Is this the worst thing that’s happened in cricket? Praise the Lord, and pass the sandpaper

Let’s talk about “Clicky Ponting”. You know the one. He’s the amateur cricketer from Saltburn Cricket Club in North Yorkshire, England, who was caught last week clicking his fingers as the ball passed the willow to fool the umpire into giving the batsman out.

Yes, I’d never thought of that practice either. But “click” and “snick” do sound remarkably similar, when you think about it. And maybe it occasionally works in fooling the ears of 75-year-old umpires.

In response, the world of the cricketer in question, Brian Devine, imploded, as social media melted down; he was all but burnt at the stake, and Piers Morgan – a former News of the World editor, who defended phone hacking on the grounds that it was “an investigative practice that everyone knows was going on at almost every paper in Fleet Street for years” – nearly burst a boiler saying “Clicky” was no less than “the biggest cheat in cricket history.”

Yes mate, phone hacking is “an investigative practice”, but this is the worst thing that’s happened in cricket?

The Sun itself was anguished, thundering, “We Abhor Cheats.”

In Australia, the reaction has not been quite as savage, but a couple of great cricket men of my circle were ropeable. Really? All this for a village cricketer who did what he shouldn’t have oughta?

It took Australia’s own mob, satirical podcasters from The Grade Cricketer – who glory in having “celebrated and benefited from the low-rent charm of club cricket’s rich, dark underbelly, alongside hundreds of thousands of people around the world” – to restore some sense of perspective.

“Of course, it would appear some members at Saltburn CC have engaged in comically sharp practice,” they said in a statement offering their help to “Clicky” to get legal representation and Saltburn financial assistance to replace lost sponsorship.

“But sadly, when f—wits like Piers Morgan declare to millions that ‘Clicky Ponting must be the biggest cheat in cricket history’, all proportionality is lost, and we feel a brotherly obligation to support the club in that context.”

Exactly.

Look, unlike the unfortunate batsmen sent to the far pavilions whence they came, “Clicky” was genuinely caught out, and yes, of course he had to be punished. At last call, he’s been suspended. You kids at home, please don’t try this, as it is not in the spirit of the game.

But, geez, Louise! The Grade Cricketer is right – a sense of proportion, please!

Isn’t it more in the field of “extreme gamesmanship” than actual – praise the Lord, and pass the sandpaper – call-the-cops cheating?

You know, extreme gamesmanship. Isn’t that what we Australians have specialised in?

Like sledging, or “mental disintegration” if you will. Like bowling the ball underarm. Like bowlers putting Brylcreem on one side of the ball to make it swing more. Like batters refusing to walk even when they know they’re out because, you know, if they can fool the umpire into making the wrong decision, that’s cricket. “Clicky Ponting” did wrong, but if Sandpapergate was 95/100 on the Richter scale of cheating, Clicky was a 10/100.

New year, same old story

Uncanny. See what you think of this as an opener for a column on the Adam Doueihi saga, in which the Tiger, Tiger burning bright hid his bushel under a candle last week and decline to play after a blue with his coach. Here I go:

Well, THAT was #awkward …

See, if you’re Tigers coach Benji Marshall and hang your hat on the claim that the “best thing for the team” is to drop one of the two best players you’ve got – and proceed to get nearly 40 points scored against you by the lowest-ranked team in the comp, you’ve got a case to answer.

Yes, you have, Benji.

So, for the hell of it, let me make the case. I say that in terms of fluster-clucks, there was the Hindenburg, there was Chernobyl and … there was the Tigers’ management of this whole sad affair over the past 10 days.

Oh, do calm down.

The defenders of Benji – many of whom I know to be good people, and this is nothing personal – have a fairly standard narrative for the whole Doueihi saga, and you can see it replicated on social media, tens of thousands of times over, albeit with vicious epithets about Doueihi added.

My point?

All of the above was written last year as my opener for a rant on the Lachie Galvin saga, which also happened mid-season. I just changed “Galvin” to “Doueihi”, and Robert was my father’s brother.

Get it? Exactly the same. Different year. All the plans, all the carry on, all the promises have come to precisely nothing. It’s just that now they’re worse. This time last year, give or take, the Tigers’ four best players were Doueihi, Galvin, Jarome Luai and Api Koroisau. Of them, Koroisau will likely be the last man standing next season.

It’s a disaster. Just as I said it would be. For this is how I finished my column last year:

Where to from here? It’ll go like this:

Galvin will be released because they have little choice to avoid debilitating litigation.

The Tigers will collapse, and it will be another season shot.

More and more people will come to the conclusion that Marshall is like just about every other great football player – the magic of their playing days is non-transferable to their coaching.

At this point, Tigers management will be left contemplating their own insanity in putting the previously untested Marshall on a five-year contract when they had to pay out their last two coaches before their contractual terms were completed.

