Before Thursday’s second women’s Ashes T20 in Canberra the England captain, Heather Knight, surprised many when she suggested her team was intending “to bring our inner mongrel” to the game. The nation’s touring cricketers have a great many qualities but if the snarl, growl, snap and fang suggested by that phrase is one of them it is really very inner indeed.
England duly slipped to another defeat, albeit this time by a narrow margin. They had been given hope by Knight herself, with an excellent 19-ball 43 that was unbeaten except by the rain that prematurely ended the game just as their target was shifting from ludicrous to faintly feasible. Afterwards Knight clarified that her earlier comment had been prompted by a speech delivered to the team by Courtney Winfield-Hill, which had itself been inspired by the assistant coach’s beloved cavalier King Charles spaniel, Wilson.
So much for the mongrel. Suddenly the image of a very different kind of canine was brought to mind. The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club describes the breed’s characteristics thus: “Their temperament is gentle and never aggressive in any way. They are fun-loving dogs that adore nothing more than to curl up on a comfortable lap or armchair. They love their comforts and will go to great lengths to manipulate you to be allowed to sit on the best furniture.” This felt very much more apposite. Indeed some would say that England have been bringing their inner cavaliers for some time, the problem being that doing so is less likely to assist in winning cut-throat games of elite sport against ruthless and remorseless rivals than it is in falling asleep on sofas in the daytime and successfully convincing humans to give you biscuits.
In fact someone had pretty much said exactly that a few months ago. When England’s women were unexpectedly knocked out of the T20 World Cup by West Indies in October, the BBC’s Alex Hartley, a member of their 2017 World Cup-winning team, said that poor fitness had been a key factor. “There are going to be a lot of questions asked and some of them, rightly so, on fitness,” she said. “England need to get fitter. Australia have got 15 or 16 athletes, genuine athletes. You look at our team – I’m not going to name names but if you look at them, you know.” Last week Hartley said that as a result of those comments she had “been hung out to dry” and “given the cold shoulder” by some members of the team and coaching staff. “They haven’t looked at me,” she said.
You have to question an environment in which it is considered sensible, perhaps even principled, to react to an accusation that you lack professionalism by again displaying a lack of professionalism. The ensuing furore has also made the team’s fitness a topic of fevered debate again, which was presumably not the intention, only this time with added criticism of their attitude. “When you react this way towards some people in the media, you’re showing your colours. You’re showing you’re not fair dinkum about being as good as you possibly can be,” the commentator and former player Callum Ferguson said, in the most Australian of all possible reactions.
This England side is not the first to have snubbed a broadcaster that had offended them. Indeed, theirs does not even rank as the most high-profile retaliatory broadcaster-snubbage to take place within the nation of Australia in the last couple of weeks given Novak Djokovic’s refusal to take part in post-match courtside interviews in the period between Tony Jones of Channel 9, the host broadcaster, being rude about Serbians – “I considered it to be banter. I considered it to be humour,” the presenter insisted – and a public apology being issued.
Sir Alex Ferguson refused to speak to anyone from the BBC from 2004 and 2011 because of the unflattering depiction of his son in a documentary most of them had nothing to do with, a boycott that ended only when the corporation’s actual director general travelled to Manchester to grovel to him in person. In 1992, meanwhile, Stephen Hendry refused to appear on Sports Personality of the Year because “the BBC continues to treat snooker and its millions of fans like second-class citizens”, criticising the shortlist for the main award by saying: “What has Frank Bruno won recently, apart from rave reviews in a panto?” In 1951 the Welsh commentator and journalist G V Wynne-Jones was also banned by the Welsh Rugby Union from a key game against Ireland because they took exception to something in a book he’d written (he stood with the fans and filed his report as usual).
But Wales were the holders of the Five Nations, Hendry was the snooker world champion, Ferguson was the greatest British manager of his generation, and Djokovic is a 10-time Australian Open title-winner who had just broken Roger Federer’s record for playing in the most grand slam singles matches. This kind of thing is generally the reserve of the most successful people in their fields, partly because they are the ones with the heft to make broadcasters reconsider their options but also because they know nobody can reasonably react by accusing them of not being “fair dinkum” about being as good as they possibly can be.
In sport if you are not already amazing and successful your focus should probably be on becoming so, instead of on disputes and distractions. For England this was a self-inflicted failure, which at least makes a change from the other kind. It’s a team that tried to bring their inner mongrel but seems not only to have no bite, but no bark either.
