Zeenews Bureau
Perth, Jan 20: A day after India demolished the Australian cricket team’s ego at Perth, handing them a 72-run defeat and stopping them from registering their world record 17th consecutive Test match victory, a section of the Australian media on Sunday reacted with dented pride and hurt ego.
Finding it difficult to digest the defeat, several Australian newspapers tried to pick holes in India’s emphatic Test victory – the first-ever by any South Asian team at Perth.
A visibly stung media cried foul, blaming the defeat to India`s financial clout and the game`s "weak-kneed" governing body.
"India`s stunning performance in the third Test at the WACA should be dedicated to a lot more than the 11 players out on the field," a whining report in the `Courier Mail` said.
"They should share their pay cheques with their bullying officials back home, the weak-kneed administrators at the International Cricket Council and certain members of the media who have taken every opportunity to put the knife into the Aussies since this series began," Mike Colman wrote in the daily.
The barrage of criticism after the acrimonious Sydney Test had forced Ricky Ponting and his teammates to discard their ruthlessness and the rather civilised approach to the game never really worked for them, he said.
"Remember that scene in one of the Rocky movies where Rocky`s trainer tells him he`s no longer feared by his opponents? `Kid,` he says, `the worst thing that could happen to a fighter happened to you. You got civilised.`"
"In the space of a week the Australians got civilised...So instead of a confident, arrogant, winning team, we get a nice, civilised one. Maybe a losing one," it rued.
