cricket – Page 7 – sportreview.net.nz

Sonny and Chur

The Black Caps’ West Indian tours has been somewhat challenging so far. Difficult country to tour. Upheaval in the coaching staff. Multiple injuries. A mixture of jaded old pros and inexperienced youngsters. If the guys aren’t careful, it has all the hallmarks of going full Cairns / Paroroe / Turner.

The Black Caps arrive in the West Indies looking forward to playing some decent cricket.

Ross Taylor receives the latest injury report from medical staff.

Brendon McCallum answers the cry for back up.

John Wright sits the boys down for a bit of a motivational talk.

As I write this, the Black Caps are putting together a decent bowling performance to win the third one-dayer. The West Indies are no one-man team, but Chris Gayle is the key. He can cheerfully take our attack to bits and make it look depressingly easy. We need to get him and get him early – on paper, there’s no reason why our patched-up team can’t beat the West Indies, even at home. Of course, things written on bits of paper are faily meaningless when you’re being carted to all parts of the ground, and have to share your sweltering hotel room with an overly-enthusiastic calypso band. Let’s hope our guys can push on from here.

Back home, there’s now two options for central Auckland test cricket venues. This new one is a stone’s throw from the old one, part of proposed development for the tank farm. There’s no doubt the concept photos are spectacular, and its right-beside-the-water-ness would give Auckland a central city sporting venue at last. It would be great if the Victoria Park and Waterfront groups can work together to make sure this happens in some fashion, and the test-cricket-in-Albany plan is sent to, well, Albany forever.

Last thing on cricket – Mark Boucher has been forced to retire from cricket due to a nasty, nasty injury. Great shame for him, and he’ll be missed by South Africa – but I’ll remember him mainly for this tremendous sledging effort against Zimbabwe.

Sonny
The sporting media loved the Sonny Bill story, as they got to report reports from those ‘in the know’ – New Zealand rugby’s number one ‘in the know’ sources are the guy who runs the mini doughnut stand outside Eden Park, and Murray Deaker’s postie. They had Sonny Bill going to Japan to play for a corporation renowned for having shitloads of cash and a shithouse rugby team – and they were right. Rugby’s worst kept secret since ‘Stu Wilson is a bit of a twat’ was revealed at a press conference that reached turning-up-to-work-naked levels of awkwardness.

Touchingly, Sonny Bill seemed genuinely sad to be leaving the Chiefs and the All Blacks. Less touchingly, he’s still going. Suddenly he’s all about handshakes and loyalty, when up til now, all appearances indicate he’s mostly interested in negotiating deals for heaps of wonga. It’s a bloody shame, he seems to have fitted in really well at the Chiefs – and things will change on both sides after a year away in Japan and Sydney. I’ve got no idea if we’ll see him back, we’ll see, and we’ll see if it seems to matter as much as it does now. If he really cared about the team and his team mates he says he does now, he might have put that first.

Still best rugby stadium in NZ cc @chiefsrugby

I took sportreview jr to the rugger on Friday night at Waikato Stadium. Highly recommended, $12 for adults and $5 for kids, with a bouncy castle and little giveaways for the up and comers. Shame about the result, but.

In the tour, Bradley Wiggins is in yellow, and appears comfortable on the bike, and jumpy like a cat in a bag full of dogs off it, sweating at cameramen and anonymous losers on Twitter alike. Wiggins is cool-as-fuck, Paul Weller on a bike, all mod sideburns and Jimmy-from-Quadrophenia accent.

The Tour De France seems to be presenting no problem for Wiggins, but the mechanical doping rumours won’t go away.

He’s also the leader and beneficiary of the best managed, organised and funded cycling organisation in the world that, after winning Olympic medals galore decided to produce a Tour winner, and it looks like they may have one. I’m nervous for him, his broken collarbone exit from last year’s tour is fresh in my mind, and I think it’s preying on his too. Hang in there Wiggo.

NSFW language, unless your place of work is Team Sky at the Tour De France, in which case it’s fuckin’ game on.

