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There’s something unedifying – but humorous nonetheless – when a former player rips into another, and it’s even more interesting if they were once teammates.
As sports have grown, so has the throng of reporters, commentators and experts that talk and write about them.
Needing a job or simply looking to fill the void in retirement, former players jam broadcast boxes and panels or write newspaper and online columns or get someone else to “ghost” them.
For many years, former players would – mostly – abide by the code that forbade them from criticising their own. They sat on the fence, lest they upset someone with whom they shared a dressing room.
But as the media pack grows, former players have become louder, angrier, outspoken.
Instead of leaving the whacking stick in the bag, they flail it about like a lightsaber so they can gain relevance in a crammed market full of former players saying something about something.
Mitchell Johnson on the attack as a player – not a columnist.Credit: Pat Scala
What’s humorous about it is the former athletes who make the narkiest comments are those who were the most sensitive to criticism in their playing days. There was no better example of this than Shane Warne, who took no prisoners in his commentary – mostly about Mitchell Starc.
Now former fast bowler Mitchell Johnson is in on the act following his extraordinary attack on Australian opener David Warner and chairman George Bailey in a column for The West Australian.
Some rant, too. Johnson doesn’t want Warner in the Test squad for the three-Test series against Pakistan because he still hasn’t “owned” the ball-tampering scandal; he’s showing the “same arrogance and disrespect” by wanting to finish up his Test career at the SCG with a “hero’s send-off”; and something or other about not making enough runs in the last three years except for a double-century against South Africa last summer.
Johnson also questioned Bailey’s integrity, claiming he couldn’t make unbiased decisions about Warner’s place in the side because they were once teammates. It wouldn’t surprise if Bailey’s lawyers take more than a second glance at the remarks.
As a former fast bowler, Johnson should know you need to hit the mark when sending down a thunderbolt.
He missed the spot two years ago when attacking Pat Cummins over Justin Langer’s exit as coach and now, by my reckoning, delivered three wides and a no-ball in one over in this latest missive directed at Warner and Bailey.
If he had argued that Warner simply doesn’t have the runs on the board to continue playing Test cricket this summer, that would’ve been enough. Whack us over the head with statistics and logic.
Instead, he made the attack demonstrably personal, picking at the scabs of Sandpaper-gate.
What more does Warner have to do in this regard? How can he “own” it, as Johnson claims?
He was suspended for a year and banned from being a captain in any format – including a Big Bash franchise, which is just silly and pedantic.
Unlike Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft, he’s refrained from soft mea culpa interviews to explain what happened in Newlands in 2018. Some interpret Warner’s coyness as an indication of his guilt. Others within cricket interpret it as a dignified silence, refusing to throw teammates past and present under the bus.
We still don’t know entirely what happened during that Test against South Africa or what led to it. I suspect we won’t until Warner has his say, most likely in retirement.
Johnson, like others, is fixated on Warner “dictating” the end-date of his Test career. It’s a great example of how people can misinterpret direct quotes however they want, to suit their agenda.
This is what Warner said on June 3 before the World Test Championship final against India: “You’ve got to score runs. I’ve always said the [2024] World Cup would probably be my final game. I probably owe it to myself and my family … I can score runs here and continue to play back in Australia. I can definitely say I won’t be playing that West Indies series. If I can get through this [WTC decider and the Ashes] and make the Pakistan series I will definitely finish up then.”
That sounds like a batsman living in hope, not laying down the law to selectors. He’s not dictating anything.
And so what if he’s picked his own finish line? It doesn’t mean he’ll get what he wants, as Bailey said on Sunday in response to Johnson’s comments.
Johnson also drew comparisons to when Bailey excused himself from selection debates about Tim Paine, when he quit as captain following a sexting scandal involving a former Cricket Tasmania employee. He thinks Bailey should do the same with Warner.
Bailey’s primary conflict of interest was he and Paine were business partners in a gym, not because they had played together.
Apart from his double-century last summer, Warner’s returns at Test level have been modest at best. He no longer plunders the red ball as he does the white, and played an unfamiliar support role to Usman Khawaja during the Ashes.
They were the actions of a cricketer more concerned about the team than himself. I doubt anyone can bring themselves to admit this about Warner. At least Cummins seems to understand it.
Runs at Sheffield Shield level must count for something and, to that end, Bancroft deserves a start at some point. Perhaps this should have been the thrust of Johnson’s rant.
At the time of writing, Warner had refused to buy into Johnson’s spray. The indications are he was less offended than amused. I’m sure he’s copped worse.
But maybe there’s a lesson in it.
Having signed with Fox Sports earlier this year, it will be time soon enough for Warner to send down his own thunderbolts. Let’s hope he finds the mark better than Johnson.
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