England’s ‘really aggressive’ Ashes treatment and Aussies’ amused response revealed in doco clip
At Edgbaston during last year’s Ashes, England fans didn’t hold back when targeting the team bus. But a clip from a forthcoming documentary shows the Aussies simply laughing it off. WATCH HERE!
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Last year’s Ashes was a sporting challenge for Australia, but also a test of will and temperament in the face of the expected - and delivered - treatment of the Australian players, post-sandpapergate, from England’s notoriously ruthless supporters.
In the end, Australia simply laughed off the worst the English punters had to throw at them, as shown by new footage released on Tuesday.
A new trailer for Amazon’s upcoming documentary The Test shows how England fans targeted the team bus during the first Test at Edgbaston, which Australia won by 251 runs.
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With the Cape Town ball-tampering saga still fresh in the mind, England fans can be heard chanting “cheat, cheat, cheat” as the Australians left the Birmingham ground.
That chant was then followed by a more pointed one at Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft who had all made teary, televised apologies for their involvement in the scandal.
“Crying on the telly, we saw you crying on the telly,” the group of rowdy fans chant.
But the trailer reveals how Australia’s tactic was to embrace the treatment and, at times, even play along with it.
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Players can be seen in the trailer clapping along to chants, while Warner even toots the bus horn and offers a royal wave.
“They’re all grown men,” laughs one player, before a laughing Smith adds: “I know, they’re such children!”
“There’s the booing but the worst thing was when we got on the bus at the end of each day’s play,” coach Justin Langer says. “Just the abuse.
“By the end of it, they decide to laugh in the face of it and that takes immense courage.”
Captain Tim Paine then speaks about the level of hostility Australia faced during the Birmingham series-opener and how his team chose to take it.
“Yeah, that’s just all part of trying to embrace it. We just sort of went with it,” Paine says.
“People were everywhere on the street. That’s just how Edgbaston was. It was a really aggressive place.”
Smith adds: “I think everyone handled it pretty well.
“And it seemed like that the whole way home, there was just people just hurling abuse at the bus.
“It was actually brilliant some of the things we were looking at off the bus. It was good to get some comedy like that on the bus.”
Originally published as England’s ‘really aggressive’ Ashes treatment and Aussies’ amused response revealed in doco clip