Conn: No redeeming features for India this summer

One may not like Malcolm Conn but his blog is fairly much spot on. India has whinged all summer, regularly thrown its toys out of the cot and has barely granted an interview all summer. Apparently thousands of Indian fans who had travelled miles from the western suburbs of Sydney to watch their training session were devastated when they closed them out. There's just been a big panel discussion on radio about them and the consenus is that we should all be pleased when their plane takes them back home. They think their fans have been the best think about them during the summer and that everyone including the press, should stop blowing wind up Tendulkar's arse. Conn thinks the selectors should axe him from the ODI team and thought it foolhardy that they continued to play Laxman in the tests.


CAN India find anything else to whinge about?

Thank goodness Tuesday night's game against Sri Lanka in Hobart will be India's last on this tour - barring some major mathematical quirk of results which will see them make the finals.

India cannot go home soon enough to their bulging bank accounts and flat, grassless wickets.

Sachin Tendulkar's run out for 14 at the SCG last night typified India's tour. Pathetic.

To remonstrate that he had been blocked by Brett Lee when they barely touched was just woeful. Tendulkar was not forced to alter course and he gave up attempting to make his ground.

He may once have been the greatest modern cricketer in the world and India the new arrogant financial force in the game, but on and off the field this rabble will go home with no redeeming features.




It was yet another example of India treating the greater game with scant respect.

It is impossible to believe that India was the number one Test team in the world for nigh on 20 months and won the World Cup in April.

Instead, Australia has been presented with the same under-prepared shambles who lost top place on the Test table with a 4-0 flogging in England mid-year.

This over-paid, over-indulged, over-aged bunch of prima-donnas should be ashamed of themselves.

But when you're paid millions to frolic about in the IPL and millions more by leading Indian companies in a rapidly-expanding economy, what does it really matter?

Cricket would be a curiosity rather than a serious world sport if it was not for the money and passion of a vast Indian population.

With a billion people, an exploding middle class of 300 million and no significant competition from other sports on the global stage what does India lack, apart from decent administration and a worldly team?

Does India really care about the greater good of the game?

From the experience of this tour the answer is a resounding no.

Start with captain MS Dhoni. In remarkable displays of incompetence, or lack of caring, he has been suspended for slow overrates during the Test and one-day series.

Of all the records ever set in cricket how many skippers will manage to get themselves suspended twice on the same tour in different forms of the game?

India treated its passionate and vocal supporters with contempt (locking them out of training sessions), remains in the Stone Age as the only country which refuses to embrace technology for umpiring decisions and makes no attempt to promote the game.

Tendulkar, the most loved and admired player in the game, has made no effort to address his many fans at any stage during more two months on tour.

The only time he managed to utter anything to anyone besides his team mates and staff came before yesterday's match.

He made a short thank-you speech after being awarded honorary membership of the Sydney Cricket Ground, where he has a Test average of 157.

Is India ever going to embrace the global cricket community, or remain just a whinging, home ground bully?

I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't a resurrection.

This over-paid, over-indulged, over-aged bunch of prima-donnas should be ashamed of themselves.

Couldn't have put it more succinctly myself.

Not that their myopic and mutant adoring public will see it that way!!

Merlin wrote:

This over-paid, over-indulged, over-aged bunch of prima-donnas should be ashamed of themselves.

Couldn't have put it more succinctly myself.

I could.

Self centred qunts.

[lightens up]

Why?

Is it worth getting the knickers in such a twist? India were shite. They were worse than I expected, but to expect that they'd win a series in Australia would be a bit more than optimistic.

Malcolm Conn denigrating an opposition with his matter-of-fact parting shots like some big waving super-arrogant tosser? Never.

Malcolm Conn loves a struggling easy target; they're his speciality. Utter qunt.

India have been very poor on the field, but to their credit they haven't whinged about much. Conn just loves to stick the boot in. Good cricket? Feel good factor? Players getting on? You wont hear a thing out of Conn.

