among a very large majority of international players.
During South Africa’s six-game one-day tour of Pakistan in 1994, when they lost all six games despite scoring pretty heavily, Imran Khan said ruefully: “They really are going to have to learn to bowl on these wickets … they must look after the ball.”
And if you think “look after” means keeping it as new as possible, then you are wrong.
Sure there are puritans who will read this and believe that South Africa are cheating and are now being condoned. Wrong. Take this as proof from the Sydney Morning Herald: “The whole issue of ball-tampering is simply a product of over-regulation. It is over-rated and shouldn’t even be an issue.” The batsmen, it must be said, have enough unfair advantages going for them. Would anyone seriously doubt that Cronje standing on the ball (and possibly making a spike mark) is going to make up for Allan Donald not being allowed to bowl a bouncer? Come on.
This is very much a personal opinion. Cronje has said that he has no real recollection of the incident and that the act of standing on it was just “messing around” and probably absent-minded. No matter how many times one sees the incident, it is impossible to rule out the captain’s explanation.
Having watched South Africa over three or four years being outplayed, occassionally humiliated, because of their awkward lack of “street-wisdom” and lack of willingness to compete on equal terms however, I would rather prefer if the truth was my theory. Cronje, though, is a man of profound integrity; besides, he admitted afterwards that the team scuff the ball up by throwing it to each other along the ground, not “raking” it!
What a difference in the way Warne handled his crisis! The famous leggie has, by all accounts (and all appearances) been considerably overdoing his favourite toasted cheese sandwiches, creamy pasta dinners and sweet Miduri and lemonade drinks.
South Africa’s players, ironically, kick- started the process of “fatty-baiting” that Australia’s media are currently enjoying so much. It was an innocent comment from Gary Kirsten and Allan Donald about how successfully Daryll Cullinan had “chirped” Warne about his increased girth that led Malcolm Conn of The Australian newspaper to write a “concerned” story about Warne’s “troubled” eating habits.
Warne reacted like a spoilt seven-year-old child whose favourite toy had been confiscated. He refused to speak to journalists and has even threatened never to make himself available for press conferences again. Two days ago he stormed away from the official unveiling of his wax likeness at Madame Tussauds Museum. It had been started nine months earlier and was embarrasingly trimmer than the real version.
“Which figure do you prefer?” asked an Aussie journo, not entirely innocently.
“Right, that’s it,” stormed Warne, “you’ve ruined it now. That’s it … I’m off.”
As Conn so succinctly said afterwards, “what is he upset about? The fact that he’s fat or the fact that we’ve noticed?”
Roll on the Test series. Perhaps Packers “secret cameras” will catch Warney having a sneeky toastie on the boundary edge between overs?