And then, in the smoking ruins of a Tigers team heading for another wooden spoon in the cutlery drawer, we can all see if Luai’s “team first” mantra still holds, or he will activate the get-out clause in his contract, and indeed get out.

I would.

He did.

Same shit. Different year.

County Mayo break 75-year curse

Ain’t sport grand? And it is never grander than when it is tribal.

Two teams of hugely skilled players going at it, for all the bikkies? But two tribes going at it for the bikkies, with both tribes watching, and the rest of the nation besides – that is great. And all the more so when one of those teams hasn’t won in the last – dot three, carry one, subtract two – 75 years!

A case in point this week was when County Mayo took on Kerry in the grand final of the All Ireland Gaelic football championship.

Therein lay a wonderful story …

See, the last time Mayo won was in 1951 and, so the story goes, as they were heading home after the match, they happened to pass a funeral in Foxford without paying their respects, causing the carpet-biting mad priest to unleash a curse: “For as long as you all live, Mayo won’t win another all-Ireland.”

And he wasn’t joking.

A decade ago, they still hadn’t won, so the team’s last surviving member, Paddy Prendergast, told friends he’d be happy to “roll over and die” to break the curse if he thought there was truth to it. But he didn’t.

“There was supposed to have been a funeral in the local church; I don’t know whether there was or not. I saw people standing around the church, but we didn’t get off the truck because we couldn’t get off the bloody truck,” he told an interviewer in 2017.

Maybe though, they could win in 2021, when they made the grand final – to prove it a myth?

Not a bit of it. They got dusted, and Prendergast died two weeks later.

Last weekend, though? Last weekend, they had again made the final, and all of Ireland was watching the All-Ireland to see if the curse from this turbulent priest could finally be laid to rest.

This time, they won! And the footage is fabulous.

My guess is they watched out for funerals on the way home.

Quotes of the week

Lachlan Kennedy, on taking silver at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, with the stunning time: “9.85 is crazy. Like, that’s nuts. I don’t plan on slowing down … I’m happy to be able to say I’ve run that, got that Australian record finally. It was about time.”

Kennedy again after finishing behind Cameroon’s Emmanuel Eseme: “I thought I won. Old mate must have come flying through on the inside … But I mean, man, I can’t complain. I saw second place and thought, ‘Damn!’ Then I saw the time and was like, ‘Oh! Let’s go!’”

English swimmer Adam Ramsay-Peaty after his 100m breaststroke bronze in Glasgow: “I’m crying … I’m like: ‘What’s the point of all the 5.30am starts? What’s the point of being exhausted all the time? What’s the point of having to say no to family events because you’re training?’”

The Irish Times on the result of the All-Ireland Gaelic football final: “Mayo 1-20, Kerry 1-17. Chisel it on the gravestones, scribble it in the sky. Croke Park untethered, the whole place afloat for an hour on a lake of the sweetest tears that were ever cried.”

Ryan Fox on winning the British Open: “I have a big line-up of mates who are keen to drink something out of the Claret Jug. Dad is keen to do the same, a rugby tradition is drinking out of trophies. I may only get one chance with it so it feels like I should show it off and take it around. I want to enjoy this as much as possible. I think my life is going to be a bit different in New Zealand now but that is all part of this.”

Oscar Piastri dealing with backmarker Carlos Sainz in the Hungarian Grand Prix: “Is he f—ing stupid or what? Get out of the f—ing way, you idiot! Oh my god. Oh mate, just don’t f—ing talk to me now.”

Former NRL player Luke Bateman on gambling away all his money: “I was in so much debt … I was earning $400,000 a year, and I couldn’t afford a lollipop.”

New Germany football manager Jurgen Klopp reading the media the riot act in his first press conference: “If you behave badly and don’t leave my family in peace then I’ll be gone, I’ll just turn away.” Jurgen Klopp will be done here, do you hear?

Senator David Pocock, in a senate hearing on the PNG Chiefs: “The Australian people are paying for this franchise. Now we are essentially being asked to provide a tax exemption for players to earn tax- free money playing in PNG. What evidence did the NRL provide to the Australian government that a tax exemption was necessary for the PNG franchise to be viable?”

Team of the week

Clicky Ponting. A man who needs no introduction from me.

Roosters. Bloody hell. Beat the Cowboys 82-12. Du jamais vu!

Storm and Broncos. It was 2005 when both the previous season’s grand finalists last missed the finals.

Bodhana Sivanandan. The 11-year-old English girl is a chess star in the making, breaking the world record for the youngest to defeat a grandmaster rated above 2600.

Tadej Pogacar. Won his fifth Tour de France. Is it just me or has that race lost a tiny bit of mojo, maybe since Lance Armstrong was proven to have flecks of urine in his drugs?

Australia and Ireland. Meet at North Sydney Oval today in the AFLW international.

Justin Greaves. West Indian took five wickets without conceding a run in an incredible five-over spell of bowling. No clicking was involved – I checked.