England winning the Ashes? He'll say that Australia weren't great, but their performance is somehow India's fault, what with their money grabbing T20 competitions luring those poor innocent Aussies away from their priorities. Australia winning the Ashes? Well, he'll say England are a bunch of whingeing Poms who should go home on the next boat, etc......

Still, he knows he's 'brash', and he plays up to it in his articles. That's why he writes for Sydney's Daily Telegraph, commonly known as the paper for stupid people. Fellow cricket Journos regularly roll their eyes when reading a Conn article. Take him with a grain of salt.....

Conn is a News Corp qunt.

Have to agree with him on SRT not fronting up to the media though.

The problem for Tendulkar may be that he's in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. There'll be a lot of speak from the regular plebs in India that he's fronting the media rather than playing cricket. He should have retired post the WC, the World cup kind, rather than take part in this WC, of the water closet kind, ODI performance.

Henry wrote:India have been very poor on the field, but to their credit they haven't whinged about much. Conn just loves to stick the boot in. Good cricket? Feel good factor? Players getting on? You wont hear a thing out of Conn.

England winning the Ashes? He'll say that Australia weren't great, but their performance is somehow India's fault, what with their money grabbing T20 competitions luring those poor innocent Aussies away from their priorities. Australia winning the Ashes? Well, he'll say England are a bunch of whingeing Poms who should go home on the next boat, etc......

Still, he knows he's 'brash', and he plays up to it in his articles. That's why he writes for Sydney's Daily Telegraph, commonly known as the paper for stupid people. Fellow cricket Journos regularly roll their eyes when reading a Conn article. Take him with a grain of salt.....

I agree with most of this but back when SA toured last he was praiseworthy of them. He thought it was hard fought series and that they had played good, entertaining cricket and were accessible to the media. So maybe a lot of it comes back to the egos of the journo.

Also perhaps worth mentioning that some bloggists and media operators have admitted that they get lots of hits and comments if they something controversial about the Indian cricketers.

Red wrote:Also perhaps worth mentioning that some bloggists and media operators have admitted that they get lots of hits and comments if they something controversial about the Indian cricketers.

Skully said that?

Zim

JGK wrote:Have to agree with him on SRT not fronting up to the media though.

TBF he's hardly the least reticent player even when he's scored a ton.

TLM has just been holding off on his 100th 100 in order to assist Australia's balance of trade (through keeping his fans here a little longer, contributing to our economy). We would all like to thank him, and to ask him to come again in 4 years.

Why do Journos even care if players front the media or not these days? They could make up players quotes using the typical "good areas", "showed character", "keep working hard", "it's about putting our plans into practice" quotes that get churned out by players these days. It's always the same old, media manager approved sh*t.

Swanny is the only player in world cricket who is actually worth an interview these days.

Nothing new in the piece, is there. ...

What was said about one phrase above, might be said of the article as a whole: a good editor could have cut the column to a third or quarter of its length.


But where would the fill of Newscorp news inches come from then?

And I suppose like many an old Murdoch salt, Conn is allowed his head.

lardbucket wrote:TLM has just been holding off on his 100th 100 in order to assist Australia's balance of trade (through keeping his fans here a little longer, contributing to our economy). We would all like to thank him, and to ask him to come again in 4 years.

He's saving it so that it's not against Aus. He felt that there would be too many Indian students thrashed in retaliation.

I hope he is not holding it in reserve for Pakistan, then.

He's saving it for someone India don't care about, like Bangladesh.

but they probably aren't playing them again for, oh I don't know, like ... ages?

Conn, wasn't he the guy who was ragging England for picking players not born in England? the NZ-born Strino Malcolm Conn...

Is that so?

Sometimes it seems that there's nobody more anti-foreigner than a (defensive) immigrant on the make!


Although I think in this case, "senior Murdoch megaphonist" says more or less all you need to know.

He will inevitably hit the odd submarine or destroyer, more often it will be a tired old battleship or half-sunk cruiser. Simply the law of averages, because he sees his job as firing off broadside after broadside on a daily basis, without fear of factual correction.