Johnson calls for stump mic ban

There’s a raft of beloved cricket traditions that sit as comfortably in the modern game as do buckle-up pads and hourly drinks breaks.

To back away when batting and expose one or all of your stumps was once frowned upon. It’s now re-badged as ‘getting leg-side of the ball’.

Clapping the opposition team’s captain as he walks to the wicket is now reserved solely for bona fide legends of the game in their farewell outing, and is delivered replete with the symbolic avenue of honour that has come to replace the caps-doffed, rousing chorus of ‘three cheers’.

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And even accepting the word of a fielder as to whether or not he has cleanly completed a catch has finally been declared the domain of often-less-reliable television technology, despite repeated bids by some esteemed folk in recent years to resuscitate the noble gesture.

Now, in an era when viewers and listeners expect to be taken so close to the action they require ice baths at game’s end, the accord between genuine players that ‘what happens on the field stays on the field’ has broken down. 

Irretrievably, if the social media musings of some current and past members of Australia’s ‘fast bowling cartel’ are read as gospel.

In response to observations about the suitability or otherwise of Josh Hazlewood’s choice of expletives when seeking clarification from Test umpire Ranmore Martinesz about the rationale for his off-field colleague’s refusal to uphold a video appeal, a Test-standard attack did precisely that.

Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris and Mitchell Starc all rallied in support of Hazlewood, not so much in defence of what he said but his right to express it in the privacy of his workplace without a world full of eaves-droppers performing a 21^st Century ‘glass against the wall’ routine. 

Jackson Bird, who was out in the middle when today’s pre-lunch spark was lit, expressed his view to an end-of-day media conference.

"It is a little bit (disappointing conversations don't stay on the field)," Bird said when quizzed about the moment that set tongues wagging, keyboards rattling and the ICC to cite Hazlewood for a breach of the playing code of conduct.

"We're all for having technology in the game and all the new technology that comes out every year is great and great for the viewers at home.

"But I don't see why the stump mics need to be broadcast to the whole world. I'm not sure why they were (today).

The reason for their dudgeon is the protocol that exists between cricket’s governing bodies and the broadcasters that pay sizeable sums to transmit pictures and words from the matches they host, as to when and how the feed picked up by microphones embedded alongside each set of stumps can be transmitted.

Regulations not enshrined by the game’s governing body, the International Cricket Council, but loosely contained in a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ between the players and umpires in the middle, and the conduits to eyes and ears worldwide.

The understanding upon which that shaky deal is founded is that the microphones will remain open from the time a bowler begins his run-up to when the ball is deemed dead – either by coming to rest with the wicketkeeper, knocked to a fielder or crunched to the boundary.

Events that take place outside those definitive moments are fair game for the fleets of cameras positioned at every viable vantage point around, above and within the playing field, but what is said between combatants remains privileged.

The problem, increasingly, is that’s precisely what the folks who are forking out their hard earned for pay media subscriptions – along with those enjoying it via free-to-air television and radio – want to be privy to.

The juicy stuff.

The bits where players hurl witty barbs at one another, shout out each other’s nicknames repeatedly in encouragement or admonition, or air their anger and frustration when the vicissitudes of highly paid, more highly scrutinised professional sport don’t go their way.

The debate, as it evolved across the Twitter-verse and other avenues of character-restricted of social discourse, is now whether the folks who have their every working moment, mistake, success and sore spot dwelled upon and scrutinised by the boundless treatment room of experts should be granted a bit of privacy.

Or more pointedly, if the agreement reached between cricket governors and broadcast partners should not be honoured within the parameters of which it was agreed. 

As it stands, the way this plays out is an exchange that is subsequent but directly related to an instance when the ball and the microphone feed is ‘live’ takes place within the heat of battle, the broadcaster forgets or overlooks their obligation to mute the feed, and the ugly contents is dumped in public.

Raw footage, real emotions, fly-on-the-wall in the parlance of the reality entertainment age.

A breach of trust, an unfair intrusion, an imposition that most others don’t face in the workplace when engaging in robust discussions or confidential sessions in the eyes of current and former players.

To mangle that line from Voltaire’s biography which reflected his philosophy, Johnson, Harris and Starc were not so much applauding Hazlewood’s rant but defending to the hilt his right to deliver it without an audio file and accompanying transcript provided to the world. 

But in keeping with tradition, the broadcaster in charge of the feed reportedly conceded it was an error, and that it was the stump microphones should have switched to mute mode at that point of proceedings rather than the agitated fast bowler who wrongly believed he had taken a wicket.

Just like it was when Michael Clarke threatened to send James Anderson off the ‘Gabba with a ‘broken f...in’ arm’ during the 2013-14 Ashes series in Australia. 

The same mea culpa as issued at Cape Town in 2014 when South Africa’s Faf du Plessis handed the ball back to the Australian fielders while batting and later accused them of behaving "like a pack of dogs" with their subsequent reactions relayed to the world.

As was the case when Australia ‘keeper Matthew Wade let fly at New Zealand’s Grant Elliott at the height of another umpiring controversy earlier in the current tour, when an ODI at Hamilton hung in the balance.

Although today, the explanation came with an admission that the microphone feed was not cut supposedly because the broadcaster had not expected players to be wandering so close to the listening device at that moment in the Test.

Given that the microphones are strategically placed alongside the stumps at either end of the pitch, it does seem a curious location for the players to be treading during a cricket match.

Other sports don’t seem to experience these regular outbreaks of disharmony when they attempt to take the viewers and listeners into the playing sanctum.

The umpires and referees who wear microphones throughout Australian football and rugby league matches and whose interactions with players are shared unadulterated don’t appear to suffer the same creative tensions.

Although you don’t hear much of the on-field commentary that gets bandied around within scrums, brawls and coach’s debriefs where the exchanges are likely to be a little more on the robust side.

The fielders who wear microphones clipped to their shirts, the batters who have them inserted in their protective helmets, the umpires who now broadcast their video-based decisions uncensored all seem to be able to avoid getting caught in incidents for which they might be judged.

And in Hazlewood’s case, incur a financial penalty - 15 per cent of his match fee, to be precise.

But that’s probably because they know they’re wired and have reassurances that the technology won’t be used to take armchair audiences to locations where they have no place being.

And that’s precisely what got the fast bowlers cartel up in arms, via a social media call to arms, when today’s spat was laid bare.