England’s summer of discontent has Aussies in its sights
It’s England’s summer of discontent: the crowds are febrile at the cricket, annoying at the tennis, and threatening danger at the motor racing.
It’s England’s summer of discontent: the crowds are febrile at the cricket, annoying at the tennis, and threatening danger at the motor racing.
Daria Saville was so startled by a Just Stop Oil protester running on to her Wimbledon court – picked because it had a bank of television cameras from the broadcast centre nearby – that as the jigsaw puzzle pieces and orange strips of paper went flying, the match turned against her.
Then four of the usually genteel, well-heeled Wimbledon crowd started making farting noises whenever she was wiping sweat from her racket.
Saville is a sufferer of ADHD, and that underhand tactic caused her to lose nine straight points and the match.
Afterwards, she was dumbfounded at the bizarre succession of events, remarking that while she won’t want to remember how she played, she won’t forget what went on.
The bowel noises have hallmarks of the uncouth behaviour of three Establishment figures in the Long Room at Lord’s at the second test on Sunday. The boozy and angry abuse directed at the Australian players as they filed by to get to the dressing room prompted batsman Usman Khawaja to stop and call the members out.
While England supporters say the stumping of Jonny Bairstow was just not cricket, Australians are incensed that the English reaction has been over the top.
With the third Test being played at the small-sized Headingley – Bairstow’s home ground – the crowd is intimidatingly close.
Australia doesn’t have a bank of goodwill to draw upon, with the reputation of the cricketers still affected by sandpaper-gate. When he came out to bat in the first test at Edgbaston, Steve Smith was roundly booed for his role in the 2018 ball tampering scandal.
Sociologists will have a field day about what is going on, but Britain is in upheaval.
Post-Brexit, post-Covid, with a war on the border of neighbouring Europe, these are particularly tough times after a brutal winter of unaffordable energy costs.
Has frustration about the way a sporting result is heading added a much sharper edge to what would normally be clever chanting at the cricket and polite clapping for a good shot at the tennis?
From a British perspective, they may say they are having a bit of fun, and a few loose chinless wonders are spoiling it for the rest.
All the while at the other end of the political spectrum, left-wing eco zealots have created a battle between security official pat downs and minute checks of backpacks with the sneakiest way to smuggle in orange paper to cause disruption.
The tables of the World Snooker Championship, the rugby at Twickenham and the cricket at Lord’s have all been targeted. Officials are fearing what could happen at the Silverstone F1 race this weekend after last year’s edition saw five protesters risk their lives by sitting down on the Wellington Straight.
In Britain, the right to protest is fiercely defended even if people might vehemently disagree with the message.
And at the moment, Australia is as much a target for this fury as are environmental causes.
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