The Aussies sell a piece of their soul

Tim de Lisle

On the field, things are going swimmingly for Australia. They are winning, Glenn McGrath is taking out top-order batsmen again, Mitchell Johnson is coming along nicely: the pieces are slotting into the Ashes jigsaw, better than England's. Off the field, though, the Aussies have just done something strange and sad.

They have struck a deal with a sponsor, Commonwealth Bank, which includes naming rights not just to their annual one-day triangular tournament for the next three years, but also to the national team. As Cricket Australia explained in a press release today, "The one-day competition will be known as the 'Commonwealth Bank Series', and the Australian team known as the 'Commonwealth Bank one-day international team'."

You can sell a lot of things in sport without losing much – boundary hoardings, canopies on drinks buggies, ad space on bats – but there are some things you cannot sell, and the name of the team is one of them. Fans won't see the Australian team as the Commonwealth Bank one-day international team. It's a hideous mouthful, and they already have one of those in the shape of the meat pies they chomp on as the twilight descends.

But more importantly, this is a national team. It's not supposed to be for sale. If you are an Australian fan working for a rival bank, how are you supposed to feel about this? A national team is for everyone. It doesn't line up with one company against another, any more than it should favour one state over another. Part of its job is to transcend petty rivalries, and replace them with bigger ones, like a loathing of the Poms.

Beggars can't be choosers, but Cricket Australia is no beggar: it's rich beyond the dreams of Bradman. It pays its senior players a million dollars a year. It can afford to have standards. It has a longstanding relationshp with Commonwealth Bank, which has been involved with the national academy for 20 years. That relationship should be able to accommodate a polite but firm no.

In practice, fans are not going to use the new name, any more than England supporters would say to each other "You going to the Brit Oval Test?". No self-respecting Aussie supporter will wander into a mate's front room, see the telly on and say, so how many do the Commonwealth Bank one-day international team need? Off how many overs?

Cricket Australia will no doubt put pressure on the media to use the new name, but if the media agree, they will look ridiculous ("Mike Hussey yet again came to the rescue of the Commonwealth Bank one-day international team at the Gabba last night…"). And although the players are usually forced to comply with sponsors' demands, obediently swapping their Baggy Greens for logo-bearing baseball caps when it's time for a TV interview, it's hard to see the likes of Johnson telling Channel 9 that it has always been their dream to play for the Commonwealth Bank.

The Aussies are not alone in being feeble about drawing the line with sponsors. It's a worldwide epidemic. The England team have the logo of a mobile-phone company on their shirts, which demeans and diminishes them. Pakistan promote Pepsi, encouraging kids to drink even more of something that's neither natural nor good for them. West Indies achieve a similar effect by promoting KFC. Even the football world, which is grimly greedy in many respects, doesn't allow its national teams to do that.

What the Australian board have done here is to sell a piece of their soul. The press release is headed, "A new day for Australian cricket". It ought to say "A black day for Australian cricket."