Some Sporting Reflections

It's not important but it's fun

Veteran British sports columnist Hugh McIlvanney once wrote “sport is a nonsense, but it’s a serious nonsense.”

So the last couple of weekends have allowed us to indulge in some rather irrelevant nonsense but at the same ask the serious question: how the hell did that happen?

First to the cricket. New Zealand has been playing test cricket in India since 1955. Till a couple of weeks ago, our national team had won two matches there. That total has doubled in the days since October 17 when the first match of the current series finally started in Bengaluru.

I could sort of understand victory in the first test. With our pace bowlers in top form under cloudy skies in humid conditions, India made a tactical blunder in deciding to bat first. Helped by some brilliant catching, the home team were humbled for 46. You always lose  from that position on the first day.

The second match has me completely flummoxed. Mitchell Santner’s left arm spin bowling has traditionally been defensive in nature – sort-of accurate and economical but not threatening or match winning. His place in the test team often seemed as if he was the best of limited options for a spin bowler who could bat a bit.

But in the test match at Pune it was if a god on high, maybe the ghost of Bishen Bedi (India’s best-ever left-arm spin bowler) said to Santner “Mitchell my boy, you have perfect spin bowling conditions. Just slow down your delivery pace, use your height, let the ball loop in the air and these home team batsmen, who have a somewhat arrogant attitude to visiting spin bowlers, will play some reckless cricket and you will reap the rewards.”

It is arguably the biggest surprise in the history of our test cricket team to see a player hitherto regarded as a very ordinary bowler become a genuine match winner. The second test match was a time to savour.

I just wish our top order batsmen would stop playing the reverse sweep shot!

Then there’s the netball team. Beaten by England and expected to lose to Australia, they also produced an extraordinary turnaround in form to comfortably beat their trans-Tasman rivals.

This bloke’s perspective (and we’re not allowed to know anything about netball) is that in Grace Nweke the Silver Ferns have a goal shoot who could anchor her team’s domination of the sport for years to come.

At 1.93 metres tall (6 foot 4 inches) Ms Nweke is the best we’ve had in that shooting circle since Irene van Dyk. The Aucklander also seems to have arms that reach to the roof and a vertical leap that has her soaring above defenders as the feeds come in from her team mates in the mid-court. No wonder the team wasn’t flash at the World Championships last year. Grace was injured early and couldn’t play.

Next year Grace Nweke will play her club netball in Australia. That’s because she’s so good, an Aussie club is prepared to pay her a whole lot more money than any club in New Zealand can. The problem is Netball New Zealand rules say you can’t be in the national team if you play in another’s country’s domestic league.

All the grown-up and mature sports – think football and basketball – don’t have these silly self-defeating regulations, even if Steven Adams has yet to play for his country.

Surely the netties will soon come to their senses and change this antiquated situation.

So it has been a fun couple of weeks for some of our sporting representatives. Their success helps lift spirits in these times of reported gloom and doom around the country.

It’s not all a bed of roses though. While the NPC rugby final was close, it was soooo boring!

Is it really in the best interests of the game for a team to rumble through 23 or 24 or 25 tackles and still not score a try. The laws of the game need a serious re-think. Here’s an idea: make the defending team stand 5 metres back from the tackle and re-cycle of the ball. Give the attacking team more room to move.

Oh and just to prove that sport can still be predictable – the rugby league Kiwis lost to Australia, just like they usually do.