Walk in the park

The Herald went big on Jeremy Wells‘ ‘Victoria Park as a cricket test venue’ proposal on Saturday with Steve Deane and Dylan Cleaver chipping in with editorials, and an epic ‘your views’ page. Let’s not mess this up – this is a fantastic proposal. We’re now a city with no central city sporting venue AT ALL (OK, Vector aside), and this proposal would bring crowds of happy, thirsty sports folk into the CBD without *too* much disruption and give test cricket a unique setting. The alternative options for test cricket (Eden Park, bloody ALBANY!) excite me as much as a ‘Danny Morrison, life coach’ audio book.

The Herald’s commentators berated the recently released city stadium discussion document for its very lack of vision – Auckland’s stadiums are beset by underinvestment, location and self interest issues and this document does little to sort that out. Set that against the example of the Gold Coast’s Skilled Park, a replica of Brisbane’s FANTASTIC Suncorp Stadium, only with one tier. When there’s demand for more capacity, they’ll simply build another tier on top, and she’ll be right, Bruce. As an Auckland sports fan and ratepayer, that’s the kind of vision I’d have liked to see in the vision document. In the absence of leadership from the city’s leaders, let’s help make Victoria Park happen.

Teh rugby
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the All Blacks’ two tests so far. The first one, cos the new look All Blacks, with a patented mix of youth ‘n’ experience WASTED the Irish, and looked bloody good. The second, because it was close, and we still won. Of course, as a former resident of the Republic, I was gutted for Ireland they couldn’t get over the line – but not *that* gutted. A key part of my personal arrogant All-Black-supporting folklore is that teams like Ireland and Scotland have never beaten us, so I took it in my stride. Still, I was unimpressed that with some NZ fans on Twitter ‘going for’ the Irish. I’m all for sportsmanship, but this is unacceptable. Support your world champion national team, we’ve been waiting to be able to say that for a while now, let’s make the most of it. Sound poo-covered jandal beatings all around.

For the All Blacks, everyone has played well, generally, but I’m most excited about Aaron Smith, the passing number nine. We’ve been down the ‘halfback as extra loose forward’ path for so long now – but with Marshall, Kelleher at half back, not to mention Andrew Hore, Ali Williams, the Franks, as well as arguably Conrad Smith, we’ve actually wound up with about 23 loose forwards on the park at a time. So, this return to simpler times where the half back actually clears the ball in a timely fashion is a welcome one and the backline looks better for the extra time and space. Next few years will be interesting when Smith and TJ ‘chosen one’ Perenara go head to head for the spot.

Oh, and three test-series. I like them, let’s have one every year.

Metro
You should really pick up this month’s Metro. Steve Braunais takes the most thoughtful look at the Blues’ season I’ve seen (great to see SB writing about sport again – still waiting for the football book!), and Donna Chisholm investigates concussion in our contact sports. The first thing I turn to though, is Duncan Greive‘s (of friend-of-sportreview Deadball, among other things) sport page – a pithy run through of things that matter and things you probably didn’t know. I’m very pleased to see Duncan contributing longer pieces, like the excellent Dylan Boucher piece a couple of issues back. Like I say, recommended.

Two short, meaningless points

Jesse Ryder is a bloody hero. Taking a year off an NZ cricket contract doesn’t just mean ‘not drinking piss’ or ‘getting your head together’. No, when he’s not not playing for his country or playing in the IPL or the Bonga Bonga Shitloads Of Wonga T20 competitions, Jesse is challenging a cricket commentator to a fight.

It’s a scientifically proven fact that cricket commentators are very, very annoying. Sure, we’ve all shouted at them from the couch, tweeted abuse, lazily fantasised about flicking Mark Nicholas with a wet towel or taunting Ian Smith with a cream bun, but only Jesse is manning up and genuinely looking to punch a cricket commentator in the face. Craig McMillan has wussed out, but I hope Jesse continues in his quest to mix it up with the microphone wielding blitherers. Not only would it make him a bigger folk hero than some kind of Lance Cairns / Shreck the Sheep hybrid, but this could be our best chance to improve the quality of commentary overall. Surely pundits will be less likely to talk a whole lot of self serving meaningless shit when faced with the possibility of players coming up to the booth and thumping them at the conclusion of their innings? Go Jesse.

