The Observer - 04.08.2019

Section:OBS 2N PaGe:39 Edition Date:190804 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 3/8/2019 17:21 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

Cherish those occasions

when tribal division

yields to collective joy

At the Ashes, the chauvinism that

bedevils so much of our public life

is conquered by the sheer love of the

game and a communal spirit

Steve Smith

celebrates his

century on

Thursday. He

was at fi rst

booed and

then almost

immediately

applauded.

Photograph by

Graham Hunt/

ProSports

Meghan seems to mix

with all the ‘wrong’

people. So unlike the

other royals

Catherine Bennett

Page 43

Tim

Adams

39

You don’t often hear booing in a

cricket ground. But a wall of jeers greeted the Australian

pantomime villain David Warner as he walked out

to the crease in the fi rst Ashes Test at Edgbaston on

Thursday. The reception for the opening batsman was

even louder as he walked back to the pavilion a few

short minutes later, the fi rst of England bowler Stuart

Broad’s fi ve wickets.

Warner, Aussie sporting belligerence personifi ed,

was never the most popular cricketer among rival

nation s’ supporters but, having masterminded last

year’s “sandpapergate” ball-tampering scandal that saw

him and teammates Cameron Bancroft and Steve Smith

banned from the game in disgrace for 12 months, his

reputation is lower than ever.

England’s Barmy Army in the banked seats in the

Hollies Stand in Birmingham had composed a few songs

in Warner’s honour, although he was hardly batting long

enough for them to get to the end of this one, sung to

the tune of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall:

He still needs some education,

He still needs some self-control,

No gold sandpaper in his pocket

Warner, leave those balls alone

Hey! Warner! leave those balls alone

All in all he’s just another cheat like them all...”

The fact is, though, however much damage

Warner and his partners in crime did to Australian

sportsmanship and the image of the international

game, cricket supporters can’t stay outraged all day. The

afternoon is long, the contest routinely enthralling and

there is just too much to enjoy.

They hardly raised a murmur against Bancroft,

the young man who had actually administered the

sandpaper, and Smith, the former Australian captain,

then provided the 25,000 in the ground with an object

lesson in one of the great spectator-sport dilemmas:

how should you respond to a display of greatness from a

supposedly hated member of the opposition?

The stages of Smith’s 144 runs were like a fast-

forward primer in theories of the tribal language of

crowds. Smith’s fi rst 50 runs were greeted with solid

animosity from the home crowd; his vivid century was

fi rst booed and then almost immediately applauded,

often by the same people. Detractors had wavered and

then become converts. By the time the Australian’s

innings closed, as the evening sun was on the ground,

most of the English crowd were quite happy to give him

the rich ovation his brilliance and fortitude deserved.

The drama seemed to offer several little parables.

One was that humour is always a more telling weapon

tha n vitriol. (When Smith was on the verge of his 100,

the resident trumpet player in the England crowd

broke into Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina, a reference

to the player’s tearful admission of sandpaper guilt.)

Another was the fact that, contrary to prevalent popular

belief in this country, proper intensity, either sporting

or political, does not have to fi nd its expression in

aggression.

The Barmy Army, England’s itinerant cricket ultras

(the phrase itself is an oxymoron), never for a moment

forget that they are watching a game; they may give the

opposition plenty of stick but they don’t see them as a

faceless enemy.

The Hollies has a reputation as one of the most

voluble stands in the world, particularly as the shadows

lengthen and the beer fl ows, but no rival supporter

would ever feel physically intimidated in that company.

In fact, many Australian fans in their canary yellow

shirts had made the trip especially to be among the

England supporters and give a bit back. “What attracted

me to it,” one explained, “was that when the English give

us shit, they do it in a melodious way, they have great

voices, and I wanted to be part of that.”

That spirit off the fi eld in the

world’s most venerable sporting rivalry is, despite all the
changes to the game and the money now involved in it,
still mostly matched by the spirit on it. David Gower , a
peerless stylist both as batsman and commentator, and
now in his fi nal series for Sky, described Smith’s innings
well. “Ah, the Ashes, the Ashes: there is such a history.
Give nothing on the fi eld, but make mates off the fi eld,”
he said.
He went on to describe how, at Lord’s or Sydney, the
England and Australian players had always found time
for a beer and a chat in the winners’ dressing room after
a match, notwithstanding the fact that Dennis Lillee
and Glenn McGrath and the rest had been essaying
decapitation of their opponents for most of the day.
At a time when we are increasingly invited to equate
the idea of tribal loyalty or patriotism with the kind of
segregated chauvinism that still characterises football
grounds on match day, it is worth remembering that
other forms of collective spirit are still available. This
truncated Ashes summer – fi ve Test matches in six
weeks – will likely offer plenty of evidence to support the
idea that despite wearing different colours and giving
no quarter, the teams have much more in common than
that which divides them (and that, contrary to the prime
minister’s belief, there are no do-or-die moments when
you are among friends).
One of the fi nest cricketing examples of that principle
involves Eric Hollies, after whom the Edgbaston stand
is named. The former England spinner’s most indelible
deed in the game was to bowl out Sir Donald Bradman
in his fi nal Test match innings for nought. Bradman,
who only required four runs that day in 1948 to fi nish
his career with an unprecedented average of 100, was
applauded on to the fi eld and given a rousing three
cheers by the entire England team. The England captain,
Norman Yardley, tossed the ball to Hollies, with the
words: “That is all we give him – now bowl him out.”
Hollies obliged, dispatching the Australian hero to an
eternal average of 99.94 and another standing ovation.
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