Ashes 2019: Goodes, Smith, Bancroft, Warner and the ugly echoes of England’s boos

The relentless booing of Australia’s cricketers is not as vicious as that aimed at Adam Goodes.

The booing of Australia’s cricketers has disturbing echoes of the treatment dished out to Adam Goodes.

After the Test at Edgbaston, Steve Smith and David Warner shared a car to London. They probably shared an earworm, too: same old Aussies, always cheating. It was impossible not to have it stuck in your head after five days of that Test.

Feral England fans greeted the players as they got off the bus to the ground, sang its door chime melody at regular intervals during the match and even gathered in the Hollies Stand to sing it as Smith was going through his man-of-the-match protocols on field after play. Then sang it again as they got back on the bus.

The Australians didn’t seem to mind. They collectively greeted the abuse with a grin, a nod, even a wave as they got on the bus. They must have felt like The anti-Beatles. They’d talked about this stuff before the series and knew it was coming. They had their “plans”.

When Tim Paine dismissed Birmingham as not in his 15 most intimidating venues before the match some in the local media took it the wrong way. The local rag referred to it as his “incendiary” attack, presumably because they are proud of their reputation.

Post-match Paine laughed about it, saying the comment was his way of deflecting, admitting it was a bluff. Nobody seemed to realise Paine would have been lucky to play at 15 venues in his short Test career.

The whole song thing mostly has a sense of pantomime villain; it’s all play-acting and so excessive it can be dismissed as humour most of the time.

Stuart Broad was labelled a cheat with considerably less reason, but hopefully some humour, by Australians in the 2013-14 series.

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SAME OLD AUSSIE, ALWAYS CHEATING!#Ashes #ashes2019 #BarmyArmy pic.twitter.com/5agW5257XP

— Paul Shelbourne (@PossiePaul) August 2, 2019

The booing, however, was of a different category. It was expected, it was incessant and ­although it eventually dissipated — primarily because fans did not have the stamina to keep up with Steve Smith who was at the crease for 11 hours and six minutes — it was uncomfortable at times.

There was no doubt it was going to happen but there was some disappointment to hear it as he raised his bat to celebrate his centuries and especially when he walked from the field with 144 in the first innings.

It would have been classy to acknowledge the achievement and many did when he repeated the feat in the second.

There’s something disturbing about relentless booing. It has an ugly echo. It’s hard to forget the darkness of that sad time in the AFL and feel some sickness in the heart when you hear it again.

There can be comedy in berating the opposition and the Barmy Army have a chance to deliver a similar punch line. Watch this space, but some things won’t be corrected by ­humour.

There is an ugly edge to some of the behaviour.

The abuse of David Warner’s wife, Candice, is a disgrace, but not a surprise. It was happening in South Africa, too. You wonder what sort of people would abuse a player’s wife, especially one who had just given birth to their third child. Smith’s wife, Dani, was at the ground and did not enjoy the treatment her husband received.

England fans with masks that show Steve Smith crying during his press conference last year after the ball-tampering scandal. Picture: Getty Images

The personal stuff did not have an effect on Smith and Warner, who handled it well. It was a different story in England in 2009 when the crowds abused Mitchell Johnson about his wife and ­mother. His form was down and the chanting began to haunt him. People even did it to his face when he was walking with Jess at night. They were lucky he had some self-control. He is a very strong man and she is an elite martial artist.

Johnson was in a terrible mental state by the Lord’s match. Haunted by family tensions and the crowd, he lost his line and his confidence. Bowlers have nowhere to hide. An out-of-form batsman’s misery is endured in the dressing rooms.

It should be quieter at Lord’s this week. Some of the crowd at the famously proper home of cricket will boo. They booed Ricky Ponting at the end of his ­career but hopefully not as much.

There has been some outrage in Australia over the treatment of Smith but there should be cause for further reflection, too.

Football star Adam Goodes was booed from the game. He told fans he considered it racist but they continued and there was little doubt that the noise from the jeer squad in the media and in the stands was directed at the dual Brownlow medallist because he had the temerity to speak out on his people and their place in this country. He was conciliatory and sensible in what he said, but it inflamed the indignant, privileged majority. He didn’t know his place.

“It (the football field) actually became a place I hated to walk out on to,” Goodes says in the documentary The Australian Dream.

The attack on Goodes was of a scale and nature that makes it ­incomparable to what is happening to the Smith, Warner and even Cameron Bancroft. It is not about race or knowing your place at the back of the bus. It isn’t being ­rejected by your own countrymen for daring to think you could have a voice.

The trio cannot complain and haven’t. Smith crushed them with runs, Warner deflected with ­humour, emptying his pockets when they asked what was in them and singing along with some of the songs.

They can cope.

You would hope, however, that none of those objecting to their treatment were part of the packs who booed Goodes or excused those that did.

That would be cheating.