Did you hear that Australia’s cricket team suffered an embarrassing defeat in the Ashes tournament in England overnight? The entire team got out for 60 runs. English bowler Stuart Broad improved on his best ever performance by taking an astonishing 8 wickets for 15 runs. Previously his personal best was taking 7 wickets for 12 runs and in that game he was playing against an under 15s school team.
Historic. Humiliating. Devastating. It was no ordinary game of cricket.
Unsurprisingly it’s dominating sports headlines around the world today. How did it come to this? What went wrong? One possible explanation in the Herald Sun particular grabbed my attention.
Could Australia’s #Ashes disaster be the WAG’s fault? http://t.co/C9noACGmDZ pic.twitter.com/PTQqOTLZKc
— Herald Sun (@theheraldsun) August 6, 2015
Could it be the WAG’s fault? You know, the wives and girlfriends of the players? Did they conspire to ruin the fun for their partners? Put them off their game? Are their no lengths women won’t go to RUIN EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE? Seriously?
Former Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy had this to say about the players’ wives and girlfriends being present: “All their partners are here and some of the most respected cricketers I played with hated that distraction. They weren’t allowed on tour until after the series had been won. Your mind needs to be completely focused on it. Cricket is a sport that requires complete concentration. You need everything going for you and I’m not sure they’re pushing for that hard enough.”
Correct me if i’m mistaken here but I can’t seem to recall any male partners being considered complicit in the defeats of national women’s teams recently? Or ever? Does anyone seriously think that if Australia’s Netball team bows out of the upcoming World Cup their boyfriends and partners would be blamed? I sincerely doubt it.
My guess is that the wives and girlfriends of the Australian cricket team would be sharing the pain of their partners’ loss. Professional athletes, and certainly Test-level cricketers, spend an awful lot of their time away from home. Their partners live with that and for the partners with children that’s not an inconsiderable load to carry. Can you blame for them for wanting to be with their partners for a tournament like the Ashes? Can you imagine how they might feel being blamed for the loss?
I reckon if there’s any group in Australia as closely invested in the national cricket team’s performance as the players themselves, it’s the wives and girlfriends of the players. Ponder the loss as you will but if the best explanation you can devise is the presence of wives and girlfriends I think you’re scraping the barrel. (And, I think you’re also mistaking relationships in 2015 for servant-master relationships that flourished at the start of last century).