Category: cricket

Links on Friday

Roy Keane scares the living shit out of a press gallery. He’s just doing it for fun now.

Steve Waugh, another scary look master, makes direct contact with batsman’s head using a ball. Watch it in slo mo, look how QUICKLY he gets over causing harm to his opponent, and instead, gets into pissed-off, hands-on-fucking-hips stance. You could tell early he was destined for Australian captaincy greatness, this one.

Required reading: Bike Snob NYC takes down ‘fixie’ ‘riding’, ‘cockle’ ‘eating’, ’boutique’ ‘beer’ ‘drinking’ Brooklyn hipsters with the cool calm brutal accuracy of John Wayne nailing a prowler’s nuts with his foot.

Chris Waddle was a Tottenham hero, and much like sportreview at subfootball, has still got it.

Kicking 2009 when it’s down

Doing a half-arsed wrap up of the year is becoming a tradition here on sportreview – here’s 2009.

If there was one week that summed up 2009 for me, it was seeing the All Blacks *cook* with Italy’s Next Top Model contestants in Milan in the most embarrassing and wooden photo op since Don Brash walked the plank, before our second string players participated in a shitty, shitty match at the San Siro, deeply marred by some shocking officiating from an experienced ref trying to enforce god knows what version of the rulebook is on top of the pile. Any Italians unfamiliar with Rugby watching the match would have found the oval ball code as appealing as toenail ravioli.

Earlier that day, New Zealand qualified for the Football World Cup in front of a crowd wholeheartedly supporting their team.

I don’t want to get into a Rugby v Football debate (although I think the nation’s office kitchens are going to be ringing with that mid year), but I really wish the first of these scenarios was more like the second – clear rules, supporting and having fun, and winning. That would do nicely.

Here’s my year, in sport, in sportreview.net.nz and for me.

2009: big sport stuff

All Whites making the World Cup finals
All of a sudden it’s 1982 again. I’m sure I’m not the only one who this qualification kind of sneaked up on. I wasn’t paying that close attention to the qualifiers, and then suddenly we were two games away, and the whole country was going All Whites crazy and calling it ‘Football’. Wonders never cease. For a country used to grim, po-faced ‘support’ of its Rugby heroes, where Grizz Wylie’s statuesque pose when watching matches is seen as a model for manhood everywhere, not, perhaps more appropriately, something to lean on to keep warm, the Latin explosion of noise and color in the Caketin that night could change our country’s sporting landscape forever. Could. Anyway. We really have something to look forward to this year. Leg Break or ‘lucky git’ as he’s known around here, will be our man in the Guardian’s Fan thingo.

Black Caps
Can’t I just skip this? Andy Moles was out faster than a sneaky fart in a meeting room, and suddenly Dan is player, captain, coach, selector and god knows what else – we would be deeply fucked if we lost him at the moment. We got a little taste of how un-fucked we are without Shane Bond in Dunedin before going back to being just fucked without him.  Everything in my July 2008 Black Caps coach application still applies – we need two things – 1. John Wright and 2. a plan.

Chiefs make the Super 14 Final
Not sure how they got on after that, ah har har

The All Blacks.
We’re still South Africa’s bitches, but how long they can continue a coaching panel the equivalent of a Benny Hill chase scene, I don’t know. I only got to one match, the bitter bitter disappointment in Hamilton. NZ’s other national sport of kicking the All Blacks when they’re down is still alive and well. To me, there wasn’t a lot of difference between the way we played on the end of year tour and in the Tri Nations, it’s just we executed better, and playing against poorer quality sides up north would have helped. It’s still not going well, though, is it? The All Blacks’ 2011 preparations (and make no mistake, it’s ALL about 2011) is still in the ‘Hey! Let’s build a waterfront stadium!’ phase. Must try harder.

