I’ve taken the family to the beach for a holiday and, in the absence of a Sky decoder, I’ve missed the Chiefs, Tottenham and Black Cap defeats, all of which came about in creative and disappointing fashions, according to their own individual circumstances. On the bright side, I have caught fish:
The highlight of my sporting week.
The South Africans are here, and after Martin Guptill tried to redecorate the upper reaches of the Cake Tin using his bat and the South African bowling attack in the first T20, things were looking up. Of any of the top teams in world cricket, we must fancy ourselves against the Proteas – they’re good but mentally flaky, kind of like the All Blacks were.
So it’s a shame we totally rolled over in Hamilton and Auckland. Seddon Park, like Hamilton night life, is packed with delights and dangers. The small boundaries mean you can rack up a big score in no time, but if your bowling attack is not on its game, you’re going to struggle. And we did. It’s rare that I agree with Ian Smith on anything, but yes, what could Southee have possibly said to Richard Levi, while he casually smacked the fastest T20 century ever. “Har, you totally missed my car”? Ahem.
Auckland, on the other hand, was special. To say we had it in the bag is like saying Graeme Smith isn’t very funny. Yes, Jesse took his foot off the gas when it mattered, but our other batsmen were guilty of playing shots that were, to borrow a phrase from Wisden, fucking stupid. It’s only T20, but if we’re looking to build and hang on to momentum, we should have won from there and made it look easy. It’d be great if we could back up the Black Caps’ reported sledging by being good at cricket. The worst part of the defeat for me was watching the news the next day and seeing Graeme Smith, Dale Steyn and Jacques Kallis sifting around the team hotel – now we have to beat SA with those guys in the team too. I’m still looking forward to these tests, but.
Because I’m on holiday, and because I haven’t been blogging much, here’s some links to keep you going:
Hadyn also picked up on the greatest rugby story ever written
Bill Murray hangs out with sports people – photo gallery with mostly golfers and basketballers
Richard Hadlee makes Ian Botham look like a piece of cheese holding a cricket bat
