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

Lionel Messi never dives

Richard Hadlee makes Ian Botham look like a piece of cheese holding a cricket bat

From the team hotel, walk just a few blocks towards the Tasman bridge and you’ll suddenly be out of the city and amongst greenery and trees on the Domain. There’s parrots in the trees, a reasonably priced cafe, and plenty of room to stretch the hammies and forget all about cricketers with the ability to run pain-free and the “how’s that!” and the “how’s the leg?” Fuck those guys.

From there, it’s a short walk to Sullivan’s Cove, and the sights and sounds of the docks. The shipping activity and the colourful characters means great people watching, and the chance to just melt into the crowd and be just another guy with a beard and a sad, sad story. I had a great night sampling 19 or so of the local whiskeys, and singing sea shanties with fishermen in the streets. They loved my ‘Quint from Jaws’ impression!

The day after, I recommend getting up early and exploring the streetlife and cafe scene of Salamanca. The Machine Laundry Cafe does a fantastic Eggs Benne, the service is fast and friendly and a bit slow on the uptake spotting the old ‘mini bar vodka in the tomato juice’ trick, happy days! I spent a very happy morning there trying not to look at cricinfo on my phone.

Don’t miss the Cadbury Chocolate Factory, with a fascinating tour. You can learn about how your favourite chocolate bars are made. The staff are knowledgeable and friendly, and know how to handle a weeping professional athlete on a self-destructive Violet Crumble eating binge with both professionalism and understanding. Visitors also receive a chocolate treat.

I’d recommend Hobart as a relaxing place to visit – aimlessly walking about a strange city for five days was a great way to deaden the pain of being injured while NZ won our first test on Australian soil since 1985. Hobart’s charms and character meant I could forget about those niggling concerns that the selectors reckon a four seam attack is the way to go long term for the moment. Happy travels everyone!

“The guys needed to talk about what went wrong and take responsibility for the defeat,” said Wright. “They didn’t even take responsibility for talking about cricket for 25 minutes.”

Captain Ross Taylor said “The boys were pretty upset after the match, and had a lot to get off their chests. Then Marty reckoned the internet reckoned we should work on our hand-eye co-ordination, so we plugged in the XBox. We made Dan take a break after a while, he was shooting his own guys in the face the whole time and laughing really, really loudly. Apart from that, it was good.”

Other Black Caps news:

Opener Brendan McCallum requested to be dropped off the team bus a few hundred metres from the ground, saying nothing was wrong, but he just wanted to walk the last bit by himself.

Taylor’s experimental running-between-wickets ‘Yeah, nah’ call has been abandoned.

As a leader of men, Taylor doesn’t seem the most natural, more Kim Hughes than Steve Waugh. Going for the softly-spoken, lead-by-slogging-everything-to-square-leg Taylor, as opposed to the confident, lead-by-telling-everyone-what-to-fucking-do McCullum, the Black Caps are handing even more power to coach John Wright. He’s our guy though, and he deserves a decent go – let’s see what happens.

New Black Caps captain Ross Taylor remembers mid-presser that he’d forgotten to change his bizarre-arse Twitter avatar

TV One took the chance to rake some mud, in one of the crappiest pieces of journalism in a long time according to Twitter’s Richard Boock (I agree). Reporter Anthony Stevens told shocked TV One viewers killing time until Coro comes on that Brendon McCullum was part of the Black Caps’ ‘drinking’ ‘culture’, ‘enjoyed’ by 70% of the team and that the pisshead faction wanted McCullum as captain. I bet they do – after all, it’s every young Kiwi male’s dream to one day grow up to be a Black Cap and spend long rainy days on tour in the subcontinent drinking duty free Tia Maria and playing cards. What effect the puritanical Taylor will have on this out of control alcohol abuse is unknown – maybe they’ll just  play cricket better and that. Imagine.

Everyone’s next question was ‘who’s going to be vice-captain? Brendon McCullum was no-where to be seen, texting the TV One reporter that he needed time to collect his thoughts. If we don’t take the obvious candidate, maybe we should cast the net wider – really get some Bracewell-style outside the box thinking going.

Anyway. In rugby, the Hurricanes two signed off in a fitting manner – Nonu, criticised for his tendency to pick up yellow cards, put in a heavy should charge on Dan Carter, while Hore, criticised for his drinking, drank a beer on the field. Right.

And sportreview favourite Stephen Donald has been put out of his All Black misery, clearing the way for a one way ticket to England. Henry said: “Difficult obviously because he’s been a very positive member of that group for some time. He’s a great guy to have in the team. Hugely well organised at training. We just think there are other people playing better right now.” Fair enough – go well Stephen.

