A SHORT HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN CRICKET AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE BOARD AND THE LEADING PLAYERS By Mike Wille from Melbourne.
Lollo, the Brains Trust, and I use the phrase loosely, behind these talks, has asked that the subject of the talk be something that the speaker feels passionate about and also controversial in order to stimulate debate and discussion.
I am going to talk about Australian Cricket and how I believe that the Board of Cricket Australia is primarily responsible for the Ball Tampering Incident that occured in South Africa.
I am passionate about Cricket and my earliest memories involve Cricket.
I can remember vividly the first tour that took place after WW2. The Indians toured England in the summer of 1946. The Team was captained by The Nawab of Pataudi and included players with exotic names such as Vijay Merchant, Vinoo Mankad, Lala Amarnath, Mustaq Ali, Sarwate. I remember a headline in our local Ceylon Press that read “Kicked out at the Oval” that referred to Dennis Compton, a First Division Soccer player running out an Indian batsman, I think it was Merchant, by kicking the ball onto the wicket in the Oval Test.
I also know that many of you blame Warner, in particular, for what happened in South Africa and have been vocal critics of the way the Australian Test side has become the pariahs of International Cricket by playing “win at any cost” cricket over the past two decades.
I too deplore the “win at any cost” cricket that we played. But I don’t blame the Warners and the Smiths and the snarling Mitchell Johnson and the Michael Clarke who threatened to break Jimmy Anderson’s arm. I blame the Board of Cricket Australia and I will give you my reasons
To understand the relationship between the Board of Cricket Australia and the leading players you need to go back to the birth of the game in Australia and the psyche of the Australian people
In the 1700’s there was massive social disruption in Britain.
Change in the Laws saw many small landholders dispossessed of their land and the start of the Industrial Revolution saw thousands of people flock to the cities, mainly London, in order to survive.
In these horrendous conditions the crime rate soared with the hangman kept busy and the people who had committed lesser crimes sent off to America.
With the loss of the American war of Independence in 1766 the British Government had to find another home for their lesser criminals.
One of the purposes of Cook’s Voyages of Discovery in 1768 was to find a suitable site for a Penal Colony.
Cook looked at both New Zealand and the southern coast of Australia and settled on the latter because the Australian Aboriginals were less aggressive than the Maoris.
Sydney harbour was settled on the 26th of January 1788 with 1480 people, mainly convicts and soldiers, arriving on the First Fleet.
In the early years penal colonies were set up in Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, Western Australia and Queensland with transportation of convicts being stopped in about 1850.
The first decades were very difficult because the harsh climate did not support agriculture.
The first cricket match was played in Sydney in 1803 and the population of Australia, excluding Aboriginals, was 5200 people.
It was found that Merino sheep thrived in the Australian conditions and the economy of Australia began to take off in about 1820 with the first auction of Australian wool in London.
By 1840, when the population of Australia was about 170,000, cricket clubs had been formed in all of the States.
The first interstate match was played in 1851 and a match in Sydney between Victoria and NSW attracted a crowd of 15,000 people.
By 1860, with the Gold rush and the export of tallow and wool increasing, the economy and population of Australia, now a million people, was booming.
Entrepreneurs took advantage of the popularity of cricket and the booming economy to organise and sponsor tours by English teams to Australia.
The first tour, organised by the catering company Ponds and Spiers, was a roaring success and highly profitable for sponsors and players.
The first English team, captained by H Stephenson consisted of mainly players from the Surrey Club.
The locals were no match for the visitors despite most matches played with odds of 11 playing against 18
Many tours followed, all very successful and profitable.
The standard of the locals was gradually improving and on the 15th of March 1877 a match took place between a comparatively strong English side and a combined side of Victorians and New South Welshmen.
The locals won the match by 45 runs with Charles Bannerman making 165.
This match is regarded as the first Test match.
A Aboriginal side toured England in 1868 but played mainly exhibition games
The first Australian side toured England in 1880 and played one Test which was lost.
In 1882 a team captained by Dave Gregory toured England and won a historic match at the Oval, which lead to the start of the Ashes, with the publication of a satirical obituary in the London Sporting Times.
Since 1882 the two countries have been playing each other on a biannual basis.
Between 1880 and 1905 the Australian touring sides were selected by the leading players of the day and the tour was organised on a private enterprise basis. The Players paid for the cost of the Tour and shared the profits.
These tours were highly lucrative for the participants with a player able to purchase up to three houses in Sydney from the profits, which was sufficient to make a person financially secure for life
In 1892 the Australian Cricket Council was formed with the aim of regulating interstate matches and organising International tours.
This last aim was hotly contested by the leading players of the day because they could see that they would lose control of selection and a lucrative source of income.
