- Global Voices - https://globalvoices.org -

Australia and New Zealand Score Big Wins in ‘St Valentine’s Day Massacre’ at Cricket World Cup

Categories: Oceania, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, Breaking News, Humor, Protest, Refugees, Sport
Cricket World Cup 2015 Australia v England

Cricket World Cup 2015 Australia v England
TV screenshot Channel 9 sport

The Cricket World Cup 2015 [1] opened on Saturday 14 February with overwhelming victories for host countries New Zealand over Sri Lanka and Australia over traditional rival England.

Image courtesy ICC Cricket World Cup Facebook page [12]

Image courtesy ICC Cricket World Cup Facebook page

Cricket is a very Twitter friendly game as there are lots of pauses in the action: between overs, dismissal of batsmen, drinks breaks, to name just a few. If you’re new to the sport, try the Beginners Guide [13].

There are many international formats including: Test matches of five days duration; ODIs (one day internationals of 50 overs per side) and Twenty20. The World Cup competition uses ODIs. For a full list of teams and fixtures, please see here [14].

Two of the popular hashtags for Australia’s first game were: #CWC15 [4] and #AUSvENG [6]. The first one could be confusing as the timing of the two games overlapped, so your social media sleuth followed the second tag for most of that game.

The thousands of tweets about the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) match fell into a number of clear categories. The majority were descriptions of the action and scores, such as those above. The next most common involved either triumph or disaster. A recurring theme amongst England supporters was the sorry state of their team and their performance:

Even the Irish and the Welsh were joining in. Irish cricketer Patrick McDonnell observed:

‘Right arm over the wicket satirer’ Welshman Matt Owen lamented:

Aussie supporters revelled in their team’s dominance:

However, some were unforgiving when it came to individual players:

Cricket commentators and celebrities were frequent targets, especially Oz cricket icon Shane Warne and the Mail Online’s Piers Morgan:

A meme soon emerged comparing England to the minor cricket nations:

There were many other attempts at wit or humour, including Matt Owen again:

There were other more serious political connections. Protesters [42] gained some support online:

There were the predictable comparisons with the government:

Finally, the Valentine’s Day meme popped up numerous times, culminating in the inevitable cliché: