Aussies losing it

the aussies seem to have mentally imploded after sydney (not that there was much left prior to it)

SHAME OLD STORY

AUSSIES AT IT AGAIN

THIRD RATE REMARK

Melbourne: Australian opener Matthew Hayden has called India a third-world country and blamed his team’s sluggish over-rate in the lost Test series there on the host batsmen’s reluctance to “face up’’ quickly enough and the constant movement around sightscreens.
“They (opposition batsmen) are very difficult to get to face up,’’ Hayden was quoted as saying by The Australian.
Hayden said sightscreen adjustments also played a part in delaying the proceedings as someone or the other kept moving around it.
“Often we find ourselves with hands on hips waiting for someone to either face up or someone in the sightboard to move away; all the little frustrations that happen in third world countries and the heat as well,’’ he added.
Australia were nine overs or 40 minutes behind schedule on the penultimate day of the fourth and final Test at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur, which forced their skipper, Ricky Ponting, to use part-time spinners instead of frontline pacers at a crucial juncture of the game.
Ponting, who could have been banned for a Test for the slow over-rate, came under severe criticism for his tactics. Hayden said over-rates have always been a problem for Australia.
“We’ve had trouble with our over rates for a long time now. It’s not just us in international cricket that seems to struggle with it for whatever reason,’’ Hayden said. PTI

The sightscreen thing is a fair point - with all the so called millions in Indian cricket you'd think they could afford Test standard sightscreens.

The One wrote:

And these are guys that like to call us whingeing poms!!

The One wrote:the aussies seem to have mentally imploded after sydney (not that there was much left prior to it)

SHAME OLD STORY

AUSSIES AT IT AGAIN

THIRD RATE REMARK

Melbourne: Australian opener Matthew Hayden has called India a third-world country and blamed his team’s sluggish over-rate in the lost Test series there on the host batsmen’s reluctance to “face up’’ quickly enough and the constant movement around sightscreens.
“They (opposition batsmen) are very difficult to get to face up,’’ Hayden was quoted as saying by The Australian.
Hayden said sightscreen adjustments also played a part in delaying the proceedings as someone or the other kept moving around it.
“Often we find ourselves with hands on hips waiting for someone to either face up or someone in the sightboard to move away; all the little frustrations that happen in third world countries and the heat as well,’’ he added.
Australia were nine overs or 40 minutes behind schedule on the penultimate day of the fourth and final Test at the VCA Stadium in Nagpur, which forced their skipper, Ricky Ponting, to use part-time spinners instead of frontline pacers at a crucial juncture of the game.
Ponting, who could have been banned for a Test for the slow over-rate, came under severe criticism for his tactics. Hayden said over-rates have always been a problem for Australia.
“We’ve had trouble with our over rates for a long time now. It’s not just us in international cricket that seems to struggle with it for whatever reason,’’ Hayden said. PTI

Where's the story?

An English journalist wrote this about what Hayden had to say, and I think it sums things up pretty well-

"You have to hand it to Matty Hayden, he certainly has an old-fashioned way of looking at things. He lives under the impression that the minute he gets back to Queensland the world stops listening, he can reel off a few redneck opinions and go fishing."

Made up a name for this 'English journalist' yet?

Fred Nerk wrote:Made up a name for this 'English journalist' yet?

David Hopps, if you want to know. You can go to 'guardian' to find his entire article!

Fred Nerk wrote:Made up a name for this 'English journalist' yet?

It was David Hopps, writing for The Guardian.

I like Hoppo, we had a little on-line joke together about Boykz one time.

ndia tour diary, entry two: Hayden's short-sighted view
Matthew Hayden's opinions of India are half-cooked redneck tosh, this nation remains, as ever, the 'Land of contradictions'
Comments (74)
Matthew Hayden

Matthew Hayden has had trouble with his vision both on and off the pitch. Photograph: Gautam Singh/AP

November 14: Matthew Hayden has wasted no time on his return to Australia in dismissing India as a ''third world country'' - a slight that has not gone unnoticed here. There is no official definition of what exactly constitutes a third-world country but as yet no official study has yet to suggest, unlike Hayden, that it is defined by the number of people moving around behind the sightscreen.

For a supposed third-world country, India can assemble a veritable army of TV stations, radio frequencies, newspapers and websites to defend its reputation as a thrusting economic power. True, if half of those working in the media were building new homes then India would probably be a better place, but then you could also say the same about England.

In the doubtless forlorn hope that India's more nationalistic bloggers are even now venting their spleen on newly-discovered Queensland websites, it might be time to break out, under the cover of Hayden's General Schwarzkopf-style full-frontal attack, and file an addition to the diary. Maybe I can even dare to mention the fact that hotel reception woke me up with a happy ''good morning, sir'' at 6am this morning. But maybe not.

You have to hand it to Matty Hayden, he certainly has an old-fashioned way of looking at things. He lives under the impression that the minute he gets back to Queensland the world stops listening, he can reel off a few redneck opinions and go fishing. But these days the world is so small that no sanctuary remains. Not even Brisbane. (If even one Australian rails about this last line then it will just help to prove my point).

