By Greg Baum
First published in The Age on April 27, 1993
Fashion-plate Australians win over the British press
It was what failed to happen that was most disconcerting to the Australian cricketers on their first day in London yesterday.
The Australian team arrives in London wearing olive suits that captured the attention of the British press.Credit: AP
Firstly, the British media were uncharacteristically generous, ignoring completely their usual practice of pronouncing Australia to be the worst cricket team to arrive on these shores.
For this, perhaps, there is a logical explanation: there is already a worst-ever team in the country. England, when it slunk back into Heathrow last month after its humiliating tour of India and Sri Lanka, was more or less accorded this dubious status.
Even with the British media’s notorious faculty to stretch a point, it was simply impossible to have two worst-ever teams in the country at the same time; one would certainly be shown to be an imposter.
So the Australians were welcomed warmly, mollycoddled with easy questions, praised for their boldness in selection, invited to take part in the general ridicule of English cricket and effusively complimented on their dress sense.
In their fashionably cut, olive-green suits, the Australians looked to local media as if they had come the mere 100 metres from Savile Row, rather than 20,000 kilometres from Australia. The cut of a man’s clothes has always been an issue in England, but has been particularly vital since England returned in something less than sartorial splendour, with captain Graham Gooch sporting what is imaginatively known as designer stubble.
This, of course, was seized upon as the root problem of English cricket. “I think we might have scored the first points,” remarked captain Allan Border. But, he added, there would be no edict about shaving.
More than anything else, this obsession with dress indicates that to English analysts, at least, Australia has no glaring weaknesses to probe other than its anonymity, and is favourite for the series.
This is disconcerting, as at least five recent Ashes series have been won comprehensively by the team that started out as underdog, and because, traditionally, Australia is more comfortable in that role. “I just wonder whether there’s a bit of a snow job going on,” said Border.
The weekend spate of terrorist bombings in London, and the rise of terrorism generally, is another matter, an unknown quantity.
Australian team manager Des Rundle said yesterday that he had spoken about the matter to the Test and County Cricket Board’s Tim Lamb, and that while every-body was acutely conscious of the need for security, there was little more that could be done that would not be farcical.
The Australians are staying in London’s West End, a favourite target of indiscriminate bombers, and the team bus prominently announces itself as the team bus and could not be mistaken for anything else. A suggestion that the squad remove itself to an unspecified hotel out of town was considered impractical and dismissed.
In its favour, the Australians can expect a certain immunity. With the singular exception of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, terrorists have refrained from attacking high-profile international sports people and teams, figuring probably that the backlash would be greater than the original blow.
