Are Cricket Australia really taking the fun out of the Ashes?
For over a decade England’s Barmy Army have made their presence felt in every corner of the cricketing globe. From Mumbai to Cape Town to Dhaka, they have donned a range of garish outfits to sing and drink and generally let England’s players know that, even if the performance was awful (and it often has been), they could always fall back on an unstinting support. Until now. After a day thick with recriminations over alleged heavy-handed treatment of English supporters from Gabba security guards, Barmy Army founder Paul Burnham has threatened to scrap the group’s tour of Australia. A number of fans were evicted from the stadium on day one, including the Army’s official trumpet player, Billy Cooper, and Burnham was furious to see supporters being “treated like school children”. “We are waiting to see how it develops before giving advice to people coming over [from England] for the Sydney and Melbourne Tests,” said Burnham when asked about the Army’s plans for the rest of the tour. He was
