Follow the Leader

What you see depends on where you stand.

You know what I mean? If I sit at my desk, I can see the palm trees and the giant Moreton Bay fig in the yard. It’s a vista of rich green shapes that fills the window. But if I move about 5 steps to my boss’s desk, the green growth that fills my window is only a small part at the edge of his vision. He sees mainly blue-grey sky, grass, and beyond that, the river reflecting the mood of the sky.

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard is in a very different place now to where she was just a month ago, and I imagine her view is very different from the back benches. More importantly, Ms Gillard’s view of the future has changed too. I don't know what it is that she sees, but I know it's different, because her perspective is different.

Kevin Rudd has been Prime Minister before, so the view is distantly familiar, but the environment and challenges are different.

Remember  that our views have changed too. Where a month ago our leader was a red-headed woman, it’s now a silver haired man. Change is emotional, for those involved and for those looking on. As a Change Manager, I should be aware of this, and in a professional capacity, I certainly am. As an observer and biased commentator on the political situation, I seem to be less astute.

There is still so much bad feeling lingering after the spill. I had thought that perhaps the Rudd fans who’d been so depressed after the June 2010 spill would have regained their equilibrium and be ready to get on with the job. Equally, I hoped that the Gillard supporters would accept that whether this year’s spill was right or wrong, warranted or not, restoring Rudd to the Prime Ministership has given the ALP a genuine opportunity to win the election and retain government.

The acceptance, the unity I was hoping for just isn’t evident. There is still pronounced ill-feeling, most of it aimed at Kevin Rudd. Those who supported Ms Gillard while Mr Rudd – in their opinion - destabilized the party and white-anted the leader refuse to forgive and forget. Some vow to boycott the ALP and vote Green. Others are still incoherent in their rage at what was done to our first female Prime Minister.

Perhaps we should take notice of how the Australian cricket team has behaved since their spill. South African-born coach Mickey Arthur was never well accepted by Australian cricket fans, so after a string of disappointing performances by the Aussies, Mr Arthur was sacked by Cricket Australia.

The Aussie fans were pleased to see the end of Mickey Arthur, particularly when he was replaced by Aussie bloke Darren Lehmann, better known to all as “Boof”. Boof doesn’t say much to the media. He gets results, and grotesque failure by the Aussie top and middle orders notwithstanding, we almost beat the Poms last weekend in the first Ashes test. No-one expected that.

Unlike politics, the cricket spill seemed to be surgically precise. Mickey was gone, Boof was in, and everyone was happy.

Except Dave Warner. And Mickey Arthur. And Michael Clarke and Shane Watson. First of all, Dave Warner, banished from the Australian team for two tests because of unacceptable off-field behaviour, admitted that his poor attitude and resulting booze-fuelled larks may have been a factor in the decision to give Mickey Arthur the boot. Very perceptive, Dave. Actions have consequences... but the coach failed to manage Dave's behaviour. I'm not making excuses for Dave Warner - he's old enough and experienced enough to know better - but when it became obvious that he had a problem, he should have been counselled and disciplined.

And now, Mickey Arthur is suing Cricket Australia for four million dollars, for wrongful dismissal. Now I don’t know what was in his contract, but if his employment was to coach the Australian team to victory, he failed in most of his objectives. If his contract included doing nothing to damage the reputation of the Australian cricket community, he failed on that measure as well as his team repeatedly made headlines for boozing, blueing, and failing to do their homework.

In his media statements, he has indicated that he was the hapless victim in a feud between Aussie Captain Michael Clarke and opener Shane Watson. Respected senior players like Brad Haddin are falling into line to support their team, denying any kind of contretemps between Pup and Watto. Boof, of course, has remained silent, as he should.

Whether there is or was any klnd of conflict between Pup and Watto is fascinating in light of Arthur’s claims. If there was no feud, Arthur is lying and looking for high profile scapegoats and a big payout. If there was a real feud, Arthur, as coach, should have intervened and managed the situation in whatever way was appropriate. In both cases, Arthur is wrong. I fail to see any "wrongful" in CA's dismissal of the former coach.

Mercifully, whatever had been going on within the Australian Cricket Team under Mickey Arthur is being dealt with, and team is behaving as a team (except for the regular batting catastrophes) and everyone, from fans to players to the Cricket Australia management group is united behind the bloke called Boof.

In the meantime, Labor supporters are still venting their bitterness all over social media. Julia Gillard isn't suing anyone for wrongful dismissal - she's got way too much class for that. In any case, if part of her role as parliamentary leader of the ALP was to lead the ALP to an election victory, she would have found herself soundly defeated. Another female Labor leader would be brought undone.

