Coverage of women’s cricket scandal has been so over the top. I can stay silent no longer

August 15, 2026 — 5:00am

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I know. It’s a weird sporting week in Australia when a key talking point seems to have nothing to do with sport itself, as it is an alleged extra-marital affair of a sportswoman that has caused deep unhappiness outside the team.

To this point – you will note, I hope – TFF has declined to engage in the whole kerfuffle in the Australian women’s cricket team, where one of the players got married, only to have an affair with a team member, and her hurt wife go very public with her anger.

The whole thing feels so desperately unhappy – and private – that I just couldn’t quite bear to go into it. At which point, I pause. For, yonks back, I did go very deeply into the Wayne Carey saga, when he slept with his best mate’s wife. What’s the difference?

I think it’s that the Carey saga blew up the entire team and was always going to. Or that it grossly offended the very Australian male code that I was a major subscriber to. “Rule No.2: you don’t sleep with your best mate’s missus.”

Or it might be because I have such a bad case of double standards, it’s approaching a triple standard. Anyhoo.

But this saga has gone on so long, and the coverage has been so over the top, it did remind me of something.

Three decades ago, the brilliant ABC series Frontline had an episode called Add Sex and Stir, which featured Jane Kennedy’s brilliant portrayal of gun tabloid reporter Brooke Vandenberg interviewing a woman who had been dropped from a netball team. In a piece of tabloid heaven, Vandenberg and crew spliced the grabs together to make it look like the woman was pushed out because she refused to participate in lesbian activity with teammates.

Still, when the weatherman with a conscience questioned the executive producer, Thommo, on why the show cared so much about netball when it had never covered it, the wizened old newsman, with a gleam in his eye, leans in and says: “It’s not about netball. It’s about lezzos.”

Thirty years later, in my view, little has changed.

Australian cricket’s olden generation

The mighty Australian cricket team might be about to lose to Bangladesh? That’s like the Australian Kangaroos being on the point of defeat against Wests Tigers. How can that be?

I’ll take the Bleeding Obvious for 50, please. The average age of the Australian team is – dot three, carry five, subtract six – 33 years and 10 months! There is one – count ’em, ONE – player in his 20s, and he’s not performing well.

Prima facie, you’d have to reckon that........

© The Age