Ashes gossip: Her Majesty’s squad accused of giving Aussie officials the cold shoulder
The Ashes have a long history. The series is dubbed as one of the most awaited series in cricket. The build-up to the series was marked with banter between the teams about each other almost a month before the scheduled start. After the usual hurling of insults,
the Ashes preparation got underway, which includes both sides literally threatening to crush each other.
The English and Australian media keep their eyes and ears open and sometimes even their noses to smell anything “fishy”, which might help one side gain a psychological advantage over the other.
Recently, Australia has been in a wobbly position as the media is bashing them left, right and centre. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 has been performing poorly for the past few months and their players are struggling with injuries. The selectors have been in a row as to announce
a proper squad for the first Test.
Then the selectors chose to trim the insanely large squad from 17 to a 13 players. Now, with just two days to go, the selectors are still juggling with their options. In a nutshell, the Kangaroos have been getting negative hype for some time now.
However, the Aussie media found it hard to swallow as the Poms were not getting any bad press.
Ian Healy, the former Australian wicketkeeper, who was hosting a very posh lunch in Brisbane, Tuesday afternoon. The http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Queensland-c834 Cricket Association was sponsoring the lunch, which Healy was hosting. The lunch was being hosted in honour of the English team,
in which a number of Australian officials took part.
However, the quiet afternoon took a tense turn when Healy started encouraging the audience of a few hundred to “boo” the English players as they failed to attend the lunch.
England’s no-show made Healy angry and he chose to vent his displeasure when he told the stunned guests at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre that the English decided not to attend the function as it is not “big enough” for them.
The dumbfounded guests included six members of the Aussies squad including Captain Ricky Ponting and officials of the squad’s management team.
Healy taunted the visiting side saying that the reason they didn’t attend the function was because the Australians also don’t “show up in functions of this nature in England”. He said that the English players should have “showed up in the function which
is being held in Australia”.
However, the English Cricket Board (ECB) were quick to defend their position, insisting that they “did not receive any invitation” to attend the lunch. The spokesperson also pointed out the understanding between Cricket Australia and the ECB which requires
the touring team to attend only two functions, which can be “prioritized” according to them.
The English players would be meeting the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gilard later in their tour as part of a diplomatic move and they would also be attending the official sponsor of The Ashes, Vodafone’s marketing extravaganza.
It seems that all Healy wanted to do was show some patriotism before The Ashes but he came off as a bit cheeky. Or maybe it was a conspiracy to bash the Poms.
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