Their house
It is coming.
In precisely 139 days, Dunedin will no longer possess the best sports venue in New Zealand.
The Last Word was in Christchurch — grim, I know, but there were good reasons — at the weekend and got a reasonably close-up look at the $683 million One New Zealand Stadium, the construction of which is now very much in the home stretch.
Well, close-up from the outside. For a detailed review of the inside, you will have to wait a while.
It’s big (but not too big), flash and perfectly located, and it is a highly dispiriting reality that it is about to have a massive effect on our own Glasshouse.
Christchurch might be flat and full of Crusaders fans but it also has more people, more accommodation options, a bigger airport and about a thousand more places to eat and more things to do than this odd little city of the South.
Our flow of concerts seems to have dried up, our regular appearance in the All Blacks calendar appears likely to end, and it’s all just rather depressing.
The king of lefties
By the time you read this, Australian quick Mitchell Starc could be, statistically at least, the greatest left-arm pace bowler in the history of test cricket.
Some might feel he also tops the list of most under-rated bowlers.
Starc destroyed the Poms in the first Ashes test in Perth and his 10-wicket bag took him to 412 test scalps at an average of 26.70.
That was just a couple of wickets shy of Pakistani great Wasim Akram, long regarded by pretty much every cricket fan as a peerless left-armer.
If you were to name an all-time XI and forced to include one leftie, it would still be Akram, whose wickets were taken at 23.62, and who was also a handy batter.
But Starc, considered the lesser Mitch until he emerged from the shadow of namesake Johnson, deserves all the plaudits he gets.
He is a low-key but relentless performer who is bowling better than ever at 35.
"This guy is a bowler of the ages and we’ve taken him for granted for so long," commentator Kerry O’Keeffe said.
"It’s a fast bowler’s twilight period at 35, yet his pace has not diminished and his strike rate is as good as ever."
After Akram and Starc on the list of left-arm seamers are Chaminda Vaas (Sri Lanka, 355), Trent Boult (New Zealand, 317), Johnson (313), Zaheer Khan (India, 311) and Neil Wagner (New Zealand, 260).
Catches win matches
If you have not done so already, get to YouTube now and check out the sporting play of the year.
Washington Commanders wide receiver Treylon Burks hauled in an absolutely phenomenal catch in his team’s 27-26 overtime NFL loss to the Denver Broncos.
Burks was falling when he made the one-handed grab right in the corner of the end zone.
They are calling it the greatest catch in the NFL since Odell Beckham junior’s famous one-handed grab in 2014.
Speaking of greatest
I was this years old when I first became aware of the Greatest Sporting Nation website.
It runs statistical analysis on all major sports and cooks up a formula to determine, on a monthly and yearly basis, which nation is king.
Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump’s America Is Great Again is utterly dominant, at present sitting on 4437 points (whatever that means).
Italy (2646 points) is second, followed by China (2437), Japan (2397) and France (2350).
Of more interest are the per-capita ratings, where funny little nations like ours can pop up.
Norway presently holds top spot ahead of Switzerland, Slovenia and fourth-placed New Zealand.
Show me the money
This column remains endlessly fascinated by the big business of American college sport.
The latest brouhaha is the decision of football (gridiron) coach Lane Kiffin to abandon Ole Miss — the University of Mississippi — for a job at Louisiana State University.
Kiffin will be paid a staggering US$91 million (NZ$158 million) over seven years.
And that will not even make him the richest coach in college football. Georgia coach Kirby Smart earns a touch more.
Quote of the week
"I didn’t sign because I knew this was my death certificate for the future."
That was veteran Nascar driver and team co-owner Denny Hamlin testifying at the racing league’s antitrust trial this week.
Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner who co-owns 23XI Racing with basketball great Michael Jordan, returned to the stand after being called as the first witness, Field Level Media reported.
23XI and another team, Front Row Motorsports, have maintained that Nascar uses anti-competitive strategies to bully racing teams into compliance.
Front Row owner Bob Jenkins and 23XI declined to sign on for renewal of Nascar’s charters this year, while the other 13 teams opted in. The charter system was implemented in 2016 by Nascar.
That time of year
December 6, sheesh.
Nineteen days until Christmas, sheesh.
The Otago Daily Times sports department will again be doing a comprehensive review of the sporting year, while your man will be doing his traditional A to Z of the weird and wonderful of the year.
Email me with any suggestions.
