Greedy, Racist Australians

I'll admit I have a problem with Australians and Australian cricket, and not just the fact that they are too arrogant by half for my liking or that in general they are some of the most racist people around.

Whether it be Australian crowds at Perth abusing the South Africans (December, 2005) or the Adelaide Oval crowd throwing racist taunts at the Sri Lankans (January, 2006), racism seems to be an accepted norm for Australians.
Crowds, admittedly, can sometimes get carried away and it's easy to justify such abuse by saying that it was a few bad eggs doing it, but there is enough evidence of individual cricketers and cricket officials doing it to know that such excuses don't wash. When Dean Jones called Hashim Amla a terrorist, and got fired from Ten Sports for his trouble, ex-Australian cricketers defended him with the old "oh he's a really nice bloke if you know him" defense, which is nothing short of bullshit. The same defense was used when Darren Lehman called a Sri Lankan player a black cunt and Brad Hogg called Kumble a bastard. Few outside Australia have any doubt that Darrel Hair was racially motivated in no-balling Murali or falsely calling the Pakistan team for ball tempering. The fact that he later asked the ICC for $500,000 to go away quietly just shows that he is stupid as well as a racist.

But this rant was not supposed to be about racist Australians. It is about greedy lying Australians. The fact that the Australians are falling all over themselves to tour India despite recent bombings in Delhi that claimed 20 lives should leave no one in any doubt that security concerns had nothing to do with their refusal to visit Pakistan for the Champion's Trophy. It's all about greed and lying.

Andrew Miller puts it best in his blog,
"They wanted a break in their never-ending calendar, and quite rightly so, but not one that would jeopardise their unparalleled earning powers. They saw in a little-loved tournament in a little-loved country the perfect combination to bend and abuse. The tournament never stood a chance, and nor does it have any hope of a revival in 2009."

and therein lies the rub. The reason for refusal was not security, it was the fact that Pakistan doesn't offer Ponting's men the multi-million dollar contracts they can potentially get in India.