500 NOT OUT
Not even NZC can bring down the festive mood at Bounce Towers ($)
BREAKING: Tim Southee “stood down” from test captaincy this morning, which is at least addressing some of the Black Caps’ problems, although moving from one skipper struggling to justify his place in the team to another (Tom Latham doesn’t have a test ton since the Karachi Airstrip Tour and averages sub-35 in three of the past four calendar years), is the perfect illustration of where this team is at.
I will have more thoughts on this tomorrow, following this afternoon’s BYC. Suffice to say, Southee’s form made his position untenable, but the move does nothing to address the more fundamental problem — Latham’s fealty to Gary Stead might in fact increase it.
The Black Caps have, in the space of the decade, gone from one of the most innovative and nimble high-performance programmes in the world, to one that is utterly predictable. It is also one that is unsheltered and vulnerable to the global winds of change in cricket.
That was not what I brought you here for though. This was meant to be a celebration…
***
That sound you hear later today is the tab being ripped off a Bitburger 0.0% as I low-key (as the kids say) celebrate the publication of my 500th newsletter.
It’s been a long minute.
Last month, September 6 to be exact, was The Bounce’s third birthday. As a joint celebration of the twin milestones, I’ve blown the dust off the back catalogue and found my favourites in a bunch of categories.
TOP RATING (SUBSTACK)
This is not my top three, but as determined by Substack’s data, which is a combination of engagement and, most importantly, attracting new subscribers.
I owe a lot to this story and, by virtue of that, to the big bloke himself. A lot of subscribers rolled in after I broke the story of Hayman being diagnosed with early onset dementia and probable CTE aged just 41.
Carl Hayman was once estimated to be the highest-paid player in rugby. Now, less than six years after the end of his playing days, he has spoken of the disorientation he felt as his career was winding down, the ceaseless headaches that plagued him and sent him into a spiral of alcohol abuse and frequent suicidal thoughts, culminating in a suspended prison sentence in France after admitting to charges of domestic violence.
“I spent several years thinking I was going crazy. At one stage that’s genuinely what I thought. It was the constant headaches and all these things going on that I couldn’t understand,” Hayman says.
The 41 year old, once regarded as the finest tighthead prop in the world, now has an explanation. He received a shocking diagnosis after extensive testing in England that included a brain scan that can identify changes in the brain’s white matter. He has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia and probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. It’s a progressive brain condition which has been strongly associated with former NFL players and boxers and the “probable” refers to the fact that it can only be properly diagnosed in post mortem.
I wouldn’t say that it’s embarrassing that this one is in the top three, but then again, when you give it a headline that is clearly lampooning one of sports journalism’s most tired devices, the listicle, and it ends up being one of the most popular pieces you write, it does give you pause for thought.
Here was what I selected and wrote about my fifth favourite sporting moment of 2023. I’ve picked this entry because, well, it already feels like a lifetime ago.
Black Caps beat Sri Lanka in final-ball thriller
It’s been an uncomfortable year for New Zealand cricket in some respects, with a nagging feeling that from the highs of 2019-21, they’re slowly losing their grip on the public’s affections (the indignities of losing at home to Bangladesh and, from a selection POV at least, appearing not to give two hoots about it doesn’t help).
Still, within the morass they’ve somehow conjured up leading roles in two of the greatest tests ever played, all within a fortnight.
With rain reducing the final day to 52 overs, New Zealand’s tricky fourth innings chase of 285 looked even trickier but a brilliant fourth-wicket partnership of 142 between Williamson and Daryl Mitchell put New Zealand on the brink of victory, before an inexplicable collapse left them 280-8 with three balls remaining.
On the fourth ball of the final over Williamson played what might be the greatest shot of his test career, splitting two sweepers on the offside boundary with the perfect square drive. Said some bloke at The Bounce:
“The guy is a batting savant and I’ve never been more convinced of that than when he punched the third-to-last ball through the offside boundary ring with a shot of such impeccable timing and placement it deserves its place in the pantheon alongside Daniel Vettori’s near-impossible squeezed four off a Dale Steyn yorker in the final over of the 2015 World Cup semifinal.”
To add to the lunacy, in what might be the worst single piece of highlights editing ever, Spark Sport (RIP) left the shot off its highlights package.
It remains lodged in my memory, though, as does the drama of the final-ball bye completed with a millimetre to spare between one guy with a torn hammy (Wagner) and Williamson (121 not out).
A newsletter in the immediate aftermath of the All Blacks 28-24 win over Ireland in the quarter-final of the latest World Cup — a magnificent spectacle that is still causing salty tears.
Every single player that took that field this morning was, in his own way, a magnificent bastard.
As a contest it managed to be both hyper-strategic and genre-busting. At various points both teams seemed to be able to bend the game and create the shapes they had the pieces for; at other times it felt like everyone and everything was little more than a random collection of atoms that were being controlled by fate and fate alone.
In the final minutes it turned into something else entirely: it was Ali v Frazier, two heavyweights, trading shots, one with the ball, one without, both on autopilot, both too tired to do anything except rely on muscle memory and will.
The crowd, for so long frenzied, was now sapped of all energy by the spectacle, happy just to watch on with slack-jawed wonder as, finally, Samuel Whitelock, in his 151st and likely third-to-last test got his big, grey-bearded frame over the ball after what felt like the 432nd successive Irish attacking phase.
PERSONAL FAVES
These are three stories I enjoyed writing, am pretty proud of and they’ve aged well enough for me to repeat them here.