Monthly Archives: July 2012
‘Binga’ Says Bye to International Cricket
I still remember the days, not all that long ago, heading to Alan Border Field at Albion to see the Australian One Day International (ODI) cricket team in action when they occasionally played a practise match there before the international series began. On one of those occasions, mini autograph bat in hand, I wandered down to the fence where one of the players was standing at the fence, ready to field.
That player was Brett ‘Binga’ Lee, at that time a relatively new addition to the then extremely dominant Aussie team. Between deliveries Lee would wander to the fence, not a worry in the world and sign the bats, shirts, caps and balls of the thankful young fans of the team and its players.
That’s one of my first memories of a man that despite injuries has had a career better than most who have and will ever don the green and gold colours which today lean more toward the green side.
That stellar career today is over now, another injury closing the book on the international cricketing life of a great player and someone with a real interest in the fans.
Another memory was of that immense pace and aggressive delivery action which early on in his career saw him sending down missiles consistently near or above 150km/hr. Even in his more recent playing years he wasn’t that far off the 150km/hr mark. His speed put him at or near the fastest in the game in the early years of his career and up there with the quickest in the later years despite injury and an ageing body.
Selectors were so keen on the firebrand pace-man that they had wanted him to continue his career until the Twenty20 World Cup due to be held in Sri Lanka in just a few short months. This is testimony to the impact that the aggressive quick bowler has had on the game in Australia, that at 35 a fast bowler is still playing and still able to prove a vital part of the team fabric.
From 76 Test Matches, thanks largely to injury setbacks, Lee took a solid 310 scalps at an average of 30.81. In the ODI arena Brett Lee played a total of 221 matches, taking 380 wickets with an average of just 23.25.
In the test match domain ‘Binga’ bagged 10 five-wicket innings and almost as many (9) on the one day paddock.
For a tail-end batsman too he wasn’t exactly a slouch and was capable of some serious hits and stroke playing that would put some lesser top order players to shame. In tests Lee averaged 20.15, scoring five 50’s and a top score of 64. In ODI’s he managed three 50’s at an average of 17.00 with a best score of 59.
Brett Lee’s enduring success can be partly put down to realising that if he wanted to prolong his career as the fastest of the fast bowlers he would need to alter his delivery action from a high impact slinging action to a more controlled and balanced process, yet of course even with this altered technique injury still took its toll on his body.
Fear not, his final delivery in cricket was likely not the last one that cricket mad Australians saw him bowl over in England on our television screens, Brett Lee still has the intention to play on in the Big Bash League and the Indian Premier League and it would be brave selectors to deny him those opportunities.
Brett Lee will be missed by the Australian cricket team and the cricket watching public for his aggressive, attacking bowling which he tempered down a little to preserve his body and to allow for more control. His departure from the game will be a sad one for many, especially for those of us with such great childhood memories.
This Next Election Who Are You Dissatisfied With the Least?
Politics at the federal level in this country is at a low ebb, no doubt about that. That’s not to say that Australian politics has been or ever will be as popular as MasterChef. But politics under this 43rd parliament and the first minority government since wartime. These woes for politics certainly have a lot to do with broken promises and relentless aggression.
The lack of desire for the leaders of both sides of politics, despite the clear election winning position of the Abbott-led Coalition means, in terms of the Prime Ministership means it will not be the usual “who do you trust”, with trust so clearly lacking in politicians, but “who do you trust the most”.
More interestingly, in terms of party leadership it looks more and more certain every day that the equation will be “who are you dissatisfied with the least?”
Now of course in Australia we don’t elect our Prime Minister directly, the political party that takes government does that for us and as such, it doesn’t particularly matter what the electorate think so much of a leader, they’re almost always from a very safe seat for their own party. But when it’s close in the vote that’s a clearly different story with the leadership position all the more important. Ordinarily it can be expected that the choice of and performance of leader does have an impact of some repute on which party voters choose at the ballot box.
At the next election, it’s basically certain, pretty much lock it in Eddie, that the Coalition will win with Tony Abbott becoming the next Prime Minister of Australia and the Liberal and National Party coalition seizing the government benches.