I understand that her supporters might abhor the way that Mr Rudd replaced Ms Gillard, but that’s done. My loathing is for the way she was treated while in the top job, but standing here at the boss's window, I can see that there was little option but to replace her. Continuing to focus energy on the spill appears as ALP disunity, and helps no-one. Ms Gillard's supporters need to move to a bigger window with a different view. It’s not Rudd versus Gillard that they should be seeing; it’s the Rudd versus the Coalition in the coming election and the view from that window is tinged with hope. 

Howzwhat?

A Different Perspective on Howzat 

Firstly, Sniff N The Tears’ one and only hit was Drivers Seat, which charted in 1978. Playing it during Channel Nine’s ‘Limited Series Event’, Howzat, in a scene set in 1976 was optimistic by about two years.

And that’s almost my only gripe.*

I remember the years of World Series Cricket so vividly. I was 12 in 1977, living with my mother and grandparents in a small country town. The whole family loved their cricket, and I can’t imagine a summer when we weren’t crowded around the old black and white television in the lounge-room, watching the test matches, and sometimes the Sheffield Shield games, on the ABC.

Our access to commercial television was limited: back in those days, well before regional networks had formal affiliations, and still more than a decade before regional aggregation with metropolitan networks, NEN9/ECN8 picked what programming they showed. “Channel 8”, our local commercial station, showed little sport; it was all Days of our Lives and the Young and the Restless, Lost In Space, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie and the Brady Bunch. After tea, we’d settle in for a night of Great Temptation, followed by The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, The Paul Hogan Show, The Sullivans, or Certain Women.
In 1976-77, colour television was still new, and Countdown was the pivot around which my week revolved. If the cricket ran past 6pm on a Sunday night, and Countdown was delayed, I’d be furious.

When we first started hearing about this World Series Cricket business, we had no choice but to be vehemently against it. Practicalities aside, my grandparents were of the same generation as The Don, and cricket belonged on the ABC like sauce belongs on a pie. Cricket had honour and tradition, and all this crazy talk about One Day games that would be telecast in living colour had nothing to do with honour and tradition. Cricket at night time had even less credibility.


To make matters even less appealing, the players involved were not less than acceptable to my grandparents. These men had long hair flapping all over their collars and faces, unruly moustaches, shirts open halfway down to their belly buttons, and gold chains bouncing around their necks. They probably listened to rock n roll music too.

According to Grandpa Rex, that Lillee chap was the worst of the lot, with his ridiculous runup, and Jeff Thomson was almost as bad with his blonde hair always in his eyes. They were fast-bowlers, which was fine, but like those Poms under Douglas Bloody Jardine, Lillee and Thommo bowled at the batsmens’ body. It was Leg Theory; Bodyline by another name. That’s not cricket. Of course, Dougie Walters was just a larrikin, though; he was almost a local, so he was forgiven.

And that was that. Mucking around with the traditional game of cricket was not acceptable. Basically what the Australian Cricket Board, now known as Cricket Australia, wanted was only right and proper, and these upstarts with their money and their fancy ideas should bugger off.

Don’t forget that there was no guarantee that our local commercial station would even show the new commercialised cricket, so we had no choice but to side with the Establishment, or risk losing our cricket coverage altogether.

So we were firmly on the side of the Establishment, and when the Packer Traitors became ineligible to play “official” cricket, the ACB was forced to choose a young side of unproven players lead by Graham Yallop, a man with a short, inglorious test cricket history. His young team was comprehensively trounced in the Ashes series that year, although it was during this demeaning season that we first met fastbowler Rodney Hogg, and future captains Kim Hughes and Allan Border.

As it turns out, NEN9/ECN8 didn’t show the World Series Cricket until after the Reconciliation, so while the world was tuning into Packer’s Cricket Circus, complete with One Day Games, Day Night Games, coloured clothing, a white ball, a female commentator (gasp!) and the best players in the world, we watched, with great hope and loyalty, as the “official” Aussies had their arses handed to them, test after test, by an English team that featured Derek Randall, Bob Willis and a young David Gower.

World Series Cricket was a change that had to come, and Kerry Packer was the only man with the vision and the budget who could make it happen. As a cricket tragic, I’ve read about the great Cricket War of the 70s, and I was old enough to remember the names and the bitter antagonism with which the whole thing was conducted. It’s a different story to the one we’re watching on Channel Nine now, a sadder story. It’s also a story of how cricket was transformed, how the sacrosanct nature of the game was shattered for all time, leaving in its place both a rich heritage, and a positive future.


*My other gripe? Nine’s Howzat feels more than a little one-sided. Where is Don Bradman, the man whose legendary status influenced every decision made by the ACB, from 1932 until well after the Cricket Wars of the 70s? Where is the angst that must’ve existed for everyone close to the game? I hope Part 2 lets us see more than just the vicious glory that is Kerry Packer in full flight.