The Squared Circle of Woke By Cory Bernardi

I have never been prouder of my decision to give up my South Australian Cricket Association membership and have next to no interest in the performance of Cricket Australia.

The former happened because I was tired of paying hundreds of dollars every year to not attend the annual Adelaide Oval Test. I was often in Canberra or away working and I figured there was no point paying for something I didn't use.

The latter began when the Australian cricket team were outed as a bunch of cheats, using sandpaper to tamper with the ball.

I could excuse the sledging as part of the game but to have organised cheating in our national team was beyond the pale.

The reduced respect for the top tier of the sport was confirmed with the team 'taking a knee' and then enacting some weird pre-game barefoot ritual.

Add in the constant celebration of the woke fringe with and the abandonment of our national celebration - Australia Day, and it shows just how out of touch Cricket Australia (CA) is.

The taking a knee against racism was a load of BLM rubbish built around a false narrative of the death from a drug overdose of criminal George Floyd.

A bunch of woke Australian's tried to hijack that nonsense for their own symbolic ends.

Cricket Australia also added the 'Barefoot Circle'. In the words of CA:

"The Barefoot Circle is a cricket-centric way for players and teams to take a moment prior to matches to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land they are playing on, connect to each other as opponents and pay respect to Aboriginal country."

Despite calling it a 'barefoot circle', the temple of woke symbolism was a square. Hence it had the same credibility of other ancient cultural tributes that have been made up in recent times.

Need I remind CA that there would be no cricket in this country if Australia wasn't settled by the British. There are no elite cricketers playing the game without shoes and the entire welcome to country nonsense has been a modern invention.

A spearing ritual of the invading team would be more appropriate but that might interfere with the money making.

CA have completely fallen into the phony pool of pity and grievance.

I have no idea if the prima-donnas who play the game still participate in taking a knee and the circle of stupidity. If they do, they are dumber than I thought. If they don't it goes to show how pathetic their symbolism truly was.

Remember, these were some of the same blokes who wanted the government to evacuate them from their multi-million dollar contracts in India due to COVID.

These are some of the same blokes who don't want fossil fuel sponsors despite relying on fossil fuels for their global travel.

But it's not just the privileged players who are doubling down on dumb.

The administrators of CA have now banned Australia Day from even being mentioned during the forthcoming test match against the West Indies.

The hapless Nick Hockley, boss of CA, appeared on Ben Fordham's radio show to make a fool of himself. …

Now, Cricket Australia and the Australian cricket team isn't the only organisation or corporate to pursue the path of maximum wokeness, but they have previously held a unique place in the Australian psyche.

They may still be considered as such by people within our community but their woke antics have lost me forever.

I suspect I am not alone.

UPDATE: Since writing this column, the CEO of CA has addressed his trainwreck interview and said:

"While we do not refer to Australia Day in our marketing and promotional material, and haven't done for more than four years, in regard to welcoming people with the ground announcement prior to play on Friday, I'd like to clarify that this will include reference to Australia Day."

The backlash was clearly too fierce for the spineless jellyfish ruling CA. That's good news.

Now we need to ensure the same backlash hits all the other surrender monkeys who think backing Australia is bad for business.

Have a great day.