My flag is bigger than yours - Inbox at Cricinfo

Now I'm as patriotic as the next man, though the next man in this case is probably serving a life sentence for high treason. Life is too complicated and fragile a thing to be carrying on your back a bagful of rocklike grievances which you solemnly unpack and hurl at anyone who questions your motherland (or fatherland, if that's your thing). But that's just me.

I'm a traitor to good old Blighty. The Barmy Army? Face-painting? Booing Shane Warne? Well, if you must, but there are few sights less attractive than a bunch of boorish drunks singing badly transposed football songs that don't scan in the general direction of a game they aren't really watching. For six hours. But I digress. And actually there is a less attractive sight than the aforementioned Englanders boiling in the Barbadian sun. It is the angry scrawl of a bile-inspired invective fired into the comments thread of a Cricinfo article.

In the past week two perfectly reasonable articles, one about the Aussie tradition of the victory song and another about the Karachi wicket, have trailed in their wake such a litany of hate and unreason, you'd have thought we were in the middle of a cricket war. Have we now reached the stage where it is not possible for members of one cricketing nation to discuss matters pertaining to another? Do we really only watch cricket to revel in the triumphs of our nation? Was George Orwell right about sport? Are we to look forward to another bout of flag-wrestling when the IPL begins and Cricinfo is deemed to be insufficiently critical/supportive?

So enough dear reader, restrain the angry patriotic beast that stirs in your breast, because like most beasts, he has no table manners, he urinates in the street and he will make you look foolish in public.

mate im a aussie and i wear my heart on my sleave. i will argue a point to my last breath for my country! i am a proud austrlian, we have a great history. isnt it better that as a poplulation of one country we take huge pride in our compatriates sporting achievments instead of religious extreamism or that of war like many other nations do? ill take the aussie way every time!

So true!
Although I enjoy reading the different comments ( more so because I have been consciously trying to understand different perspectives in all matters of life before forming an opinion although many times I am left without forming one) I do notice that at least 50% of messages seem to come from patriotic or biased perspectives. But they are also fun to read..I mean some of them are really sarcastic and funny, while the logic used in some other comments make you laugh.
To each his own, I guess.

I will stick with the good old excuse of "Cricinfo do the provocation to a certain extent".

And I agree totally with Brendan, you're writing style is awesome. Congrats and hope to see more from you!!
Writers don't seem to expand (and thus explain no ill-will meant) possibly misinterpreted comments while others seem to be deliberately keeping the door open waiting for a reaction.

However, its probably because of the internet that many of us are getting to express our opinions. I would say cricket has always been between nations and this sort of patriotism(or jingoism) must have also been always there except we see it expressed far more often nowadays.