Hayden Meikle serves up the week in sport.
•Marvellous effort . . .
The cream, the bone, the off-white, the white, the ivory and the beige.
Welcome back.
Super shot, that
What a catch.
Simply brilliant.
Thaaaaaat's a good shot.
Tchew for tchwenty-tchew.
Got `im.
•. . . by the voice of summer
Of course, you've guessed that I am about to say something about Richie Benaud, the doyen of cricket commentators who revealed this week he only had one summer left in that prominent 78-year-old jaw.
The dulcet tones of the former Australian captain will be heard no more on television after he hangs up in his microphone in 2010, and that's bloody sad.
Benaud has been an incisive, accurate and entertaining commentator on the great game for 40-plus years, and no amount of Bill Lawry hyperbole, Mark Taylor gum-chewing or Ian Healy cheerleading can take his place.
The funny thing is that a generation of cricket fans - me included - have developed a deeper appreciation for Benaud through the voice of Billy Birmingham, the comedian who produced a series of albums called The 12th Man.
Birmingham elicited plenty of laughs from his excited, high-pitched Lawry ("Got `im, yes, p**s off you're out"), his guttural Tony Greig ("To me, a grudge is no more than a place to pork your cor") and his tongue-tied Max Walker ("Yeeeeeess, welcome back").
But the star of the 12th Man series was always Benaud, the skipper, the king of commentators.
Birmingham nailed his voice and mannerisms, and after listening to the tapes you could never again watch Benaud on television without recalling something from the series.
Benaud will be missed, by all cricket fans, when he retires. Marvellous effort.
•You booze, you lose
Even the half-hearted Highlanders fans - and from the empty stands at Carisbrook it seems there are many thousands of those - would have had a sinking feeling when they heard another of their players was being investigated for an incident.
Thoughts turned to the usual suspects but it turned out to be Fetu'u Vainikolo, the talented winger.
Sketchy details turned into a suggestion Vainikolo had been out at 4am, made advances to an 18-year-old girl and tossed alcohol in her face when he was rejected.
On its own, the incident would have been bad enough.
But that it followed the multiple booze-related problems of Jimmy Cowan, the conviction of Lucky Mulipola for a vicious assault and driving charges and the arrest of Adam Thomson for allegedly assaulting a female suggests the Highlanders have a major culture problem.
Highlanders boss Richard Reid has to be a bit careful about what he says because his highly-paid players are wrapped up in all sorts of legal agreements thanks to the players union.
But I think it is absolutely time the Highlanders instituted a curfew or slapped a booze ban on the entire squad.
The message HAS to be sent that if they want to act the fool, they will be treated like children.
I applaud the Highlanders for suspending Vainikolo for last night's game against the Hurricanes.
•White men can't haka
The Black Caps will be on high haka alert following the appointment of veteran Olympic official and noted war dance fan Dave Currie to the position of manager.
Given Currie's predilection for breaking out Ka Mate at the mere hint of New Zealand success, we can expect plenty of thigh-slapping fun should Brendon McCullum smash a century or Iain O'Brien take five wickets.
•Pat on back for Deaks
I'm not a massive fan of Murray Deaker's style and I wasn't a fan at all of Tony Veitch's over-the-top immaturity as a broadcaster.
But Deaker has to be given some credit for extending the hand of friendship to Veitch, awaiting trial on charges of assaulting his former partner.
Veitch appeared on Deaker's weekly television show for the first time on Wednesday night and did a good job.
He was a little toned-down, he made some good points and he was easily the pick of a relatively weak panel that included former cricketer Craig McMillan and radio host Kent Johns.
I'm appalled at what Veitch is alleged to have done to his former partner.
But the courts can decide if he's guilty and how he should be punished.
For now, I agree with my colleague who suggested Deaker might just have saved his friend's life.
•Ultimate act of sportsmanship
Here's a great story that shows not all American athletes are loaded on steroids or seriously devoid of class.
A Milwaukee high school basketball player, Johntell Franklin, lost his mother to cancer on February 7 and decided he wanted to play that night.
He arrived at the gym late and found he was not listed on his team's roster because his coach, understandably, assumed he would stay home.
Local rules dictated the team would be assessed a technical foul if Franklin entered the game.
His coach went ahead and put his grieving player on the court, and the referees had no choice but to award free throws to DeKalb, the opposing team.
The DeKalb coach gathered his players and put a plan in place.
DeKalb point guard Darius McNeal walked slowly to the line, bounced the ball a couple of times, and quietly shot the ball about a metre in front of him, deliberately missing two consecutive free throws.
"I did it for the guy who lost his mom," McNeal later told a newspaper. "It was the right thing to do."
Now that's classy.