In terms of voter dissatisfaction with the leaders, Newspoll has seen the Prime Minister languishing at levels of unhappiness with her performance in the Labor leadership at around 60% or thereabouts for many months.
The news regarding this same measure for Tony Abbott, despite being very competitive, even ahead at times in the preferred Prime Minister stakes is not a whole lot better with dissatisfaction in his performance as leader of the Coalition at levels consistently in the mid to high 50s on percentage terms.
Consistent Nielsen poll results show very high levels (over 50%) of voter dissatisfaction with the performance of both leaders. The last four Nielsen poll results show Prime Minister Gillard not having moved from a level of dissatisfaction in her performance of 59-60%. Again, that’s more than half saying they are not happy with the way things have gone.
Again in the Nielsen poll results over the same period Tony Abbott enjoys (though that’s quite the oxymoron because the results are still extremely poor) a lower level of unhappiness with his performance than that which the Prime Minister has experienced. For those same four Nielsen polls, Mr Abbott has seen a dissatisfaction level which has moved between the low 50s to the mid-to-high 50s, that’s again over 50% who aren’t too pleased with his performance as leader of the Opposition.
We are likely to see these trends continue until the next election with voters not particularly liking either leader in terms of their performance. But after all, in our two party system we ultimately pick between two political parties and at the next election, the voter disdain at the performance of the Opposition Leader will not count for much when such a large swing is on the cards. All in all it will surely be a case of who do you despise the least.
The ALP Might Think the G20 Has an Electoral Benefit, But Tell ’em They’re Dreaming
Prime Minister Julia Gillard formally announced today in Queensland that Brisbane had won the right to host the G20 summit in the year 2014. This was greeted with much appreciation and even gloating from Queensland politicians at different levels of government. Brisbane beat all other cities that put in a submission to be able to host this potentially very lucrative meeting of the world’s 19 biggest nations and the European Union. The event will have some definite positives for the Queensland economy when it is held in November 2014.
Brisbane won the event over the much bigger cities of Sydney and Melbourne, with politicians from both states and including Melbourne mayor Robert Doyle sticking the boot into the Gillard Government over the awarding to Brisbane of the summit.
Both states think that their cities have better facilities and they certainly do, with sizeable airports and convention centre facilities, not to mention terrific accommodation available.
That’s not to say that Brisbane doesn’t, it certainly does and the city has been working hard to develop world class facilities and attempting to grow a reputation worldwide as a true “world city”. The Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre facilities are not to be sneezed at and are well and truly capable of hosting such a large and important meeting of world leaders.
Politicians from both NSW and Victoria and many in the media immediately upon hearing of Brisbane being made the host of the G20 immediately put the announcement down to politics. The ALP Government are finished in Queensland in particular and will be, on recent poll results, all but wiped out if an election were held in the near future.
So, of course it follows that speculation would immediately turn to the move by federal Labor being a so-called “vote-buying” initiative before the next federal election due to be held some time around mid-to late 2013.
But is it really reasonable to assume that Brisbane playing host to world leaders for the summit in 2014 would actually win votes? The answer is almost certainly not.
The event will likely have economic benefits for the economy of the city of Brisbane, bringing in what is estimated to be $50 million for the local economy over the course of the visit by international delegations. Though at the same time, much of the city would probably be in lockdown for such high-level visits so benefits, particularly to retail might not be so high.
On the other hand, hotels will be rubbing their collective hands together with glee at today’s announcement, particularly with tourism, a usually strong performer in the state of Queensland having been hit so bad because of the floods and the Global Financial Crisis
Brisbane having world leaders, including the US President visiting will also possibly have some impact on the broader tourism market, spurring confidence that things in Queensland have returned to a more stable position, but this is less certain and probably of much less benefit than many have been quick to assume today.
The potential too for world leaders discussing possible future business investment in and trade with the Queensland and Australian economy is a very important long-term prospect.
