This article reflects on the summer's sporting events, highlighting the dominance of Test cricket and the quietude of the off-season. It also delves into the controversy surrounding LIV Golf and the lackluster Australian Open final.
At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when Dylan thought the world was going to end, he crammed every idea he had for songs down into just one. And where have you been, my darling young one? I’ve walked and I crawled on six crooked highways. This column is kind of that in reverse.
For yes, the world as we know it more or less has ended with Trump being back in the White House – don’t get me started – and yet, on holidays for six weeks, there was no opportunity to say much in the public domain on either that or anything in the world of sport, despite so many things happening all at once! So this column is a catch-up, on my way back from twelve misty mountains and six crooked highways. Which brings us to … Thank you, thank you all. I told you, but you wouldn’t listen, that Test cricket is far and away the highest form of the game, and that series was the proof. Those Tests will still be talked about decades from now, while you can’t even remember what happened in the Big Bash League last week. And I suppose there were one-day internationals played this summer, but I can’t remember them, either. Can you? In my view, the Indian series now surpasses the Ashes in terms of level of interest. His first innings in Melbourne was cricket’s answer to the Cuban Missile Crisis – in this case, thirteen overs that shook the world. (Or however long it was – I just remember staggering shots, and an amazing number of runs, from bugger-all balls). “When we were kids,” he recounted, “Dad took us to a bowling machine for the first time. He set it to 90 miles per hour, thinking it was 90 kilometres per hour. Despite the speed, Sam hit the ball right out of the middle. That experience helped him develop confidence against fast bowling from a young age.” As to Konstas being dropped for the Sri Lankan series, no big deal. All of the best batsmen Australia has produced, from Don Bradman to Allan Border to Steve Waugh, were dropped early in their careers, and he may as well get his dropping out of the way early. The Melbourne Cup once again made headlines galore, as in days of yore, alas this time for tragic reasons – with two deaths in two separate incidents only a short time after the race had started. And again, the fact that neither you nor I can remember who won when it was only five weeks ago, is indicative of just how much that race has become summer wallpaper, not a main event the way it was. The odd thing about this summer is a notable lack of the usual atrocities. Traditionally in the off-season, we have any number of mad Saturday nights to go with the Mad Mondays of September and October, but this off-season has felt as quiet as a Sunday morning. (Cue the classic: “Suddenly things were quiet . . . maybe a little quiet.“) Never mind. And never forget: the rule is that what happens in Vegas . . . often ends up on the front and back pages, so one way or another expect plenty of NRL Las Vegas headlines soon. Greg Norman, who made many headlines in the past six weeks, all of which made me lightly chunder down under. The worst was all the fanfare three weeks ago, when he resigned as CEO of LIV Golf, if you remember that. According to all the press releases, his work here was done, and now that LIV is launched, it was time to hand over the baton. Blah, blah, blah. The truth, as you know, is that LIV has been a commercial and public relations disaster. Yes, the Saudis have put billions of dollars towards it, but none of those dollars have come back in terms of lucrative TV deals, paying spectators and all the rest. And in terms of “sport-washing”, using those dollars to improve the Saudis’ image, who thinks that has worked? What they’ve mostly done is anger the golfing public, for having launched a golfing civil war, that denies the game if not its best players, at least all those prepared to hold their noses long enough to take the money. In his tenure, Norman showed no capacity to spin the un-spinnable, and with so many of the PGA mob actively against him, they have changed to a CEO with less baggage. He looks to me like a bloke who will be at the top of his game, and the game, for a decade – and good luck to him. But geez, he is not the one to make us forget Nadal and Federer in one swoop, is he? I attended the final of the Australian Open and can’t recall a less interesting match. And not just because it was obvious after the first two games that Sinner was going to win. As a court presence, Sinner has to be one of the most emotionless players out there, yes? Barely a smile, never a grimace. Not quite a humourless automaton, but not far off
CRICKET TEST MATCHES MELBOURNE CUP LIV GOLF AUSTRALIAN OPEN SPORTSWASHING GREG NORMAN SPORTING EVENTS
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