England’s ‘Spirit of Cricket’ claims new victim in Tom Curran farce

England’s months of slamming us with the Spirit of Cricket debate has reached a new low with a fresh victim being claimed.

COMMENT

Remember when the Poms’ skewed interpretation of the Spirit of Cricket as an innocent joke that hurt nobody except Johnny Bairstow’s notifications?

When all it involved was standing firm after crushing one to first slip or harassing the umpire into getting a new ball that boomeranged, all while bathing in your own oblivious hypocrisy?

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Yes, it seemed the English couldn’t mutate their moral code any further after this year’s Ashes, but that was before Tom Curran began warming-up in Launceston.

For those who missed it, the Sixers import was cited this week for bizarrely threatening to steam through an umpire like FuiFui MoiMoi spotting-up a 45kg halfback.

Occurring in the warm-up for the Sydney franchise’s match against the Hobart Hurricanes, tensions had flared between Curran and umpire Muhammad Qureshi after the bowler was instructed to stay off the wicket while practising his run-up.

Despite everyone knowing the pitch is as sacrosanct as the Urn or Ricky Ponting’s hairpiece, the incensed Englishman was having none of it, and continued to hurtle towards the umpire as he stood in his path before buckshotting around him with a sidestep at the last millisecond.

Tom Curran asking if the umpire knows the Spirit of Cricket code.

It was a breathtaking moment that had to be seen to believed … until we remembered where Curran hailed from.

When it comes to cricket chicanery, England’s track record is much like their own righteousness, they bend both so radically they must be lathered in Murray’s Mints.

That’s why in the warped world of an English cricketer, Curran probably justified himself to bullrush an umpire after giving him a gobful because nothing’s as sacred as.. *checks notes* ..marking a run-up?

The incident has since plunged the cricketing public in to a serious lather, not just in opposition to the obscenity itself, but also at what tenuous Australian crime The Barmy Army would cite to condone it.

However, it’s not just the sanctity of the umpire or the pitch or cricket’s soul that has been claimed by English hubris in this whole Curran malarkey.

His atrocious actions have also sucked in one of our own.

Jonny probably pondering why Curran was banned. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)

By appealing Curran’s four match ban, the Sydney Sixers themselves have fallen victim to the cultish brainwashing of the Poms’ bastardised moral charter.

In a week where Usman Khawaja was fined for his multiple attempts to support humankind, Curran’s four match ban was a slam-dunk decision met with emphatic public approval, with only a meagre few disagreeing with the sentence but only because it wasn’t long enough.

As such, Curran’s penalty presented the Sixers with an opportunity for some walk-up PR and not just the guaranteed adulation of stickin’ it up another dodgy Pom.

All the franchise had to do was cop the ban, file it away under “some things are more important than winning” and kick back and enjoy the moral uplift, but have instead chosen to fight the ban on the grounds that belting umpires is “not his go.”

By fighting the penalty, the Sixers have soiled the sanctity of the magenta flat-brim and endeared themselves to nobody except those in The Long Room twisted in a moral pretzel.

At a time when the game needs umpires as much as England needs a wake-up call, standing firm on respect for the officials was a no-brainer, even if it violates the Poms’ constitutional right to doing whatever the hell they want.

– Dane Eldridge is a warped cynic yearning for the glory days of rugby league, a time when the sponges were magic and the Mondays were mad. He’s never strapped on a boot in his life, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt.