Australian Legends Support Development

by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (June 18^th 2010)[1]

Editor’s Note

The issue of racism in sport remains pertinent. We have covered this and other issues for several years. The story of Aborginal cricket is important and still relevant especially with the 74^th Ashes series looming.

The Editor

Return

Just a year after losing the Ashes in England Ricky Ponting’s Australian side is back, mainly to take on Pakistan, as that country is still banned from hosting cricket. The MCC is sponsoring their series through the Spirit of Cricket. The Australians will host England in the return Ashes series later this year.

Ponting has criticised England’s policy of qualifying Irish players for their team, which he believes is affecting the development of Irish cricket. Previously Ed Joyce made an impression with Ireland before opting to play for England. He never made the grade and decided to pledge his international future back to Ireland.

Eoin Morgan is the latest Irishman to play for England, becoming a Twenty20 World champion in the process and forcing his way into England’s Test side too. It is natural that they will want to test themselves against stronger opposition, but is Australia blameless? Dirk Nannes plays for Australia – now. In last year’s Twenty20 World Cup he played for the Netherlands.

Current Dutch captain Pete Borren has no problem with Nannes opting to play for Australia. “Dirk – well he’s Australian,” Borren told us exclusively. “He’s gone off to play for Australia and good on him. Good luck to him. He’s doing really, really well for them, so it’s great.”

Nannes has Dutch and Australian heritage – his mixed ancestry allowed him to play for the Netherlands and later Australia because the Dutch only had Associate membership of the ICC [International Cricket Council]. But Nannes is Australian – he was born there and was developed in that country, not the Netherlands. He helped the Dutch record their greatest achievement in cricket so far, but as Borren says, Nannes is Australian and the development of Dutch cricket is progressing. But what about Aboriginals in Australia?

Potential

Jason Gillespie is the great-grandson of a Kamiliroi warrior. He is also the first Australian with acknowledged Aboriginal heritage to wear the famous green cap of his country. That is a shameful indictment of Australian sport. The Aboriginal contribution to Australian cricket has been ignored for far too long.

Fantastic players like Unaarimin, Albert (Alec) Henry, Jack Marsh and Eddie Gilbert were ignored by selectors, but Cricket Australia wants to develop Aboriginal players now. Ponting’s team was not the only Australian tourists last year. Young Aboriginal players came too in order to get used to touring.

Australian batting legend Matthew Hayden is involved with Cricket Australia’s plans to develop Aboriginal cricketers. He is not alone – the greatest bowler in Australian history – Shane Warne[2] waxes lyrical about Aboriginal sportsmen. He has placed his vast knowledge at the disposal of Australian cricketers, including Aboriginals.

“I’m an ambassador for Cricket Australia and I work with domestic captains and domestic spinners for the last eighteen months – two seasons – so we’ve got a lot of good spinners,” Warne said last summer, but what about Aboriginal sport?

“We’re very lucky with indigenous people in Australia,” says Warne. “They’re very talented. We’ve seen them be very successful in Australian Rules football. I think with competitions like IPL [Indian Premier League] – Twenty20 – the more of that played, then the more of those indigenous players are going to get their chance.”

He believes that the Aboriginal tourists had plenty of potential and were developing well. “They’re playing exceptional cricket over here at the moment,” he told us. “I met them this morning. They’re playing very well.”

But Warne wants to see them provided with more assistance in order to bring them through to international level.

“They’ve got a lot of talent you know,” said Warne. “The indigenous people need coaches out there and set up a platform to see them play. If these guys can come through the system and show off their skills to the people who make those decisions and the coaches for the under-age tournaments, whether 15, 17, 19, etc., then hopefully they can get invited down to domestic cricket and hopefully, we can get them playing international cricket.”

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[1] This article was first published in the Magazine in 2009. We publish it again as the issues that it raises remain pertinent.

[2] Sadly, Warne, who took 708 wickets in Test Matches, died in March 2022, aged just 52.