But all this will count for very little when it comes to the ballot box. International meetings of world leaders, though great in their own special way have never actually stayed with the thoughts of voters as potential election winners, or at the very least as the ALP was probably hoping against all hope, vote buyers of some face-saving repute.
There will never be a time when the exit polls say that a summit was any kind of factor in the electoral success of a political party.
Where To Next For a Cricket Team on a Inconsistent Streak and Low Ebb?
Overnight the Australian cricket team again went down to the English cricket team in the final match of the best of five one day series over in England where one match was a wash-out. The Australians, in suffering this defeat after a rain shortened match have now experienced their worst ever head-to-head one day series defeat, a terrible statistic for a country that could once put down the English cricket side with ease, be it in one day internationals (ODI) or test match cricket.
Australia lost this series to the England side while sitting at the top of the ODI world rankings with the team we fell to so comprehensively being placed fourth on the list of one day cricketing nations.
Australia did, as far as scores go and balls remaining go close in every single match of the four that were played.
We lost the first match by 15 runs after a full 50 overs after England scored what is these days a quite strong 272 with Australia batting out the full 50 overs in reply only to end up on 257 for the loss 0f 9 wickets.
In the 2nd match Australia scored a decent 251 runs off 50 overs, but England eclipsed that with 26 balls to spare.
The third match was abandoned without any play.
In the fourth Australia started very poorly but managed to reach a total of 200 in the end, giving Australia’s quite strong bowling line-up a decent target to bowl at after what could have easily been a much more devastating collapse of our batting line-up. Again we went close, with England only managing to reach the target of 201 with 13 balls in hand, a surprisingly close match given the poor target.
Then last night, in the final match of the ODI series, in a rain delayed match, Australia scored in 32 overs a reasonably respectable score of 145, reduced to 138 under the Duckworth-Lewis system. With 29 overs of batting because of rain, England reached the 138 run target with 11 balls to spare.
So Australia was close yes, it wasn’t exactly a comprehensive series whitewash in that respect, the team did manage to exert some form of control and did s0 with at times decent batting and reasonably solid bowling displays which just did not result in wickets.
The point is that we were very inconsistent and to lose every match, regardless of how close the team got should have never happened to a team that sees itself at the top of the world rankings and wants to continue to cement that place of dominance atop the world of cricket.
Australia in losing the series were overall too inconsistent with the bat, with the top order performing quite ordinarily and leaving it to the lower order for the most part to at least attempt to post a respectable total.
The Aussies also, over the entire four matches that were played, regardless of how close were were able to get through reasonably economic bowling, only managed to take 14 wickets over the series, that’s an average of just 3.5 wickets per match.
All this is not at all to reflect badly on the northern hemisphere side, they capitalised on the poor and inconsistent form of the Australian team managing to take advantage of our poor batting efforts in particular and break through for wickets and they also made the runs, even if it wasn’t through particularly vibrant and widespread shot-making. They at the least ground out each win.
So Australia will now need to sit down together as a team with management and discuss just what went wrong and how this can be remedied so that we can manage to stay ahead of the pack who are now biting at our heels hungry and well within reach of taking us off the mantle. A team review of the series has already been foreshadowed.
The positive purpose of a tour like the one just passed is that it allows us to identify deficiencies before the major Ashes series which ranks so high above just about any other form of the game outside of the World Cup for one day cricket. We certainly identified those deficiencies.
Firstly, we need to get back to batting basics. Our core batting line-up did not contribute the sorts of runs they have been well and truly capable of in the past.
We cannot say as a nation that we have a dearth of batting talent and that our domestic competition in all forms of the game is second rate, it is not. At times you could say we have too much talent and that makes selecting the best person for each position and then identifying a shadow player or two for each all the more difficult.
What our batsmen need to do is to get back into the nets before the summer and to work on the basic techniques in order to be able to withstand the strongest of bowling lineups that other cricketing nations can hurl at us.
Our batsmen above all else could learn to be more consistent with our top order all more than capable, some world-beating, some in the early stages of an international career, but all who have shown an ability to play with flair and aggression which was badly missed in England.
