KEY POINTS:
It's hard to please some people. If we're not bagging our sportsmen and women for lacking a killer instinct, we're kicking the living tripe out of them for lacking compassion.
One moment we're accusing them of being too laid back about competition, too apathetic about being No 1, and - in stark contrast to our apparently more switched-on Aussie cousins - too nice to be winners.
The next we're savaging them for their ruthlessness and lack of heart; portraying them in the same sort of light that we normally reserve for embezzlers, purse-snatchers and shonky cars salesmen.
And this is when we win.
Goodness knows what would have happened if Brendon McCullum - working on some obscure interpretation of the "spirit of the game" - had refused to run out the brain-dead Muttiah Muralitharan on Saturday and New Zealand had lost.
You can just imagine the invective raining down today if the New Zealand players had emerged from the opening test at Christchurch as, not winners, but as thoroughly good sports.
Such good chaps, in fact, that - for the sake of a few feel-good warm-fuzzies - they were prepared to concede a compelling advantage, put their careers and livelihoods at risk, and downgrade the importance of their product.
Talk about becoming the laughing-stock of world sport.
There is room for a spirit within the game but the circumstances surrounding Murali's run-out are no more relevant to that concept than the idea of players not walking, or making unjustified appeals.
The day Muralitharan stops demanding spurious lbw and bat-pad decisions, or when Sanath Jayasuriya trudges off without waiting, is the day that captain Stephen Fleming, McCullum and others can consider not running out idiots.
And quite why McCullum is getting it in the neck is a particular mystery.
The hard-working wicket-keeper couldn't be expected to know what was on Murali's mind when the batsman went for his suicide walk, given that all his attention would've been on the return throw from the boundary.
Even if McCullum did suspect the Sri Lankan was not attempting a run, it was not up to him to make an executive decision on behalf of his team; surely that duty would always lie with Fleming.
In fact, if the little gloveman had opted against lifting the bails, he would have almost certainly copped it in shovel-loads from Fleming and his team-mates, on whose behalf he was potentially risking all.
And that's not even mentioning the sometimes outspoken New Zealand coach John Bracewell.
There have been claims that the New Zealanders' actions on Saturday were against the spirit of the game, as if there were a specific list of dos and don'ts that can be memorised and recited like the alphabet.
The reality is that there are sometimes opportunities to embrace an interpretation of the spirit of the game, and to show that there are some things in sport that mean more than the result.
It's true, if Fleming had wished to revert to the amateur customs of the early 1950s he could have recalled Murali, but it would have been out of step in today's professional environment, and inconsistent with normal practice.
What he did was what almost every competitive cricketer would do in a similar situation, including each and every one of our former players-turned-media-commentators, most of whom condemned the decision.
As it was, the only possible reprieve for Murali could have come from umpire Brian Jerling, who appeared to realise the batsman wasn't attempting a run when he gestured for him to get back, and as such could have deemed the ball dead.
But, as the ball had only just been launched on its flight path when the Sri Lankan went walkabout, it would have been a bold call in the extreme.
Jerling had to call it out, because it was out. Nothing more, nothing less.
