Archbishop of Sydney

Holidays and Sport: When all is said and done, cricket's just a game

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
11 January 2004

I have always associated the long Christmas holidays with sport, especially the cricket; beach cricket or cricket in the back yard and following the Tests.

My first Test was at the M.C.G. in the early fifties.  Bradman had retired, Lindsay Hassett and Len Hutton were the Australian and English captains and Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller were our great fast bowlers.

Recently there was a splash of publicity over the suggestion that sport is replacing religion as the central concern among many Australians.  It had been a jolt for me about ten years ago when a South American priest, working as a chaplain in one of our Catholic high schools, first brought this claim to my attention.

As a young man I had never regarded sport and Catholicism as competitors, although there was no doubt what was more important, and what was a recreation, even if a serious one.

Once a teenager from the Western District of Victoria explained that he was a typical Irish-Australian lad with an Aussie Rules football in one hand and a race book in the other.  He was also a regular Mass-goer.  But this was twenty years ago.

The Test series against India was one of the best; hard fought, in a good spirit between an Australian champion team which has passed its best, and the leading contenders to replace us as world champions, if they can find one or two more good bowlers.

Steve Waugh’s retirement marks the end of an era.  We still have great batsmen, but the fielding has slipped and our bowling was mediocre.  The return of champions Warne and McGrath will be no long term solution.  In cricket as in life the good times don’t last forever.  “Sic transit gloria mundi” wrote the ancient Romans; and so passes the glory of the world.

In the Australian vernacular we understand this as “roosters today and feather dusters tomorrow”.  The new Australian team faces huge challenges to remain top dog.  We wish them well.

Steve Waugh is typical of the best of Sydney (males); talented, tough and uncompromising, loyal and a good family man.  But Waugh belonged to all Australians; more fans turned up for his last day in Melbourne than in Sydney.

So often he was there when he was needed, as in his last innings.  I remember him best for his efforts when we wrested supremacy from the West Indies.

Few have worked and fought harder.  Probably no one is more entitled to claim that he stood on his own two feet.

However, for years he has helped unfortunates, like Indian orphans.  In his farewell speeches he acknowledged how fortunate he was, how much he owed to others, especially his family.

And he said that he realised, now more than ever, that cricket is only a game.