Inspite of Richie Benaud saying he belongs to the 18 percent of Australians who support Ponting a very large no. great Australian sportsmen and women have slammed the Australian cricketers for bad sportsmanship.

Not just Neil Harvey but many more have have slowly started to express their anger at the way Australia cricketers play their sport.

Australia's national netball coach Jill McIntosh said the Aussies were a "little arrogant"

Kevin Bartlett, an AFL legend, said
"You don't treat your opponents with contempt, you treat them with respect -- and I didn't see that from the Aussies,"

In an unprecedented move, Sport Australia Hall of Fame members said the organisation would seek an urgent meeting with Cricket Australia this week.

The most damning criticsm has come from John Bertrand Hall of Fame chairman, he has made some damning commets about Australian cricketers among other things he has said
"Australia was too arrogant. "
"Australia's Test team moral compass needs to be retuned"
"Australian do not show respect for their opponents."
"Their desire to win at all costs has blurred their morals"


While many in Australia have lambasted part of the Aussie media's call to sack Ponting. Some even resorting to abuse, the fact remains that Cricket Australia will now have no option to listen and implement some change and not just come out with statements about playing "hard but fair".

Where do you get your figures from? 18%?
Baggy green is running a poll ATM "Do Australia play in the spirit of the game" As i post, 25038 (70%) say yes, 10724 (30%) say no.
Hmmm. Strange.

OK. So give me the names. Tell me who these "many more" are.

Haha. Who? You are scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

Once again. Who? An "Aussie legend"???

OK. Where did you get your quotes from?
I have what i suspect is the article you read here
Cricinfo - Sporting greats upset by Australia's behaviour

Misquoting is all well and fine. Unless you get busted.

Part. So one man -Roebuck - equates to "a part" LOL

C.A have made their stance quite clear. As you know

Misquotes. Mis-representations. Quoting out of context. You will be talking to yourself here before too long amitdesilva,

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Wasnt Peter Roebuck's article on the front page of the newpaper. I dont agree with him though.

Why Ponting's heroes just don't appeal to me - Cricket - Sport - theage.com.au

Another australian article.

All my posts are copied from the newspaper article only the bottom line is my own opinion i.e. CA should do something about this than just come up with it's old 'hard but fair' statement.

Just puting signs and accusing me of not knowing how to copy and paste does not make the truth go away.

You would probably claim that Neil Harvey is not a great either cos he questioned Ponting's ways. Stop waving your flag, sit down and

The Australian's Exclusive Poll | The Australian

Another poll

Australian team at 51 %
Umpires at 27%
Indian at 18%

Read it before it is removed.

Legends claim cricketers have 'turned sport into war' | The Daily Telegraph

Pasting and Highlighting the quotes I pasted before.

Waiting for Apology.

SPORTING legends have condemned the Australian team's behaviour as India confirmed that they will continue the fiery Test series - with conditions.

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As moves started to defuse the Indian tour crisis yesterday, Sport Australia Hall of Fame members John Bertrand, Herb Elliott and Rob de Castella accused the Australians of turning sport into war.

Bertrand, the Hall of Fame chairman, said the organisation would seek an urgent meeting with Cricket Australia this week. He said the Australian Test team was damaging international relations.

"Sport is only sport. It's not war," Bertrand told the Herald Sun. "We believe Australia's Test team moral compass needs to be retuned and we want Cricket Australia to know that."

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Ricky Ponting's team was slammed for bad sportsmanship after they snatched a thrilling victory in the second Test in Sydney on the weekend.

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Bertrand said Elliott, de Castella other Hall of Famers shared his view that Australia was too arrogant.

"Both Rob and Herb feel very strongly about this issue," he said.

"We will be seeking a meeting with Cricket Australia to seek to get the Australian team to readjust their behaviour so that they do show respect for their opponents."

"We have a lot of clout in the sporting community and we will be saying to Cricket Australia that people need to step back and reassess what is happening here with a cool head," Bertrand said.

"The pressure to win out on the field has become too hot, and that pressure is all about winning at all costs. That is not what sport is about.

"We believe the No.1 rule is to show respect for your fellow competitors and currently this does not appear to be the case.