Our bowlers, while they did quite well, restricting England to a highest score during the series of 272 need to do more than be economical, particularly when our batters fail as they did during the four matches, though they cannot be consistently called upon to save a poor batting effort. Taking under 4 wickets a match is well below sub-par and cannot be tolerated. Some time in the nets bowling at wickets might be just the medicine needed for some of our bowlers who need to be more aggressive than at present.
The team perhaps also in light of the injuries received to our bowlers may need to look at a rotation system where we rely, particularly in the one day matches, on one or two key wicket-taking bowlers and then rotate the rest throughout matches. We can then let the others focus on longer game match fitness in our domestic competition so that they are test match ready.
It should disturb the cricketing fraternity greatly that we didn’t win a single match against the English and a period of looking inwardly at our game plan, players and structure of the team and the management of that time are all a vital part of a mix needed to ensure that we again find ourselves consistent enough to win matches and series’.
Reverse Colombo Plan a Positive Thought That Needs to Become Reality
A good and diverse education is probably the most important part of the life of any child or young adult growing up in any nation around the world. So it goes that the Colombo Plan introduced by Sir Robert Menzies while in government, with a main goal being to foster the education of people from developing nations in our region was a good idea with a strong world view a major outcome for students involved.
Further, so it goes too that the idea of a reverse Colombo Plan as proposed by the Abbott-led Opposition is a smart adaptation of the current iteration, the Australia Awards, which will give more Australian based students the opportunity to study in an Asian nation, better preparing those chosen for the already proclaimed ‘Asian Century‘.
The Colombo Plan as far as it went for Australia as with the current Australia Awards grants students from Asian nations scholarships to attend university here in Australia and it had been undertaken by some now very well established business and political leaders in our region.
Not only was the original Colombo Plan responsible for educating some of the talented people in leadership positions around Asia but it was and is also a very smart diplomatic move that was in a big way a part of Australia beginning to open itself up to the non-European world which really first started to occur under Menzies and successive Liberal and Labor Prime Ministers and has continued to evolve ever since.
A strong worldview is very important in the development of the minds of students who as a result become well-equipped to deal with and be aware of their region and the world around them.
The Colombo Plan and its latest version too has and will allow young adults to get a better education than they may well have been able to have had they remained in their country of birth for tertiary studies.
The plan to send Australian students on scholarship to Asian universities will have much the same effect on our students that the Coalition plans to give the opportunity to travel overseas for their education.
It will allow Australian students a first-hand experience at cultures they may have been exposed to here in Australia but may not have immersed themselves in or learnt so much about the particular range and diversity of cultures and beliefs that exist in our regional vicinity.
The knock-on economic benefits of a Colombo style plan, whether it be the existing setup or a future reverse iteration would also surely be a not insignificant positive because of students plunging money into universities here and abroad through purchases made on campus that aren’t part of scholarship funds.
Not only that but the positives for the broader economy of respective nations having extra people coming in and spending money not just on education but on leisure and tourist activities are also a worthy part of the equation.
There is an argument that has been doing the rounds, courtesy of former Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, that the reverse Colombo Plan would be responsible for less overseas students being funded to come to Australia and this is in some respects true. If funding levels remained the same on our behalf and there was no funding agreed to by Asian nations as part of the plan, of course the result goes without saying.
However, there is no particular reason why funding could not be negotiated between nations involved in the Colombo Plan so that Australian students could benefit from an overseas education in Asia. It doesn’t have to result in the same or similar numbers of Australian students being given scholarships to be educated in Asian universities as those from Asian nations educated here, though that would be the optimal outcome.
The extra funding too could be found by engaging with businesses from Australia and the Asian region and seeking funding from them to allow for more scholarships for Australian students to study in this corner of the globe and this has been highlighted as an avenue of investigation by the Coalition. It seems reasonable to assume that businesses would certainly be amenable to the move, especially if it meant access to a broader range of talent.
Continuing and expanding this program to include a bigger outward flow of students is a positive idea from the Coalition and one that deserves more thought and planning so that it is actually realised under a future government and is an idea that would benefit from an earlier implementation if they felt like they were struggling for a good idea.
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