Keywords: Australian Cricket Team
-
ENVIRONMENT
- Andrew Hamilton
- 07 June 2017
5 Comments
To consider cricket as work would strike many people as odd. They would see it as a hobby, a recreation, a game or a calling. Professional sportspersons receive little attention in Catholic social thought, which is a pity because a Catholic understanding of work provides a helpful perspective. Its crucial insight is that work is a human activity, and that each human being is precious, unique and needs to be respected. Neither people nor work can be seen as means to an economic end, or as expendable.
READ MORE 
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Andrew Hamilton
- 15 November 2016
8 Comments
Climactic events demand we give an account of ourselves. Where were you when you heard that JFK was assassinated? Where were you when the planes went into the World Trade Centre? If we can't remember, we fear we may convict ourselves of reprehensible levity. In future years when I am asked what I was doing when Donald Trump was elected President, I shall have a ready answer: I was reading Brian Matthews' splendid reflection on Richie Benaud.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 19 October 2016
7 Comments
Promos suggest you can choose your identity. Join a tour to Kurdistan and you can become an adventurer. Buy an Aussie flag, sing loudly about boundless plains, and you can become a dinky di Aussie. Identity, however, is more subtle. It is formed by relationships, to the human race, to body, to place of birth, to language, to the significant adults of childhood, to possessions, to education and work, to hobbies, religions and political parties and to all the people met through these relationships.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Brian Matthews
- 16 October 2015
3 Comments
In the recent AFL Grand Final, the performance of Aboriginal footballer Cyril Rioli seemed to be not much short of magic. Well, perhaps the spirit world did make a contribution. In 1844, a great throng of clans was camped on the site of what became the MCG. Perhaps, 170 years later, Aboriginal footballers, running down the race for the first time and steeling themselves for the noise, the space, the tension, find instead a great sense of intimacy as their feet hit the grass of the oval.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- P. S. Cottier
- 11 August 2015
2 Comments
Batsmen may fly, or even run, after striking the ball, but must never proceed in a straight line. Wickets are to be baked of gingerbread, with sticky marshmallow bails ... A second infringement of bail removal will result in a fifty per cent reduction in the need for gloves of any hue. If this should occur, the severed hand will float into the ether, waving farewell to the game it loved like a wife.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 27 March 2015
11 Comments
During the West Indies 1960-61 tour of Australia, Frank Worrell and his predominantly black team transfixed Australians from coast to coast and, without any missionary intent, struck a resounding blow at the White Australia Policy, which was still in place. This jubilant, exciting story prompts questions about today's masses, who enthusiastically support harsh, and arguably racist, treatment of asylum seekers.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 01 December 2014
15 Comments
Young people are dying every day around the world, in tragic circumstances. Yes somehow the sudden and unexpected death of a young cricketer has the headlines. Maybe it was because he just did what he loved and did not make a fuss about being dropped from the test team, but he went back to working hard and making his way back into selection.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Mike Bowden
- 16 April 2014
5 Comments
Some think AFL football is like a trampoline catapulting young Indigenous footballers into a fairytale life. But the recent resignation of young Indigenous player Dayle Garlett reveals again that success depends on more than talent. The contrasting stories of Liam Jurrah and Xavier Clarke in Darwin offer a salient lesson to players like Garlett and Marley Williams, the young player of Maori descent recently convicted on assault charges.
READ MORE
-
INTERNATIONAL
- Anthony
- 10 September 2013
17 Comments
The United States, a country of cricket illiteracy, spent more than $1 million constructing the Kabul Cricket Stadium, recognising the major impact cricket is having in the country. Australia, one of cricket's 'first nations', has done nothing. It is tragic that, for ordinary Afghans, the vast majority of whom have never considered seeking asylum, Australia's most visible contribution to their country is the message to 'keep away'.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Kerry Murphy
- 19 June 2013
6 Comments
Comparison of these two cases is illuminating. One is the recruit to the Australia A cricket team, Pakistani born Fawad Ahmed. The other is, in Tony Abbott's words, the 'convicted Jihadist terrorist', Egyptian born Sayed Ahmed Abullatif. Ahmed will be the second Pakistani born cricketer in an Australian side that desperately needs a good leg-spinner. Abdullatif has possibly a more difficult road ahead.
READ MORE
-
AUSTRALIA
- Catherine Marshall
- 08 June 2012
18 Comments
The largely positive response in Australia to the American Lingerie Football League reveals we are not the progressively egalitarian people we imagine ourselves to be. We give lip service to female equality, but women will still be exploited whenever the opportunity arises, and feminists vilified like it's 1972.
READ MORE
-
ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Doyle
- 11 April 2012
6 Comments
At this juncture in the life of the Mighty Currawongs the usual bigotry poured forth. One columnist raged and sputtered about invasions by 'evil, small statured people'. The ensuing burst of street protests against racism in every corner of Australian life would permanently alter the course of Australian history.
READ MORE