"Their desire to win at all costs is beginning to blur their moral compass and it would appear that is what happening to the Australian Test team.

"The fallout that we are seeing at the moment is not acceptable. It's clearly damaging international relations and clearly a lot of people are upset."

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Kevin Bartlett, another AFL legend, said he defined bad sportsmanship as not showing respect to your opponents.

"You don't treat them with contempt, you treat them with respect -- and I didn't see that from the Aussies," he said.

Australia's national netball coach Jill McIntosh said the Aussies were a "little arrogant".

"It worries me that the Australian cricket teams of recent times have been called the worst sledgers in the game. Why don't they just rely on their skills?" she said.

"They don't need to sledge. They are an incredibly skilled team."

Former pace great Jeff Thomson,
"The Aussies act like morons and bullies and they can't cop criticism from someone like myself. I think it was appalling that none of the Australians went over and shook Anil Kumble's hand at the end of the SCG Test. They just played up and carried on like idiots like they normally do."

Heres where I read about the 18% (actually 17%)

Ponting's sledgers should be ashamed | NEWS.com.au

"According to The Daily Telegraph online poll yesterday, 83 per cent of Australians believe Ponting is not a good ambassador for the game of cricket and 79 per cent believe the Australian team does not play in the true spirit of cricket. "

Well i will start with this "Copy and Paste" thing in regards to quotations. Quotations are meant to be verbatim.

When you add quotes, you copy and paste them. You do not "copy and paste and take a word out here, and add a word there, and mix it around a bit"

If you do that, it immediately becomes..........a misquote.

Maybe no-one has ever pointed this out to you. But once you have done it and been pulled up, your credibility immediately becomes questionable. I'm sorry.

So you are saying that Bertram said that the entire Australian nation and it's people, and by default himself, are arrogant"? Putting the fact that it was a misquote aside, this is clearly a Mis-representation. Now you have to be very careful in these situations amitdesilva. Once you start publically misquoting and misrepresenting people, you run the risk of getting your ass sued. You seem a nice enough fella, so i am happy to give you some free advice on this matter. The "quote" is obviously out of context too, it must be said.

Once again this is a mis-representation of the Daily Telegraphs online poll. The question the poll asked referred to whether Ponting was a good ambassador. Nothing about whether Australians supported him. You can draw your own conclusions if you wish, but it is completely erroneous to state it as fact. Once you start doing this, your credibility immediately comes onto question.

Apparently, the same poll gave the result that 53 per cent believe he (Ponting) was responsible for the disappearance of the Beaumont children. If you are going to give poll results and state them as fact, then at least find them from a credible source for gods sake. Or once again, your credibility immediately comes onto question.

[Edit] As i write, Baggygreen.com is running the poll "Do Australia play in the spirit of the game?" 51088 (80.7%) say yes 12189 (19.3%) say no. So does this mean i should start saying "80% of Australians say that Aus plays in the spirit of the game? No. Because as everyone knows (well most... hmmm) online polls are about as reliable as, say, your (mis)quotes

"A very large no." Then you gave five names. Most of which were misquoted. Sorry mate. But you have a rather wacky sense of quantity perception. You trolled the net for dirt, and this was the best you could do???
Lame effort. I;ll help you out.

You have since added Thommo to the list. And what a fine example of a *cough* cricketing gentleman. Well you can add another *cough* gentleman of the game to the list - Jeff Lawson. he came out with his two cents worth today.

So what have we got. Two ex Aussie pace bowlers of dubious reputation. An ex skipper of a boat. An ex commonwealth game runner. An ex Aussie rules player. Umm who else.....oh that's right some obscure netball coach. Geez, if you are going quote her, then you may as well quote my mum.

For what??? Pointing out " Misquotes. Mis-representations. Quoting out of context." Mate you should be thanking me. It might save you some grief in the future.

That's it for me now amitdesilva. If you wish to enter into some positive, constructive cricket discussion, and start to restore your faltering credibility, then i will be glad to oblige you, but as to the SCG test - that's it. I'm over it.

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Nice guys don't win.

Well spotted seamer.