India, of course, is not ''a third-world country''. India, as we have all been taught, is a ''land of contradictions.'' It is a land that can pay Hayden US$375,000 to play for Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League then irritate him when it takes half-an-hour to move a sightscreen. ''Land of contradictions'' is such a cliché that a Google search brings up 268,000 results, and here is the latest addition.

I wandered down Rajkot's main shopping street yesterday to buy a camera (so the next time that a Mumbai taxi driver messes up and I mention it in my blog to supposed comic effect I can provide photographic evidence).

The camera was just the job, the service charming, and the payment was pure theatre. In England, if the credit-card terminal didn't work you would be ushered from the shop as a potential fraudster. In Rajkot, ladders were brought, cupboards searched and we soon had three terminals piled high in the hope that one of them would work. The card was swiped 100 times with a wide variety of spin-bowling actions without success. When the shopkeeper tried the doosra it was probably the first time a terminal has ever come back with the response ''rejected due to illegal action.''

It all took so long that I never got the chance to visit Kaba Gandhi's Gate, Gandhi's one-time ancestral home, which now houses a memorial museum. I note with envy that Mr Mann of the BBC did get there, but then he has always been a master of time management and anyway he didn't have to buy a camera.

Rajkot, in English eyes, was once the least salubrious of all India's cricket venues. Vic Marks reminded Observer readers at the weekend of how washing facilities in the England hotel 24 years ago consisted of ''a big plastic bucket and a small plastic bucket.'' Now my hotel has a power shower, Mexican food and a plasma TV screen.

On that very plasma TV screen, I watched Lahore Badshaws beat Hyderabad Heroes in the first of three finals in the Indian Cricket League - that is the unofficial one for those of you still confused by such things.

Some things never change. Inzy grumbled to the umpires about a ball change to the point of insubordination and Tony Greig continually referred to Lahore as ''Pakistan'' with an ill-concealed sense of distaste at their behaviour. The standard was slightly iffy, a crowd of 50,000 in Ahmedabad was frenzied and it was all hugely entertaining. This was a bit of a surprise as I had blithely accepted Lalit Modi's word that it was all a bit of a flop.

Surprises me why this tw@t is garlanded on arrival. The Indians should receive him with a pointed Texan boot up his obnoxious....., but I guess that would counter the Indian perception of hospitality. I wonder why he hasn't called Zaheer Khan an obnoxious twerp by now for having bugged him all throughout the tour.

ZK isn't good enough to warrant being labelled like that. At least Harby is a decent cricketer on his home turf.

Does Hopps ( and Trev) realise that his comments about Queensland are the equal of MtFTB's comments about India?

JGK wrote:ZK isn't good enough to warrant being labelled like that. At least Harby is a decent cricketer on his home turf.

Ha! Right up to Mohali the obnoxious tw@t could hardly get past the first few overs. The media had their bunny jokes all lined up. Besides, with 300 wickets under his belt you could hardly call Harbi "decent". As far as I know he has usurped the all-time third highest Indian ranking within his eight year career.
You're in a subjective slumber man.

That was an attempted below the belt punch from Hydo. Doesn't get anywhere though.

Harby is the only player in history with 300 wickets at over 30. If it wasn't for dodging a few flat tracks in his time he'd average closer to 35.

ZK will soon have 200 test wickets at around 35. No matter how you cut it, these are ordinary career stats.

"Ha! Right up to Mohali the obnoxious tw@t could hardly get past the first few overs."

Unfortunately Zaheer fell away at that stage but he had kind of an excuse - it's hard to grip the ball properly when your fingers are caked in a quarter-inch of newsprint from spending all your spare time reading about how good you are.

So? ZK can read and take wickets? Is that what you're saying?

jim rich wrote:So? ZK can read and take wickets? Is that what you're saying?

I think he is saying that he can't do both at the same time.

The best thing is no one cares. I'm assuming none of the news channels have noticed, and hoping they're bored.

Akram's counterattack on Hayden

Matthew Hayden's comment about India being a "third world" country came in for a scathing attack from former Pakistan captain Wasim Akram who said the Australians have a habit of bad-mouthing their opponents whenever they lose.

Akram said the Aussies were "sore losers" and that Hayden should have known that India was now hundred years ahead of Australia "which is no more than a village".

"The thing about the Aussies is that they are sore losers. They get personal when they get beaten. It is all a matter of sour grapes and after going home, they've started calling India a third-world country", Akram told ESPN Mobile from Karachi.

"India is a superpower now; it is a hundred years ahead of Australia, which is no more than a village, as compared to India. You don't blame sightscreens for poor over rates. Even Allan Border was critical of Australian tactics on the pitch," Akram said.

good to have support from fellow south asians.

Akram said the Aussies were "sore losers" and that Hayden should have known that India was now hundred years ahead of Australia "which is no more than a village".

...another comment that is equal to what Hayden said ...

Twat fest. Twats, festively, fisting.

Twatty twats frolic freely.

All, Ind, Aus.

Qunts.

How does a twat festively fist? Don't tell me, my imagination is in overdrive. Thanks furry! x