The Black Caps showed they were prepared to win ugly; make no mistake, this was an ugly win, possibly up to full Ricky level on the sportreview.net.nz Ugly-ometer:

Ugly scales up from L-R

For this match, sportreview.net.nz made the rare effort to actually review some sport, sacrificing time that could have been spent unconscious to stay awake and watch the entire Black Caps innings. Bono would have done a better job of opening the batting than McCullum in this match – our new tactic of building a platform for wickets-in-hand fireworks later in the innings means McCullum now bats at entirely the wrong end of the line up – sort it out! Taylor and Ryder played it safe to get us a reasonable total, but traditional one day tactics dictate the  ‘accumulation’ period usually lasts between overs 18 and 35. New Zealand’s accumulation period may be still going – it was an innings best described as ‘gelatinous’, but, on a pitch more dry and dusty than 48 hours in a Koru Lounge with Phil Goff, it would do. Then this happened:

In the cricketing equivalent of that Australian schoolkid chucking that bully about, the Black Caps surrounded Du Plessis, who’d just run out the competent De Villiers like schoolboys around a well worn copy of Playboy to let him know he’d fucked up, if he hadn’t worked it out already. The ensuing fracas lead to fines and bad examples for youngsters watching. Let’s have a look at the Black Caps’ crimes in slow motion:

Stryris and Vettori attempt to manoeuvre Du Plessis into training ground set-piece move ‘Black Cap sandwich’. 12th man Kyle Mills, who was just passing by, helpfully offers the South African a drink. Of choke-a-cola.

Du Plessis shoves Mills, in the process setting the game back years in the vital USA market, because nothing looks as ‘wussy’ as when cricketers fight, not even cyclists. Vettori tries to rescue the situation by telling Du Plessis to use his bat at least.

Ross Taylor, in his role as aspirant captain comes in to show his angry face to precisely zero effect, while Southee shows his growing maturity by clapping in an insincere manner. A garden gnome (in red) tries to restore order.

Styris and Du Plessis are nominated to kiss and make up on behalf of the sides by their captains, and play resumes.

Did the Safas choke? Well, a little bit. Maybe. But, they came up against a New Zealand team that discovered their self belief down the back of the couch, and used it to turn the heat on South Africa like Gordon Ramsay with a knife in each hand and sand in his undies; Stephen Fleming would have been proud.

For choking students, this match closely resembled the All Blacks’ loss to France in the 1999 rugby world cup semi final – decent team, handy lead, a few signs of life from the opposition, then folding like a cheap card table. Hard to take for the Proteas and to be honest, Kiwi sports fans should wait for the All Blacks’ next world cup performance (which is happening soon I hear) before throwing too much shit their way.

I was very pleased for Jacob Oram, who took some vital wickets and a stonking catch – he showed exactly how much we’ve missed him over the years, and how people who’ve criticised his place in the team are cocks.

Like much of the country I imagine, I went to bed after the first innings and awoke to a big surprise, roughly equivalent to a horse’s head in the bed. Considering our form going into this tournament, and the stumbles along the way, we can be very pleased with making the semis, especially as we knocked over a proper big team in the quarters to get there. Sri Lanka at home will be tough, but fuck it. Bring it on.

If you’ve made it this far, here’s more quarter final coverage, that’s better than what you’ve just read, to be honest:

The C-word – crucket.co.nz (check out the awesome comment on this post!)

Andy Bull’s Guardian sport blog

The Outside Edge – still pinching myself

How much fun was it? Cricket is the perfect sport for This Kind Of Thing, not too much physical exertion for the oldies, and lots of space in between the action for farking about. Plus Adam Parore got hit with a bouncer while being a cock. That was a highlight.

Some of these guys could still be playing for the Black Caps. The Greatbach / Astle partnership in particular was as smooth and brutal as a gang fight in a butter factory. That said, the years haven’t been kind to Gavin Larsen’s bowling. Nor Sir Richard’s, who doesn’t play a lot these days, unlike Ewan Chatfield, who still turns out for his club “if they haven’t got enough players.” Bless. Tana Umaga, though, that guy could play for the Black Caps *now*. As could bloody Marc Ellis.

You there! This is what your hair looks like!

Subtle Rexona product placement.

Our PM smiled and waved a bat at Shane Warne’s friendly bowling, but good god; as a nation, we need to improve our banter. Ben Hurley struggled manfully to lift the standard, but John Key – is “Liz says Hi” the best you can do? It’s hardly “I can smell the uranium on your breath” is it? It doesn’t even make sense. Warne showed us how it was done with an offhand and off color crack about the TradeMe prize winner’s wife – the crowd went quiet as they tried to work it out. Warne’s a great sport, we couldn’t have asked for a better heavily botox-ed pantomime villain for this event. He needs to bowl his underarms a bit straighter though.

