It's Just Not Cricket

[Hornspieler]

The sight of Eoin Morgan standing with his mouth clamped shut (not just "closed") during the playing of the British National Anthem is not only an insult to her Majesty - it is an insult to the British Nation.

He has been accorded the honour of captaining our national side - in spite of already representing the Irish cricket team and it is quite obvious to me that he should be relieved of taking any further part as a representative of the England team in international cricket.

He is doing a lot better for himself in England than he would in his native country (he also earns money from playing for Middlesex) and he should respond accordingly.

Get rid of him!

Let's have a true Britisher in the side and a loyal captain.

There are several members of the current English Squad who are far more qualified to captain the side.

Rant over, but does anyone agree?

HS

[antongould]

No less an authority than the Daily Mail says he doesn't sing the anthem because he is shy. He wouldn't, it claims, sing the Irish anthem either. I sure HRM understands and has she got Sky anyway .....????

[Serial_Apologist]

I understand discussing royalty is disallowed on this forum, because it involves politics.

[antongould]

I understand discussing royalty is disallowed on this forum, because it involves politics.

Good point well made S_R

[Serial_Apologist]

Good point well made S_R

Ironically made at any rate, anton!

[vinteuil]

an insult to her Majesty - it is an insult to the British Nation.

... please, if you wish to rant in this style at least have the grace to accord our Monarch her Capital Letter : it is "Her Majesty"

... does anyone agree?

No.

All ball games are pretty silly, cricket particularly so.

The notion that anyone takes this sort of thing seriously is almost as absurd as those who take our monarchy seriously.#

And please never NEVER call me a "Britisher"

You would be blackballed from any Club I might associate with for the use of such a vulgar term

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Rant over, but does anyone agree?

Probably quite a few would, Hs. But not me.

[MrGongGong]

Rant over, but does anyone agree?

No

I'm also sure some would

(you seem to have got Britain and England mixed up a bit there Hornio)

[P. G. Tipps]

What really baffles me is why any self-respecting Irishman would want to represent England (or any other country for that matter) in the first place?

The man's Irish for goodness sake ... for him to sing an allegiance to the British crown would be both illogical and utterly nonsensical!

Well done to the man for doing the sensible, diplomatic thing!

[Beef Oven!]

The sight of Eoin Morgan standing with his mouth clamped shut (not just "closed") during the playing of the British National Anthem is not only an insult to her Majesty - it is an insult to the British Nation.

He has been accorded the honour of captaining our national side - in spite of already representing the Irish cricket team and it is quite obvious to me that he should be relieved of taking any further part as a representative of the England team in international cricket.

He is doing a lot better for himself in England than he would in his native country (he also earns money from playing for Middlesex) and he should respond accordingly.

Get rid of him!

Let's have a true Britisher in the side and a loyal captain.

There are several members of the current English Squad who are far more qualified to captain the side.

Rant over, but does anyone agree?

HS

Well put that man - I agree with every word.

[teamsaint]

Well put that man - I agree with every word.

I thought you didnt like cricket?

just out of interest, Which current England Squad players do you think are better qualified to captain the team?

[ahinton]

I understand discussing royalty is disallowed on this forum, because it involves politics.

Yes, I read that exchange elsewhere here - yesterday, I think - but this assertion was questioned, understandably since the Queen is supposedly "above politics"; anyway, if discussing royalty (that's to say specifically the UK monarch and her family) is not permitted here for that or any other reason, some might, by the same token, call into question whether the national anthem can be discussed here...

[ahinton]

Well put that man - I agree with every word.

OK, let's sum it up so far.

Making a point of remaining silent during the singing of the National Anthem on such an occasion might have arisen from Corbynesque shyness as alleged but could instead either be down to other reasons altogether or at least be thought to be so.

I don't see why an Irish person from a republic should be expected to sing the National Anthem of another country, even - or maybe especially - on such a public occasion; indeed, had he done so, he might have been accused of cynical insincerity or a committing PR stunt or perhaps even both.

He should be gotten rid of as cricket captain of England - not "the British nation" - only if he is demonstrably incapable of fulfilling his contract as such and, after all, it was surely known at the time of his appointment to that position that he was from the Irish Republic? (although with a surname like Morgan, I suppose that some might not have realised).

I have no idea what a "Britisher" is but am evidently not alone in wishing never to be called one.

Mr Morgan's expected "loyalty" is to the team that he has been invited to captain, not to the UK monarchy, to England or to "the British nation" (whatever that may be in the present context); he's being paid for doing that particular job, not to act as a political ambassador.

If there are indeed others already in that team who would be better qualified than he to assume that rôle, it was up to those responsible for making tht appointment to choose one of them instead, but clearly they didn't, for reasons best known to themselves; consequently, any questions about the alleged inappropriateness of his appointment should be put to them.

It should indeed be borne in mind (as at least one member here has already done) that there is considerable corruption in the world of cricket, just as there is in tennis, soccer and, I imagine, most other sports where eye-wateringly large sums of money exchange hands.

Relieving him of his position as England Cricket captian solely because he was seen to decline, for whatever reason/s or none, to sing the UK national anthem on a single public occasion would certainly not be cricket, in either sense of that expression; to do so would be a batty decision the rationale for which would stump me; it would be quite wide of the mark for a cricket captain to be summarily dismissed as a consequence of being caught not singing, especially if, had he indeed sung, he might not have gotten all the correct pitches.

[ahinton]

I don't like cricket, it's a game for tossers

Ah, yes; winning the toss and all that. Very droll, sir!

But, to answer your question, anyone from the present squad who's proud to captain their country and sing the national anthem

So you would regard a willing ness and ability to sing God save the team in public on certain occasions is a more important qualification for captaincy of the England cricket team than the ability to fulfil that rôle? Hmmm; perhaps it's no wonder that you don't like cricket!

No-one criticised the Brazilian football team before their game with Germany when they were screaming their national anthem into camera as it panned across

But it's this that's "another story"; that team were singing their own national anthem, not that of another country!

Why we go in for slagging our country off is beyond me (well it's not, but that's another story).

But who is actually doing that? Was Mr Morgan doing so? If not he, then who?

[P. G. Tipps]

So right, Beefy. The Jacobite rebellion was not an English -v- Scots thing. It was a Catholic -v- Protestant thing. The British army at Culloden was not English - more Scots fought on the Government side than on the (almost equally large) Jacobite side, which also included French, Irish and English.

Correct.

In fact, if my school memory is still what it was there was even a Jacobite unit formed called The Manchester Regiment after Charlie swept all before him and gathered recruits as he moved south ... then, true to form, the Jacobite clans got drunk and fought amongst themselves when they camped near Derby. The rest, as they say, is history.

Some things have never really changed when it comes to we(e) Scots somehow managing to snatch a brave and disorderly defeat from the jaws of almost certain victory. ...