by [There has been quite a bit of whinging on the part of *some* Aussies. One
reader complained about it, and I sent him some private mail. Since then,
several other complaints have been posted, so I thought I might post the
mail I sent ... ]
> From ray Sun Apr 28 17:52:13 1991
> To: xxxx
>
> ... congratulations on the series win. Without a shadow of a doubt,
> the best team won. Your bowlers deserve a lot of credit, and they've
> been getting it, whereas I don't think due credit has gone to your
> first three batsmen. On most occasions they built a solid foundation
> for the middle order. On those few occassions when they did fail, the
> middle order struggled, underlining the importance of the early order.
> By comparison, the Australian early order rarely succeeded - as a
> unit. Sometimes one of them did well, but rarely did two of them succeed.
>
> (All this has to be taken with a grain of salt - I'm an old opener!)
>
> I hope you don't think that the whining on the net is indicative of
> Australia and Australians. Those people complaining in
> rec.sport.cricket embarrass me.
>
> The signal to noise ratio of [rec.sport.cricket] is not good. People
> who love cricket, but who know little about it, tend to talk a lot about
> umpiring decisions, and player behaviour. There have been some crook
> decisions, as there are in every Test series, but the better team still
> won.
And to the Australians on the net, I say be conscious that - right or wrong -
foreigners will form an opinion of all Australia from what you post.