The whole day, complete with the perfect venue and rugby and Hobbit luminaries, was a raging success, not to mention a tribute to Stephen Fleming’s mana, determination and political and organisational skill. Surely there’s a role for him somewhere in the national setup in the near future?

I do have two grumbles – the TAB made their beachhead in the nation’s living rooms even bigger with their guy Mark Stafford doing much of the TV interviewing. He may be able to ask softball questions OK, but do you want or accept Goldstein or the Marlboro Man doing the same? I don’t, and I don’t see the difference. And, Ian Smith’s mean-spirited, un-funny comment about Geoff Allott still bothers me. Fuck off Ian Smith, you dreary know-all bore.

In fact, if we grasp at straws hard enough and link Taylor’s innings and Irish legend Kevin O’Brien’s knock against England, we can call this the ‘berserker’ tactic. The equivalent of rugby’s ’99′ call, berserker use in cricket is a huge opportunity, and we could see soon teams sending their 12th man sprinting on with a bat in each hand to threaten the fielding side, in a move sure to be labelled the ‘Bracewell’.

The berserker – the future of cricket, or Graeme Smith relaxing in his hotel post-match?

Of course, after Pakistan’s Akmal let a golden Taylor chance go gleefully between himself and first slip, before clearing up any lingering doubt about his suitability to be an international ‘keeper by dropping Taylor all by himself, Some People On The Internet claimed ‘match fixing’. sportreview.net.nz can exclusively reveal the only ‘fixing’ of the tournament so far occurred when the Black Caps played Zimbabwe and everyone had their bollocks chopped off.

But these are early days in this 18 month long tournament, and we’re yet to see a clear favorite emerge. England have been the entertainers so far, losing to Ireland, tying with India, and facilitating a South African choke. You know that when you’re among Englishmen behaving weirdly and South Africans choking, you’re not in a Brixton nightclub but a cricket world cup, team.

Predictions at this stage: Vettori to struggle on manfully despite losing one or more limbs in the Sri Lanka match; Kyle Mills to put his hand up for berserker role, claiming he’s been doing it for years already; England to default match against West Indies, missing the toss and circling the ground in a double decker bus instead while blasting the Benny Hill show theme; and sportreview.net.nz to start watching a cricket world cup match and managing to stay up past the tenth over, in the prediction least likely to occur. Of course, in other sporting news:

Predictably, our sporting media found Jesse Ryder’s waste of time tweet while fucking about on the internet researching the issues of the day, and created a ‘mediashitstorm‘. Mediashitstorm* is defined in the Oxford Feckin Massive Dictionary All Journalists Are Contractually Obliged To Keep On Their Desks as a media-enabled variation of storm in a team cup, surrounded by a veil of shit, disguising the fact there’s not actually a story in the cup. Those in the Black Caps’ communications department can thank their lucky stars Critter Twitter was not around in years gone by:

The most glaring absentee from the Black Caps’ Twitterati is Dan Vettori, who claimed at a press conference ‘he wasn’t a narcissist like Styris‘. sportreview.net.nz can reveal Vettori instead uses ‘Vetter’, an extremely exclusive social networking site for those that understand the pressures of being captain, selector, coach and extremely exclusive social networking site administrator, where he happily ‘Veets’ about his breakfast most days.

Perhaps the most interesting thing to come out of all this Creeting Tweeting is that international cricketers put their trousers on one leg at a time, and get paid out by the missus, same as the rest of us.

“Mate, there was no-one else around for us to smash over or coathanger. Next thing, the geogrpahy field trip we saw in the carpark turned out to be the Kiwi cricket team! Har! Whatever,” said Saints halfback Jarryn Geary. “McCullum was talking himself  up, reckoned he was ‘targeting’ one or two of the boys. After the first hit, though, he mumbled something about ‘IPL’ and ‘insurance’ and farked off. Spent the rest of the session talking to our kit guy about tattoos.”

Saints captain Nick Riewoldt was equally scathing of McCullum’s performance: “Don’t reckon he’ll be a factor in the world cup. Do they have ‘you must be this high to ride’ in India? Harhaharharharhar.” Asked to rate the Black Caps’ chances in the upcoming world cup, Riewoldt said they’d need to work on their footwork and shot selection. Asked if any Black Caps could make it as Aussie Rules players, Riewoldt replied “Nah.”

New Black Caps coach John Wright was seen walking the boundary moaning softly for much of the tackle session.