OBEs for EVERYBODY!!!!!

I think I speak for all of us when I say that beating South Africa in sporting contests is one of Australia's three most solemn duties (the other two are beating New Zealand at Rugby Union, and preserving the memory of Gallipoli).

Beating England is not solemn - it's a raucous affair. But beating South Africa is important, it is crucial, and it is satisfying.

I was speaking to Miss Field a while ago - who has been keeping another blog hidden in plain sight - about why losing to South Africa in Australia was less painful than losing to England in 2005 (in England).

Here are my top reasons why losing to England in 2005 was so hard to take:

1) The series of coincidences that went England's way
2) Australia could not have played ANY worse, we were lacking our best fast bowler (we dominated the one Test he played), and we still only lost the series by two runs.
3) England's team was full of crap players who played much better than they ever had or ever would again to fluke wickets and runs.
4) They treated a marginal 2-1 series victory as if THEY HAD RE-WON WORLD WAR II.
5) The English players went back to being crap within 24 hours of the final Test.

But one of the hardest things to take was something Miss Field pointed out: that any time an Australian mentioned that perhaps the English were over-reacting by giving their players OBEs for winning two Test matches, we were accused of being sore losers.

Ashley Giles. Useless cricketer. OBE.

It was not a great time to be an Australian cricket fan. Just like this past summer against South Africa. However, here are the key reasons why losing to South Africa is not as painful as that horrible 2005:

1) South Africa were the better team. Australia played badly again, but we had our chances to win it and we bottled it. We can acknowledge better teams.
2) The Proteas' performances were not flukes, and their players were not in some kind of never-to-be-repeated Indian summer. They had built their form up over the past few years.
3) They didn't carry on like flamin' galahs after they won two Test matches. Whatever the equivalent of the South African OBE is, they didn't give it to a bunch of blokes who did the job they're paid large amounts of money just to get done.
4) We recognise that our team is in transition and we're willing to cut them some more slack.
5) We've just gone and handed them a defeat on their home soil with three of our blokes playing their first Test.

The Ashes in 2005 will always be a bad memory, but hopefully, one day, Flintoff and Vaughn and co will come out and say "you know what, I probably didn'y deserve to be made a member of the Order of the British Empire for barely winning two cricket matches." And I'd like to think that I will be around to say "EXACTLY!"