The toxic side to the 'Australian Way'

In this episode, we chat with journalist, blogger, author, podcaster, vlogger – or in short, the Mark Waugh of cricket coverage – Jarrod Kimber.

We focus on a piece Jarrod wrote last year titled ‘The Ugly Australian: the evolution of a cricket species’. He talks about his formative experiences with sledging and hyper-aggression at the club level and how his views on behavior and moral codes have changed over time. No other team treats cricket as a team sport like Australia does, says Jarrod, but they also stretch the limits of what team-mates must do.

Talking Points:

The island that is Australian cricket – with moral codes and ‘good bloke, bad bloke’ conventions that combine into the ‘Australian Way’
Club cricket in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s – when the game was sometimes a violent, contact sport
The atmosphere at Australian cricket grounds in the pre-2000s
The culture of Australian cricket that built up to Sandpapergate
The two sides to Allan Border’s legendary quip to Dean Jones in the furnace of Madras in 1986: ‘let’s get a tough Queenslander out here’
Cameron Bancroft and the demands of young players fitting in
The ruthless punishments handed out post Sandpapergate
How David Warner would have been seen in the Australia of the 1980s
The drinking culture in Australian cricket
The vastly different culture around Australian women’s cricket