The Australian Board of Control came into being in 1905. As the saying goes “you cannot fight City Hall”.
We know that the average Australian hates authority and nothing riles him more than to be told what to do by some bureaucrat wearing a tie and who is perceived as being a non-contributor.
This acrimonious debate terminated with Clem Hill physically assaulting Peter McAlister and the ‘big six’ of Australian cricket, Warwick Armstrong, Clem Hill, Victor Trumper, Vernon Ransford, Tibby Cotter and Hanson Carter withdrawing from the English Tour of 1912, which was a disaster.
The relationship between the Board and the leading players has been toxic ever since.
There is no doubt that the Board wanting to exert control over the Players who went from Caviar to boiled lollies until Kerry Packer and the WSC revolution enabled the leading players to earn what was their true value in a commercial world.
The situation did not improve after the First World War with various examples of the Board being bloody minded. Here is an example:
When Bradman returned to Australia after the successful tour of 1930 where he scored 974 runs in the five Tests, a record that stands to this day, Australia was in the midst of the crippling worldwide economic depression.
Bradman had received an offer from Frank Packer, a Sydney Media Mogul, to write a few articles on the forthcoming English tour of 1932/1933.
The Board refused Bradman permission to write for the Paper despite another journalist, Jack Fingleton, being in the Australian team and permitted to write.
Was the Board just being bloody minded and demonstrating to the Australian public that they had power and control over the world’s greatest batsman?
Bradman was incensed and said that he had signed a Contract which he intended to honour and if he was disallowed from playing for Australia, so be it.
The thought of “Our Don Bradman” not playing for Australia against “the old enemy” sent the Nation into a panic particularly, as Bradman had been the only bright star in a very depressed economic period, with very high unemployment throughout Australia.
The day was saved when Packer said he would release Bradman from his Contractual obligations.
The Packers were hardnosed business people and Packer did what he did either for the love of Australia or because his newspapers may have been boycotted if he had played hard ball. You be the judge.
There are other examples of the high handed behaviour of the Board, for instance the dropping of Sydney Barnes from the Australian Test Team “for reasons other than cricket”
Fast forward to Bill Lawry’s Tour of India that took place in the last 3 months of 1969. This was a gruelling Tour where the team played five Tests. The travel arrangements and the accommodation was far from satisfactory. I believe that one player contracted Hepatitis, nearly died, and never played cricket again. The Team returned to Australia on the 28th of December and on the 4th of January left for a 3 month Tour South Africa where they were thrashed 4-0. Nothing gives the South Africans greater pleasure than to thrash the Aussies and the South African Board asked the Australian Board if they would agree to play an extra Test. The proposition was put to the Australian players, who by this time were totally demoralised. The players asked for some extra payment as the four Tests was what they had signed up to. This request was refused and the Fifth Test did not take place.
Bill Lawry wrote a long report to the Board pointing out some of the shortcomings of the Tour arrangements, together with some recommendations to improve the situation on future Tours.
Bil showed the report to his vice-captain, Ian Chappell, who advised him not to send it, and if he did, the report should be signed by all the players.
Bill disregarded Ian’s advice saying that he was the Captain and must shoulder his responsibilities alone.
In the next Series which was against England at home starting in summer of 1970 the Board sacked Lawry in the middle of the Series.
This had never happened before in the history of Australian Cricket and, furthermore, Lawry heard about his sacking by reading it in the Press.
Chappell took over the Captaincy but his hatred of the Board was manifest and he swore that the Board would never do to him what they did to Lawry.
There was no doubt that, around this time, the Australian players were totally dissatisfied with their lot.
Requests for a pay rise were met with derision with one Board Member saying that the Board could get dozens of boys who would be only too willing to play for Australia.
This lead to the mild mannered Ian Redpath grabbing the Secretary of the Board by the throat, pinning him against the dressing room wall, and saying “Yes, you can get dozens of others to take our place, but how good would the cricket be?”
Ian Chappell was asked to attend a Meeting to give the Board the benefit of his firsthand experience. When Chappell suggested that the dispute could be resolved by a small pay rise and some improvement in conditions the Board, ironically lead by Bradman, went into zombie mode.
As Chappell said, you would almost think that the money was coming out of Bradman’s pocket.
Then the stars aligned for the embattled Australian players, the Knight in Shining Armour appearing in the form of Media Mogul, Kerry Bullimore Packer.
In 1976, for purely commercial reasons Kerry Packer, proprietor of Channel Nine, wanted to get the TV rights to telecast Australian Test matches played at home, the contract for which was about to expire.
Despite his bid being significantly higher than the current holder of the contract, the Government owned Australian Broadcasting Commission, the Board awarded the contract to the ABC. Packer was incensed at the dismissive way his bid had been handled and also suspected that some “Old Boy” networks were in play.