I took sportreview junior to the Blues v Chiefs match at Albany stadium on Saturday night. I’m a fan of the stadium – the crowd is nice and close and there’s grassy banks on either end, it’s not dissimilar to Waikato stadium. But the stand we were in (on the open side of the ground) was a total shambles. Massive slow moving lines for tickets with no organisation in sight. No eft pos at food vendors (with bonus big queues). A cash-out eft pos stand that ran out of cash. In fairness, the crowd was much larger than I’d expected, maybe it took the administrators by surprise too.

I hope this is being worked on. Nothing would dampen a post-world cup glow of rugby enthusiasm like roll-up cash-paying rugby crowds being treated like people who enjoy standing in queues for expensive shit food more than rugby. Luckily, the match itself was a wall-to-wall-no-defence-and-miracle-try spectacular with a bonus fracas to make up for it. Let’s hope some of the RWC feel good factor trickles down to our own rugby crowds, or those watching from home will be seeing a lot more Eden Park-style empty seats in the background.

Just walking the land

Mazy dribble

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.

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

Flogging a dead 2011

2011 was the year you could say ‘it’s all happening’ and be right. Earthquakes. An election. A world cup. What didn’t happen? Here’s a quick round up.

Rugby World Cup
As a nation, New Zealand did the vacuuming, put the sausage rolls in the oven and hosted the rugby world simply and well, despite the haters and grandstanding, which became less and less important as we went. As for the rugby – well, we bloody won it, didn’t we? Two months on, you only have to show me Graham Henry’s post-final-win-eyebrow gymnastics or Richie McCaw being eye-gouged and I’m glowing like those folk in Cocoon.

Beating the Aussies
After a world cup (remember that) where we did our lose-in-the-semi thing, That First Win In Australia Since Ever was an epic of fingernails on the floor. It was hard to know what kind of NZ cricket team we had post-captaincy switch (alright, it’s ALWAYS hard to know what kind of team we have), but the Tasmanian fightback showed we had some real heart – and hope for the future. Bring on the South Africans.

Super Tottenham
I haven’t mentioned them much on the site, for fear of jinxing them. After missing out narrowly last time, Spurs are quietly having a brilliant season and look very much at home in the top four. Ask me more about how it’s going after we beat Chelsea this morning.

Le Tour
One of the best and worst I’ve seen – worst because of the first week crashes that took Wiggins et al out – best because of the slow burning drama and eventual, worthy winner. Cadel deserved his win for the way he rode, and the way he’s ridden over the last few years. He won’t do it again though, and I hope for a few more fireworks next year. It’s been a fantastic year for NZ’s cyclists also, the folding of Pure Black Racing aside – hoping for a big medal haul on the track in London next year too.

Man of the year
Well, who do you reckon? Stephen Donald is a bigger folk hero than Bob Dylan, his journey from whitebaiting to world cup winner was more beautiful than an unattended burger restaurant. The whole country got the Beaver fever and I couldn’t have been more pleased. Here he is resting on the beach or my little tribute.

sportreview.net.nz highlights
A new daughter, other family stuff and employment related madness meant I’ve not been able to give as much care and attention to the site as I’d like – but I’m still proud of how it’s gone this year. I’ve done some of my favourite rugby writing ever on the back of the world cup, with the brouhaha over the jerseys beforehand, and the nervousness against Argentina, beating Australia in the semi, the final the highlights for me. Drinking was a reoccurring theme over the year, with the All Black selectors getting drunk and this little number about alcohol abuse in the north of England.