New Zealand cyclists kick the world’s arse
New Zealand cyclists had 15 world titles this year, and just this week, up and comer Jack Bauer outsprinted Tour De France riders Hayden Roulston and Julian Dean to win the national Road Race title. We’ve got cycling talent coming out our ears, and it’s looking all on on the track and the road for the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics. Pro wise, this year’s Tour De France should be a ripper, with Alberto v Lance and the new Brit Sky team. Can’t wait.

2009: sportreview.net.nz related highlights

Stalkipedia
I really enjoyed putting this together, there’s some great stuff in here, but NOT ENOUGH! I’m still accepting stalks team.

L&P take down
I wish more companies would piss me off so I could do This Kind Of Thing more often.

Podcasting
This is a lot of fun, and something I’m keen to do more of, if I can find a decent place to record them. The fist few have a certain charm, but the French preview one is where it hits its stride

The Herald showed some love

I won a copy of JRod’s first book

Best 2009 posts: Bowling through Wexford, Dan drops himself, Fight Club Duos, Keith Quinn on Twitter, Rattue joins the All Blacks, Tua / Cameron fight move, Bloggers at the Basin,

Best 2009 cartoons: Player Power, Dingo + shark, SuperDobbers, 18 and life to go,

Tech Talk with Phil Waugh – secretly probably my favorite thing I’ve done all year. Too weird?

2009: Rocking my world

Getting MySky
I CANNOT emphasise enough how much arse MySky kicks. Having long sent the VCR to the downstairs storage of doom, the ability to quickly ‘tape’ anything on a whim has changed my and sportreviewloveinterest’s lives. As a sport blogger, this means I can actually WATCH SPORT again – imagine that! It also means I can fast forward through the weather for the South Island – this makes me very happy indeed.

Starting a tumblr is a pretty low hassle way to make a neat site, and a great way to find new links and photos.

New Bike – conquered some sweet hills on this already.

Top 5 tracks in last.fm
1. The Kinks – This Time Tomorrow
2. Beck – Sing It Again
3. Ben Kweller – Thirteen
4. Harry Nilsson – Turn On Your Radio
5. The Velvet Underground – I Found a Reason

Film
In The Loop, Avatar 3D. I didn’t see many movies released in 2009 this year.

Books
Pathetic effort reading wise this year, due to watching too much iPod TV on the bus. I loved White Teeth and Cannery Row, while Man In Full made me very frustrated. Sport-wise, it was Summer 0f 49 and Tana‘s Up Close, continuing the All Black tradition of mildly revelatory bios after they’re safely retired.

So, another year down. I hope you all are enjoying the site, I really enjoy your comments and having some larfs, especially on the twitter. My personal sporting highpoint this year is watching sportreview jr, who’s 19 months now, kick a ball – he hits it hard. He’s going to break the back of some poor unsuspecting net one day.

Related: best of 2008, best of 2006 one, two

Our motivation? Pissing everyone in the world off – Ponting

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NEWSDESK: Annoying every man, woman and child on the planet was all the motivation Ricky Ponting’s players needed to complete their 36 run win over Pakistan in Sydney. “I told the boys we’ve got a great chance of pissing off everyone in the world if we got those wickets, a great chance,’ said Ponting. “I bet there’s a whole lot of blokes in Laos really fucked off with us right now – we’ll all be laughing about that in the bar tonight!”

Offspinner Nathan Hauritz, who pissed off Johannesburg, large parts of Ethiopia and the Maldives with his five wicket bag in Pakistan’s final innings was unrepentant. “Everyone likes to see us lose, but that’s tough. I used the tear stained faces of Cricket mad kids in India to help get us home. Damn, it feels good.”

“Those ‘blogging from their parents’ basement’ fucks on the internet helped me get a ton,” said Michael Hussey, who was voted “Number One Most Unpopular And Dastardly Man” in a Columbian website poll on Wednesday night. Hussey added he was thinking of changing his ‘Mr Cricket’ nickname to ‘Mr Suck My Balls’.

