As someone who lives in the culture which births this attitude (as some people have commented on) on a daily basis, it is certainly understandable for other countries to see our attitude as bordering on outright racist. What I would personally say is that it is not racism, but the Australian attitude is very, very much indifference and insensitivity. We are indeed a multicultural country, but are only culturally sensitive as long as immigrants adhere to a long list of expectations to give them a “right” to live in the country (irony intended) – and most entry-people from other cultures will happily give up much of their heritage because living here was for the purpose of not being political prisoners, or earning more than $9USD per year. Our geographical isolation certainly themes our attitude, which in fact exceeds our location as our ignorance towards our Northern neighbors are disappointing compared to our short distance. I would not say we are racist (I think we are much more religiously bigoted than racially), just more completely oblivious that these issues exist, and our insensitivity fuels the fire. We’re not so much outright racist as we are totally oblivious to other cultures.

The fact is that they looted it in an emphatic fashion.

The fact that they’re beery boorish brutes can be blamed on their antecedents, their mothers, baked beans and their morning cereal perhaps.

McGrath never asked Sarwan his preferences in penile samples during this WC. Darren Lehman didn’t enquire about Schwarzzen-female-netherlands during this WC. Ponting and his merry men behaved how they’ve been brought up to behave. It’s like lamenting the fact that Bangalor-ing US jobs to India is bad because basically we Indians like living in intellectually-enhanced and financially-weakened squalor. Hey!! Get your own low-cost model!!

Do not in any way construe this as a justification of Aussie behaviour. There’s enough digital memory out there to hold the contents of posts written to debate that issue.

Let’s try and beat the Aussies at their game and not at their manners.

My mother who grew up in that time in fact told me that the West indians were in fact really hated. She told me an example of a test match where the West Indian crowd was baying for the blood of Indians. They were screaming to the bowlers to injure the Indian batsmen. 5 Indian batsmen were injured in that match. Each time an Indian batsman got injured, the crowd cheered. This is what she said.

The modus operandi of the West Indian bowlers was this.

The fact is Australia is a major cricketing power right now. The West Indian team became great by their ruthlessness(and underhand tactics). Australians are no different.