Symonds breaks new ground for cricket....with his shoulder!!!
We are a cricket mad country but still some of us are sane enough to be aware of the sports global standing - lost in the back of the queue. I totally blame Lord Cornwallis for cricket's plight. If only he had won the war called the War of American Independence in the 1780's prolonging the British influence on the Yanks. The Americans would have adapted cricket whole-heartedly, nipping baseball in the bud. Cricket would have harnessed the global marketing machine that is America, to achieve global prominence. Well thank God for Andrew Symonds. He is already making up for the watershed events of the 1780's.
I am a regular follower of ESPN.com. This is the flagship US website of ESPN which is easily the most powerful sports media corporation in the world. And before you cricket and football fans even protest that claim, please remember that Cricinfo and Soccernet are also owned by ESPN.
In all my years of following ESPN.com, I don’t remember coming across any cricket-related news. There are regular titbits about football though. All that changed yesterday. Finally ESPN had a reason to sit up and take notice. Andrew Symonds' rugby style tackle of a streaker has become the first cricket news to figure on ESPN.com. There's a video for your voyeuristic pleasures as well.
So, here's a message for the mandarins of cricket. Rather than fine this wonderful cricketer; who has already had to endure so much trauma this summer, we should felicitate him. He should be awarded with the SBE (Shoulder of the British Empire) for starters and be allowed to tackle any naked person he comes across. And that includes Harbhajan as well.
I will leave you with another race -related thought. Symonds tackled a white male. Would he have done the same had the streaker been a female or a black person or say a pretty black female? Shouldn’t he be put to the test to determine whether he was racially motivated or not? And like the second final, this should be done with a global audience watching. Imagine what this would do for the popularity of cricket?
1 comment:
In my opinion Symonds is not a racist, he is a product of the spoilt attitude that has become the Australian Cricket team. The tackle was neat. Proves that he is a sportsman. Just waiting for him to score runs in the IPL. Can he represent Australia in some other sport too? (Like J. Rhodes from South Africa)
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