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I am, I hope it is clear, an Australian. Born on the mean streets of Canberra, raised on the dusty prairies of Baulkham Hills, and now happily ensconced in the serene centre of Victoria’s McDonald’s Belt, I am as Australian as Vegemite, as Australian as saltwater crocodiles, as Australian as a kookaburra’s bionic ear.
What this means in practical terms, of course, is that I hate James Anderson.
I can’t really help this: it’s congenital. My father hated James Anderson, and his father before him. That’s the unique nature of James Anderson: he can make people hate him who died before he was born.
Not that there aren’t very solid, real-world reasons to hate him as well. For example:
1. He has been known to dismiss Australian batsmen.
2. In Cardiff in 2009, he didn’t get out even though it was pretty clear he should have.
3. In the last Ashes series, Michael Clarke clearly told him to get ready for a broken arm, and Anderson just as clearly did not get ready for any such thing.
4. He just has one of those faces, you know?
For all of these reasons and more (e.g he is English), true Australian cricket lovers are true James Anderson haters. But even we had always assumed there was a little core of decency in him, a small spark of humanity that would hold him back from true infamy.
We were apparently wrong. For now Anderson has truly gone beyond the pale. He has – it churns my stomach to even type it – asked the Australian team to give up sledging.
What unconscionable pig’s garbage is this? What sort of inconceivable gall does this man have, to make such demands upon a country that is not only his own country, but is also, as generally agreed by relevant ratings agencies, a better one than his?
Tragically it seems that the experience of passing Ian Botham as England’s greatest Test wicket-taker has gone to Anderson’s head and caused him to believe that he has the right to vomit up any crackpot opinion he likes, and expect us to mop it up for him.
This cannot stand. Give up sledging? Oh yes, James Anderson, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like it if you could pass lazy days on the field without having your mettle tested by hearing the C word. You’d enjoy the easy, village green-esque experience of cricket without obscenity or abuse or threats, rather than the real man’s game of Test cricket. You would, no doubt, find it very pleasant to be given no prior warning of the various fractures inflicted upon your person.
Well I’m sorry, but it is not Australia’s job to make James Anderson’s life easy. The team is in England to provide the ultimate test of England’s cricketing abilities, and ever since Charles Bannerman walked onto the MCG and told Alfred Shaw he’d rooted Shaw’s mum, that has meant plenty of strong, healthy sledging.
Now if James Anderson doesn’t want to sledge, that’s his affair. Every man has the right to big nappy-wetting baby if he likes. But don’t go around requiring others to share in your perverse allergy to sportsmanship. Just because James Anderson wants to cripple his team doesn’t mean Australia has to follow suit.
They’ve learned the lessons of 1877 well – Bannerman hit a hundred, and Shaw is now dead. What does that tell you?
Amazingly, it’s not even Anderson’s sick request for politeness that is the most offensive thing about his comments. Possibly knowing just how to most disgust an Australian to his core, the so-called ‘bowler’ went on to ask that Australia follow the example of New Zealand.
Sweet Jesus.
Look, I’m sure that New Zealand’s recent tour of England was very jolly and fun and full of brotherly feelings and comradely campfire singalongs between the two teams. But here is my message to Anderson, and all others who would ask of my countrymen that which they cannot give:
We. Don’t. Swing. That. Way.
It’ll be a cold day in hell before a self-respecting Aussie follows any example emanating from New Hobbiton. Australians do not behave like New Zealanders, no way, no how. Just ask the Wallabies – say what you like about those guys, but the record of the last decade or so shows definitively just how committed they’ve been to not following New Zealand’s example.
If anything, New Zealand should be following our example. A glance at an atlas shows that we are bigger than them, and we could invade any goddamn time we like. Maybe James Anderson could think on that before he starts trying to turn the natural order of the universe upside down.
If giving up sledging means being more like New Zealand, I say to hell with that. And if giving up sledging means giving James Anderson what he wants, I say to hell with that. And if giving up sledging means not actually sledging people, I say to hell with that.
What I say is, live and let live. I think as mature adults and sport-lovers, we can agree that all sides should be allowed to follow the dictates of their own conscience. Let James Anderson cry like a little girl, let New Zealand be a pack of big slack-jawed wuss-muppets, and let Australia be cool and awesome and sexy like usual. Let’s just let everyone be themselves, and may the best team win.
And my James Anderson lose, over and over and over and over and over and over again.