To boo or not to boo?

At Edgbaston, a section of the crowd booed Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain. Was this cricket? Maybe not, but was this acceptable? After all, this was not just any old cricket match, this was a match in an Ashes series - which ranks among the most fiercely fought sporting contests in the world. And that is bound to produce partisanship. The problem is that cricket traditionally prides itself on gentlemanly behaviour - hence the expression "it's not cricket". But cricket in the last few years has undergone a revolution in an attempt to become more relevant to the ordinary man in the street, and if you're going to attract the man in the street, then you have to accept his way of doing things. As somebody wisely said the other day, in cricket the spectator is giving way to the supporter. So whether we like it or not, it is inevitable that cricket crowds will start to behave more like football crowds.