Twitter, obviously, is where all the former sports bloggers are hanging out these days – and most of the athletes. It’s possible to go from abusing someone on the field to abusing them on the internet in no time nowadays. Two twitter related posts: for the cricket and for the rugby. I love Powerpoint (even thought it was a slow year for sportreview cartoons) and loved this.

Of course, most thanks go to you, mysterious readers. This site is obviously a little labour of love, I do it for no other reason than I enjoy it thoroughly. sportreview.net.nz is the kind of crappy NZ sports blog I would like to read if this one didn’t exit – it’s extremely heartening to know others enjoy it too. Thanks, appreciate it.

Other stuff:

My top five listened to songs, from last.fm:
1. Harry Nilsson – Lullaby In Ragtime
2. Robyn – Dancing On My Own
3. Robyn – Indestructible
4. Joni Mitchell – Car on a Hill
4. Harry Nilsson – Always

I’ve done bugger-all film watching or reading this year. Drive was the best (only?) (current) film I saw at the cinema, and I’m working my way through Peter Guralnick’s Elvis Bios. TV wise, I’ve really got into Game Of Thrones, Breaking Bad and Community. I’ve also thoroughly enjoyed the Discourse NZ podcast. All recommended.

Wishing you a happy and more settled 2012 – see you next year!

Photos:

Me and Dan. I told him how gutted I was for him, but also how stoked I was for Stephen Donald.

Best rugby ground in NZ, still. Tremendous atmosphere for all three matches I went to there.

Eden Park felt like a proper international stadium during the RWC. Let’s hope they keep those temporary stands somewhere handy.

Future Tour de France champ.

Makes you want to Hurley

Catching up – other stuff

Turns out other stuff has been happening that’s not rugby world cup related. Here’s a quick run down.

Sportsfreak has a petition going to keep domestic cricket on Radio Sport over the summer. It is your duty to support this fine initiative – one day, you’re not going to be able to put off painting that deck any longer. Do YOU want to listen to Des from Whanganui’s stream of conciousness talkback on why we should have lost the RWC while you do it? I farkin’ don’t. Support cricket, sign up.

“But don’t the writers write to the level of the fans? “Sports fans here are pretty well informed. I think they would appreciate a greater sense of journey being brought to describing sports events. They don’t start at two o’clock at kick-off. They start days beforehand.” – Tim Wilson on NZ sport writing via Quote Unquote

Long read from Wired about the new America’s Cup catamarans, and testing them on the Hauraki Gulf. Looks like the next regatta will be the yachting equivalent of playing T20 cricket on crystal meth, inside a Ferrari driven at high speed. Masochistically, I’ll kind of miss the maddeningly-slow tension build up, Dennis Conner and the lawyers.

The Premiership has gone goal crazy, with freak results every weekend – it’s going to be a great year, I look forward to Man City pulling off a Newcastle style collapse and Alex Fergusson finally exploding from stress, they look to be the obvious highlights. Meanwhile, seven Tottenham wins on the trot. I like it.

Shark pool!

Parore scales Everest, still a twat

NEWSDESK: Former Black Cap and woman’s magazine regular Adam Parore remains a twat, despite climbing Mt Everest.

Parore, who once referred to himself as a brand, completed the 8848m ascent on Friday, no doubt thinking all the while about getting back to his trim decaf Lattés and Range Rover he left double parked on Ponsonby Road.

“My goals have always been to criticise Jesse Ryder’s weight in the national press and climb Everest, so it’s great to have knocked those bastards off,” said Parore, from the Kathmandu airport Koru Lounge.

Links on Friday

If you’re a chippy little Aussie bleeder, mouthing off a bunch of eight foot West Indians wouldn’t be my first move. But. Check out the big balls on Steve Waugh. Seriously.

The Crack Fox is possibly my second favourite fox. After Basil Brush.

News guy forgets he’s on the telly, tells weather guy to keep fucking that chicken. That’s great news guy-ing. He had to say sorry.

This film The Beaver is pretty much what I imagine happens to Graeme Smith between world cups.