Sad scribes fail to hit right target (15 June 1999)

15 June 1999

Sad scribes fail to hit right target

Daryl Holden

What do you call a busload of whingeing Pommie cricket journalists at the bottom of a cliff?

A good start.

Those poison-penned members of the English media have exceeded themselves during the World Cup.

They've fired more shots at the Black Caps than any of Alec Stewart's failed England team managed during the tournament.

"The New Zealand cricket team is pathetic. They can't bowl. They can't bat. They're as boring as hell to watch and uncharismatic."

OK, I've exaggerated a little, but you get the drift.

What gives the Fleet Street brigade the right to go off at our team?

New Zealanders are the only ones who should be allowed to point the finger at the Black Caps and rip into them when it is justified. Not citizens of a country whose team was embarrassingly eliminated before the official tournament song was released.

The problem with the Poms is that they're bitter.

England is supposed to be the home of cricket, but everybody beats its national side. Losing in their own backyard just adds to the frustration.

England should be used to failing. Look at its rugby team, which used to be led by Lawrence "Drugalgio". And remember what happened at the soccer World Cup in France last year.

The English cricket writers are bored, so they've aimed their keyboards at the colonials. To be fair, some of what they have said is on the mark.

Apart from pace sensation Geoff Allott, we do rely on trundlers like Larsen, Harris and Astle to "knock over" sides. We don't have a class batsman like Tendulkar, Lara, Kallis, or Mark Waugh, but that's hardly the point.

Our under-rated, often under-achieving Black Caps have played to their strengths and have produced the goods when it has mattered. They made the Super Six. They have made the semi-finals. They could make the final and then anything is possible.

England, it obviously needs to be pointed out, didn't achieve any of that. Maybe that's what the English media should focus on.

Source :: The Christchurch Press