Several of the world’s leaders registered their disapproval on behalf of their nations: “Nothing unites the world like seeing Australia lose at Cricket,” said French Premier Nicolas Sarkozy, who watched the last few overs. “I hate seeing those smarmy fucks jumping around when they win. Carla is inconsolable.” Sarkozy confirmed he would instruct Parisian waiters to be ruder than usual to any Australian tourists this weekend.

ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat said he deeply regretted the Australian win; “Here we are trying to grow our game and those frickin Australians go and annoy the piss out of everyone. I was on the phone to the IOC panel and most of Belgium this morning to make amends.”

While global annoyance levels for this match weren’t at the all time highs of The Great Plague or England’s Adelaide collapse, Lorgat warned that we were due for a big one. “Just imagine if this was New Zealand with a test or even series win in their grasp, before being cruelly pegged back by those Baggy Green douchebags. Actually, having thought about it, we’re all pretty much fucked.”

Don’t steal this book

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Cricket With Balls’ Jarrod Kimber has already given the world one book, and now he’s turned the 2009 Ashes series into another – Ashes 2009: When Freddie Became Jesus.

Jarrod is well on his way to achieving his goal of being a Proper Cricket Writer. Obviously he’s writing about Cricket now, and bringing more filthy language and sex to the old game than an Ian Botham trip around the West Indies, but the thing I admire (as I’ve covered before) is that he’s fucking out there doing it. He’s moved halfway around the world to live in London, covered the Ashes from the couch, the grounds and the press box in fine style on the site, and he now has book on Amazon only a couple of months after stumps were drawn.

That’s good going. Here’s an excerpt. The Black Caps’ favorite blogger and premature retiree Ian O’Brien even gets to write a bit. You should really buy one.

Bowling through Wexford

Sportsfreak is giving away a copy of Bowling Through India, a fantastic (by all accounts) yarn about five Cricket mad mates tripping around India. Here’s my sporting trip write-up:

In my first job in Dublin, I met a guy called Patrick, who was a keen cricketer, he played for a Dun Laoghaire pub team. I mentioned I had played a bit, and was keen for a game.

I got the call up one Friday evening – Patrick’s team was a bunch of keen sportsmen, probably Rugby or Hurling players who were more enthusiastic than skilled Cricketers. At 28, I was the youngest there by at least five years. They had a great time playing, though, and the Craic, as they say over there, was excellent.

I eventually got my couple of overs, and took a couple of wickets. My military medium out swingers were a lot faster than anyone else in the team – I was basically Malcolm Marshall at this point. Second innings, they threw me up the order, assuming I could bat, too, but I was run out on my wildly over ambitious call, after swinging far too hard at my first couple.

Still, they told me in the pub that the next weekend they were off to Wexford for the end of season tour match – did I fancy coming along? Fuck yeah I fancied it.

Next Saturday morning the weather dawned grim, but as Patrick and I took the train to Booterstown to meet our ride, I was assured it didn’t matter. We were picked up by a guy whose nickname was Elton, as he was the dead spit of Mr Reginald Dwight. He didn’t seem to mind.

We pitched up at the Rugby and Cricket club to find it was pretty wet – but we shambled out anyway, and had a few overs, as we were there. I got to bowl, but couldn’t repeat any wicket taking.

Still, from there it was into the clubrooms, for pints and speeches. No-one seemed too bothered about the game. The hospitality was fantastic and soon we were all having a great time. After three or four, I found myself on the pool table, playing the local pool shark. Someone mentioned he hadn’t been beat in a couple of years, I could see why, he soon had me pretty much fucked. Somehow, though, I managed to reach that rare, fluid state of zen concentration only experienced by very stoned playstation players, or pissed pool players, and started potting. My team mates were hugely encouraged – if we couldn’t win at Cricket, pool would do.

