Cristiano Ronaldo leads a tribute to fallen Portugal and Liverpool hero Diogo Jota after his team’s World Cup Round of 32 victory over Croatia at Toronto Stadium in Canada yesterday. Jota, 28, and his brother, Andre Silva, were killed in a car crash in northwestern Spain when their Lamborghini veered off the road and burst into flames on July 3 last year, an incident that plunged Portugal into grief and sent shockwaves around the football world. PHOTO: REUTERS
The Black Caps ...
We are all guilty of it.
All of us with a little salt-n-pepper in the hair and more than a passing interest in the New Zealand men’s cricket team are guilty of occasionally slipping into bad habits.
I speak, principally, of the tendency to take a fatalistic view of the Black Caps’ prospects when — or even before — things go wrong.
Bowling kingpin Matt Henry injured? No way we can win this series.
A handful of players are not in the greatest form? That’s it, shut it all down, we are plunging back into the shadows.
Our ingrained pessimism is, to be fair, coloured by that mostly grim decade known as the 1990s, and phrases like ‘‘Young Guns’’, ‘‘batting first’’ and ‘‘Lee Germon’’.
But it really is time for us all to become believers.
The Black Caps just keep on delivering, their epic series win in England providing yet more examples of their steel, skill, resilience, courage and composure.
Perhaps nothing can beat that truly surreal 3-0 series win in India, but this one will also live long in the memory.
... deserve all ...
A continually fascinating element to the coverage out of England of this test series, and others, has been the attitude of many of the commentators and press.
They have regularly referred to England having ‘‘no marquee series’’ at home in their summer. Meaning, of course, they do not have an Ashes series (do they happen twice a year now?) nor a visit from mighty India, so had to be content with the plucky Kiwis.
It is a colonial-style, patronising view of the current state of world cricket. As a colleague quipped, it almost felt like the English viewed New Zealand winning a series ‘‘similarly to, say, Zimbabwe rocking up and doing it instead’’.
The Ashes have become almost too big. A BBC preview of the Black Caps test series was almost exclusively about England’s ‘‘Ashes hangover’’, and much of the feedback to the Ben Stokes retirement bombshell included speculation he would return for the next Ashes.
Oh well. Write the New Zealanders off all you like. They’ve just dealt to you in your own backyard.
... the plaudits
Back to those Black Caps.
The best statistic to come out of their test series win in England was that no fewer than eight players had either scored a century or taken a five-wicket bag. That is phenomenal in a three-test series.
Nobody should take offence at the suggestion the Black Caps really are greater than the sum of their parts, and that demands huge credit be given to coach Rob Walter, captain Tom Latham and the wider New Zealand cricket programme.
This series has also highlighted the phenomenal pace bowling stocks in this country.
It is not that long since the great trio of Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Neil Wagner hung up their boots, and with Matt Henry injured, Jacob Duffy on paternity leave, Kyle Jamieson on load-management rest, and Blair Tickner taken out with a bouncer, the Black Caps appeared a little light in that area.
Pfft. Even when Ben Sears and Will O’Rourke suffered finger injuries, the machine rolled on, led by Nathan Smith and Zak Foulkes.
And will The Last Word get through another week without mentioning Nathan Smith is the prince of Oamaru and the pride of Waitaki Boys’ High School? Hah.
All-round excellence
‘‘There is no cricketer more likely to run through a wall for his country. There’s also no other player that’d choose to run through a wall when there was an open door available.’’
That is the excellent Australian cricket analyst Jarrod Kimber on retiring English captain Stokes.
He did not do himself many favours with his stage-managed, mid-test farewell and his testosterone-pumped decision to open the batting, and he has been a fading force in recent times, but Stokes goes out an all time great, and just the fourth test player to score 5000 runs and take 250 wickets.
Where does Stokes rate among the greatest all-rounders?
He is not in the top tier for me. That belongs to the likes of Garry Sobers, Jacques Kallis, Ian Botham, Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Keith Miller and our own Richard Hadlee.
Stokes, who it has been pointed out ends with averages not dissimilar to Shane Watson, the Australian all-rounder whose name never enters this debate, is perhaps in a second tier.
Tongue tied
Yet another great stat to come out of the third test.
English pace bowler Josh Tongue broke a record when he claimed none for 75 in both innings at Trent Bridge.
They were the most expensive fruitless identical innings bowling efforts in the history of test cricket.
The record had been held by Clyde Butts, who took none for 62 in each innings for the West Indies against India in Chennai in 1988.
The other NZ team
Oh yes. There is an All Blacks test tonight.
Not expecting miracles from the All Blacks — they might need some time for the new coaching regime to really have an impact — but it will be a shock if they don’t win all three home tests this month.
A third NZ team
Oh yes. The All Whites exited the World Cup after the group stage again.
They did about as well as I expected. Shame Chris Wood could not get a goal. There is a good core of young players for the next cycle, but the reality is we are still well behind the best teams in the world.
Penalty shootouts still rule, by the way. And France will not be stopped.
Bridge too far
Congratulations to the Southern Steel on a very good season.
They should be nicely placed to go one better next year — if there is even a national league as we know it.
Names of the week
Last week, I offered some of the best names of the NFL and NBA drafts.
Ice hockey’s next generation took part in the NHL draft a few weeks ago, and of course there were some cracking names to go with all the Connors, Caseys, Coles and Chases.
Look out for Daxon Rudolph, Viggo Bjorck, Alexander Command, Gleb Pugachyov, Jaxon Cover, Wiggo Sorensson, Rian Chudzinski and Nicholas Bogas.
Birthday of the week
The United States is 250 today.
Got its faults — you elected him TWICE — but gave the sports world so much.
