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When Kane Williamson hit Pat Cummins for six to win on Saturday, I jumped off my couch in elation – and I’ve been watching Australian cricket as keenly as anyone since the ’80s.
I’d been hoping for the Black Caps to win all day, and I hope they do the same on the last day of the tournament.
It all started with the Hobart Test match in December 2011, when Doug Bracewell bowled New Zealand to a rare victory on these shores, despite a defiant ton from then-newcomer David Warner.
Channel Nine and Cricket Australia, in their incredible arrogance – and assumption that only Australia could possibly win the two Tests in the series – decided that TV viewers would choose the man of the match.
Warner had made a great hundred, sure, but to deny Bracewell of the award was egregious. It just didn’t sit right. Even the reaction of many sports watchers after the match smacked of hubris.
There was a distinct sense of incredulity that Australia could lose to New Zealand, rather than an acknowledgement that their young side had simply played better.
You’ll note that this match was in December 2011. Australia hasn’t bothered to play a Test match against our neighbour since.
As Cricket Australia got deeply tied up in its oh-so-cosy relationship with India and England and increased the number of times it would play those two cash cows, it forgot its obligation to the game in other parts of the world.
Remember the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy? The one that was launched as a way of keeping regular competition between the two countries’ teams? That’s not a priority any more either, apparently.
Not counting the one-off games in this and the previous World Cups, the last Australia-New Zealand ODI was in 2010. It’s tough to have a rivalry against a team you never actually play.
This has all coincided with what I perceive to be a growing sense of entitlement in the sport of cricket in this country, as if it’s our birthright to be the best.
The teams under Allan Border and Steve Waugh and Mark Taylor fought tooth and nail to get to the top; nowadays the players, and fans, seem to just assume the number one ranking belongs to them, or is occasionally on loan to South Africa.
Then they even made Shane Watson captain in a Test match – the last straw.
I much prefer the Australia you see in the Olympics. Punching above our weight. Doing well in a few events but accepting that we’re not the best. We try damn hard and it goes a long way and we mock the countries that do posture as the best.
If the entitlement culture in Australian cricket permeates into other sports, which I fear it is doing already, we’ll end up just like the USA is at the Olympics.
Begrudgingly admired for our achievements, maybe, but roundly pilloried for our attitude. Before too long, the AFL Premiers will start calling themselves “World Champions”.
In fact, I’m surprised Andrew Demetriou didn’t bring that title in, and call it an “innovation”. Thankfully, his successor seems a little more humble. But don’t laugh – it just might happen.
Anyway, while all of this we’re-the-best-so-let’s-just-play-rich-teams thing was happening, across the Tasman, the Black Caps were becoming a really good cricket side. Solid batting led by a real captains’ captain in McCullum. The development of genuine swing bowling at threatening pace.
The evergreen spinner in Daniel Vettori – the thinking person’s cricketer, if there ever was one.
They started to crush teams at home and be a real threat away. What cricket fan wouldn’t want to see a Test and ODI series between Australia and New Zealand, right about now?
Well, we’ll have to wait almost a year still.
So I’d had enough. By the time this World Cup began, I was sick of the sense of arrogant entitlement that had come to pervade much of the Australian cricket discourse as a whole.
The oi oi oi brigade had become too much to bear. And so I decided that the Black Caps were my team. Just look at the way they play – what’s not to love?
I’ll be going to the World Cup final. I hope like hell that the Black Caps are playing against the locals. And for my cheering on the men in black, I’ll be called a traitor and all sorts of other names, no doubt.
I won’t care a jot, just as long as they win. It will be great for the game and – who knows – just maybe Australian cricket will then realise that while while we were busy lining our pockets, the long forgotten cousin over the ditch just got better than us.
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