I could hear whispers of “Look at the Kiwi”, “G’wan” etc. Eventually, I had only one and the black left – I potted the color and sauntered down the other end with a big, premature, shit-eating grin for my shot at the black, which was hovering nicely next to a pocket. Being a cocky shit, I went for the heroic off the side shot, instead of the straight down the middle, make sure of it one – and missed. The chaps were crestfallen, and I felt like a big dick.

Next, it was back to the hotel for a steak and more pints. I’d only been in Dublin four months or so, and was still drinking Guinness exclusively. I mean, the Guinness in Ireland is very, very nice, but it doesn’t half fill you up. We all put cash into a kitty for drinks, and our Captain had sorted out a steady flow of rounds to the table – most convivial. I spent most of the meal talking, and when we got the ‘leaving in ten’ call, I turned around:

“Whose are those four untouched pints of Guinness there?”

“Yours.”

Not the answer I was looking for, to be honest.

Pints downed, it was into the taxi and straight to the nightclub. Did I mention I was the youngest one there? My team had some serious capacity for drink and staying power in a night club situation. I was pretty hammered by now, and spent the rest of the night flailing around the dance floor in what I hoped was an interesting way. The chaps bought a succession of women over to chat – touchingly,they’d made it their personal mission to find love for me with the ladies of Wexford.

One was delighted I was from New Zealand, and told me she watched NZ’s own Shortland Street, the greatest soap in the world*, everyday.

“What’s the name of that doctor, that dark haired, handsome one?”

“Johnny Marinovich?”

Her voice dropped an octave.

“Say it again“.

The Kiwi accent strikes again.

I woke up the next morning, alone, except for room mate Willie. Willie and me eventually made it to the breakfast, a fry up (surprise, surprise). Willie was an old pro at this kind of thing, and  told me he would wolf this down, have a quick “Tom Kite” (I had to ask what this was; cockney rhyming slang for a Shite) and go back to bed until the Grand Prix came on. Check out times are a bit different over there.

That’s about it really. These guys were welcoming, hospitable and a real hoot. I went on to play Cricket at Rathmine’s Leinster Cricket Club the next season, but we stayed in touch and I was lucky enough to meet up with them again for a France v Ireland match at Lansdowne Road, after which I got about as drunk as I’ve ever been, full stop. Later still, I went with Willie and ‘Rasher’ to Rome to see Ireland play Italy in the Six Nations. I have now seen every Irish pub in the eternal city. It all worked out pretty well.

*Just kidding, it’s shit.

NZ’s sporting JFK moments

The Guardian has a list of six JFK moments, the ones so significant that the where-you-were and the who-you-were-with is tattooed (JFK moments are often painful) permanently on your brain.

So what are New Zealand sport’s JFK moments? Here’s a few to get started, and where I was at the time; get into the comments and tell me what I’ve missed.

1930 Phar Lap wins the Melbourne Cup – not born

1956 All Blacks beat South Africa: “I’m absolutely buggered!” – not born

1960 – Peter Snell wins in Rome – as above

1983 Graham Thorne presents the Cricket from Australia with a perm – watching sportreview sr. pissing himself laughing, not fully understanding what a girlyman ex-All Black Thorne was making of himself on the national box with this unexpected, bold hairstyle choice

1985 Coney and Chatfield hold out Pakistan at Carisbrook – bouncing up and down on the couch in Hamilton, about as excited as a 12 year old could be

1995 “The America’s Cup is now New Zealand’s cup” – down at the Viaduct, in its pre-Viaduct incarnation at 8am on a Sunday morning, with half of Auckland, seemingly

1999 The greatest fucking Rugby comeback of all time – in a Cricklewood flat in cloud of stunned silence with a mate. We didn’t go to the pub to watch, assuming we’d be there next week for the final. I’d spent about eight months talking the All Blacks and their ‘fast, mobile’ pack up to work colleagues. The croissant on my desk on Monday bought a lump to my throat

2006 Tana Umanga’s handbag goes for twenty odd grand on TradeMe – at my desk, head in hands, rocking gently back and forth