Packer was determined to get some cricket on his television station and his interest was stimulated by a proposal to play some exhibition matches, an idea put to him by John Cornell and Austin Robertson, the latter being the manager of several high profile Australian cricketers including Denis Lillee.
At the time the Australian players were in effect amateurs, and to cut the long story short, Packer signed up 35 of the World’s leading players including all the leading Australians. The signing up fee being as low as $25,000.
So World Series Cricket was born and Cricket was changed forever. In the words of Kerry Packer “It was the easiest sport in the world to take over……nobody bothered to pay the players what they were worth”.
The dispute was settled in 1979 with Packer getting what he originally wanted and more.
The biggest ramifications of the dispute were felt in Australia were there was lingering bitterness between those who had played for WSC and those who hadn’t, that blighted Australian Cricket into the mid 1980’s.
However, despite the players receiving significantly increased remuneration the relationship between the Board and the Players, still being a “Master, Servant” one, did not improve.
In 1995 Steve Waugh believed that the players were still being undervalued. Allan Border was on a contract of about $90,000 whereas many Australian Rules Footballers were receiving payments of over $300,000.
The Australian players had never been united or desperate enough to form a Union but with Shane Warne and Tim May at his side Waugh and company formed the Australian Cricketers Association in 1997.
The objective of the Association was to look after the interests of all First Class Players in Australia, including women.
Almost immediately they went to war with the Board, now called Cricket Australia, and, after being pushed to the edge of Strike action, secured an outstanding deal which had one golden thread- the Players would receive roughly a quarter of the games revenue stream in Australia, the agreement to operate until 2017
It became clear fairly early on in the period of the Agreement that the Players had secured a very good deal indeed.
When the model was set up in 1997 the Australian cricketing Pie was around $50 million and in 2017 it was about $400 million.
Although the “Ugly Australian” probably started with Steve Waugh and his policy of Mental Disintegration, Cricket Australia exacerbated the situation by encouraging and insisting on a “Win at any cost” policy with the belief that winning would increase the revenue stream.
As I have said previously, the Australians pursued an out and out “win at any cost” policy demanded by Cricket Australia with no better illustration than a furious CEO of Cricket Australia, James Sutherland, giving the Australian team a tongue lashing after the defeat by South Africa in Hobart in November 2016 saying, “We don’t pay you to play, we pay you to win”.
The On field behaviour of the Australian Team when they won the World Cup in 2015 before a MCG crowd of 93,000 people, many from overseas was disgraceful. I know because I was there. There ‘Send Offs’ of the Kiwi batsmen was nothing short of cringeworthy. The team was roundly criticised by the world’s cricketing Press, but it was water off a duck’s arse’ because their paymasters did not say a word.
I cannot recall any Australian player being censured between 2000 and 2018 and, further, what message do you send when you appoint David Warner, a man who sledges off Scratch, vice-captain of the Test side?
The disgraceful ball tampering incident didn’t initially get much response from Cricket Australia who seemed to give the impression, “So what, all the sides indulge in ball tampering”.
It was the outrage of the everyday Australian Cricket supporter who, believing that this was the last straw, spurred Cricket Australia into action and saw them impose very heavy sanctions on Smith, Warner and Bancroft.
Under intense Media pressure Cricket Australia commissioned a review of the Culture of Australian cricket by Simon Longstaff of the Ethics Centre and ex Test cricketer Rick Mc Cosker.
The Review found that the Administrators were just as much to blame as the players for the Ball Tampering Incident.
The review exposed the many cultural failings of Cricket Australia which was found to be arrogant and controlling with the players pocketing a fortune but living in a bubble and seeing themselves as a part of a machine.
It is said that a fish rots from the head and I have no doubt that Cricket Australia was primarily responsible for the disgraceful way Australia has played its Cricket in the past two decades at least and I was glad to see the departure of David Peever, Chairman of Cricket Australia, CEO James Sutherland and Performance Manager Pat Howard. Maybe, in order to clean out the Aegean Stables the entire Board should have fallen on its collective sword!
Australia has always played its Cricket with a greater intensity than any other Nation and that must not change. Bradman and Benaud gave no quarter but played within the Spirit of the Game and, at that time, Australia was acknowledged and respected as the leader of the cricketing world. That reputation has been sullied and not just by what happened at the Newlands Stadium on the 24th of March 2018.
We have just seen the completion of, unarguably, the most exciting Ashes Series since WW2 which was, most importantly, played in very good spirit.
The Australians had at least nine players who played in South Africa, including the villains of the piece, Smith, Warner and Bancroft.
So what’s changed to cause this epiphany?
Answer. The attitude of the Board of Cricket Australia which was born in that fist fight in 1912, but will it last, can a leopard change its spots?
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