Col Blimpy Barnes

Deep within an overly upholstered leather chair in his Hooray Henry club... and deeper still in his gin and port sodden brain, the pride of the empah contemplates the antipodean problem...

his great grandfather having consigned thousands of irish convict antipodean serfs to the bubble of the boiling kettle of Gallipoli and the Somme, Blimp Barnes contemplates events in Pakistan...

last year he took the antipodean heathen cricketers to task for not touring Pakistan since 1998..cowards (hic)...no spine (snort)...greedy and spineless (hic)...

now events have taken another turn..."yes old boy, I will have a top up of port and another fat wedge of stilton"...this is pause for a Blimpish thought..."yes I do have an idea for my artlcle in your little rag Cholmsely minor" (formerly of the Eton upper ivth)...

Yes the events in Lahore are regrettable and the Stanlanders do need a dose of cold hard British steel (apols here to Corp Jones - an erstwhile butcher from that classic Brit documentary on the role of the Home Guard during WW2)...but we need to make a stand here...

I think our 'closer' in my article on the current contretemps in Larore should still reflect on the failure of the Australian cricket team to play tests in Stanland for a decade.

Who and what is Simon Barnes?

on a personal note I regret having been critical of the international cricket community's failure to support Pakistan...I have cancelled my trip there.

Simon Barnes is a 'journalist' for an english newspaper...like Athers he has been critical of Australian refususals to play cricket in pakistan.

an Oz journo has a go at Barnes


HOW do all the Brave Hearts feel now?

The pompous, pontificating Poms who slagged off Australian cricket for rightly refusing to tour dangerous countries.

And what of the glory boys who intimated Australia's cricketers were cowards because they had not visited Pakistan for a decade?

The administrators from other countries who bagged Cricket Australia publicly or privately because they followed the best security advice available and would not put their players at risk.

The dreadful and tragic attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore two days ago has graphically brought home the danger which leading security experts have warned about for some time.

As self-appointed head of the bag Australia brigade, The Times of London columnist Simon Barnes should be the first to deal with this reality by writing an unconditional public apology to this country's cricketers and administrators.

Last December, when writing about the Mumbai terrorist attacks and their impact on the touring England cricket team, he said:

"The Australia cricket team, the weasels of international sport: one hint of a murmur of a rumour of a firework going off in any city on the subcontinent and the Australian plane is making a mad U-turn and heading back to God's Own."

Barnes was at it again yesterday, writing about the horror of the attacks on the Sri Lankan team bus: "The Australian cricket team have become notorious for pulling out of tours any time that anyone lights a match within 500miles of a cricket ground."

How many bodies do you want Simon? How many Australian cricketers should be sacrificed on unstable foreign shores to convince you of their "bravery"?

Former England captain Mike Atherton weighed in last August when half the cricket world was refusing to tour Pakistan for the Champions Trophy for obvious security reasons.

"When it comes to touring Pakistan, no team have been more narrow-minded than Australia, who, at the same time as showing unconditional love for India and the marketing opportunities it allows," Atherton wrote.

"They have not toured Pakistan since 1998. Bombs in Jaipur and London carry a more lucrative blast."

So award-winning writers and former players are now instant security experts. Despite Australia gaining advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and leading cricket security adviser Reg Dickason not to tour Pakistan do Barnes, Atherton and the chorus who sung with them now really believe the players should have gone anyway?

And to think that the International Cricket Council attempted to bully and cajole players from half the major cricketing nations to play in Pakistan last year as part of the Champions Trophy.

It exposed the ICC's profound lack of leadership.

Just how profound that lack of leadership and lack of reality is was highlighted by chief executive Haroon Lorgat last September following the eventual postponement of the Champions Trophy because the ICC would not move it from Pakistan. Lorgat said that countries that opted out of playing in Pakistan may look back and "think they made the wrong decision in deciding not to go".

And: "Bob Nichols and his security team, which the ICC uses, are based in Pakistan and they thought the environment was safe enough. But others did not. However, I still believe they might now think they got it wrong."

He continued: "It is one thing for security teams on the ground in Pakistan to make their assessment, but I think it is unfair for players sitting a long way away to make up their minds."

As the ICC is now well aware, kowtowing to the politicians and paymasters in cricket is very different to strong, independent advice.

Sadly, cricket's hall of shame has just become a whole lot bigger.

Your Comments:

I think a lot of people have had their opinions changed by the attack the other day, Horace.

For the rest, what else would you expect from the bloated pompous rag of a flagship of the Murdoch press empire, still feasting on its former glories and status as "newspaper of record" in the UK?

absolutely ghastly...I do not believe Australian soil has produced such a craven low rent person as Murdoch...do the English seriously believe the views of Athers and Blimp Barnes?

Here's a more balanced (and human) view from "Blighty"

Before a day or so ago, when many minds suddenly began to change.

Atherton has always been noted for his hard-nosed attitudes. (No wonder he is SKY's on-site anchor! )

Remember his economy with the truth over the "dirt" incident?

But to be fair, I am not sure he is quite in the same league of Kitchener-type callousness as Simon Barnes.

There was a school of thought - especially in the wake of IPL and Stanford - that these guys are paid such a king's ransom to entertain, that they should hardly moan and strike about still fairly remote possibilities of danger (and with total security assured by the authorities - !).

I doubt you will see much of that left now.

It's a disgrace that people appear to be rejoicing in this human tragedy just so they say to a few irrelevant poms "I told you so".

Who dat, RD?

the old qunt

Ah.

If you mean H, then ... well, he is laying it on the Brit nation a bit thick (hence my attempt at an antidote) ..... but I don't see any cock-snooking there. More a "righteous anger" that certain journos were taking such a snooty line.

Or did you mean Barnes as the qunt?

errrr, I think I will bale out here.

H in being a boring qunt shocker.

Look. not two months ago I was saying that Australia should tour Pakistan. I was wrong. Maxima mia farrow.

On the other hand, Barnes went way over the line by putting it down to cowardice.

PeterCS wrote:Ah.

If you mean H, then ... well, he is laying it on the Brit nation a bit thick

It is the way of his people.

Exactly who those people are, none of us have been able to fathom.

RD's brain is in miniscule proportion to his stature and he is prolly in crisis about the declining value of his shares in news Corp..besides the poor little guy guy misses the point with the frequency that he misses miss's

I am not suggesting that Barnes and Athers reflect the views of the English..