‘Un-Australian’? The values today’s cricketers are missing

Take it away, Michael Clarke, giving your view on the Australian cricket team putting in such a poor performance in the T20 World Cup, knocked out in the group stage or somesuch, I think?

“I think Australians in general,” he said, “on the biggest stage under the most amount of pressure, always put it on the line and have a crack. We’re not scared to lose. Yet we picked an aggressive 11 in this World Cup squad yet played so defensively. Very un-Australian.”

My eyes, as yours, are drawn to that final phrase, “Very un-Australian”.

And of course it’s easy to jeer at the very idea that there is an “un-Australian” way to play, that there is any such thing as Australian exceptionalism, but I like it. And I particularly like the concept in reverse.

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