Crossing the Line by Gideon HaighMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a very timely book, and yet it misses the point. The book has been written in the aftermath of the Cape Town scandal. Haigh has done an excellent job of describing the general levels of greed and cluelessness in the corridors of Cricket Australia,highlighting that the disaster was something waiting to happen. He goes back to the Argus review to identify the various problems with Australian cricket. Everyone knows how administrators worldwide are chasing the big dollars of T20, compromising test cricket while duly paying it lip service. Nothing new there. Australia failed to plan for succession planning after the great team of the 2000s and subsequently lost a lot more than they won. The board, on the other hand, realised that T20 was a cash cow and made the Big Bash the #1 cricket product in Australia. But to point to the poor management as a reason for Australia to have a middling team is one thing, to lay that as a root cause of the stupidity of Bancroft, Smith and Warner is another thing. Sportsmen and women the world over play under pressure and some cheat. Like in all other walks of life, there are some who think they can get away with it. The backlash against the Australians is purely because there has never been any great love for Australian cricket teams. When they won, everyone had to take it. Now, its open season. To say that the pursuit of more money, the sidelining of the Shield, Greg Chappell's misguided plans are in any way responsible for bad behavior is to miss the point. Haigh is a great writer, but at times blinkered.
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