The post that quickly explains the no-post

Extraordinary weekend of sport… from a distance.

If you picked the Black Caps to beat India in Bengaluru, the White Ferns to win the World T20 in the UAE and the Silver Ferns to beat Australia by a double-digit margin stop what you’re doing right now and get on with solving the world problems because you sir/madam are a genius.

On top of that laser show you can add a victory for the Barcelona-domiciled America’s Cup team that still flies the New Zealand flag and a points-scoring performance from Liam Lawson in his F1 reintroduction.

And where was I during all this goodness? I’m glad you asked. I’ve been leisurely making my way through Vietnam in a north to south fashion. As I type this short note out with fat thumbs and liberal use of the backspace, I’m in a Ford Transit van en route to Ben Tre in the heart of the Mekong Delta, listening to a guide talk about the perilous state of Vietnam’s rice crops as the twin threats of China’s hydroelectric expansion in the upper reaches of the mighty river and climate change take effect.

It’s more interesting than it appears in black and white text but let’s cut to chase: it’s not as interesting as what happened on your screens over the past 72 hours.

Those three teams that enjoyed stunning, upset wins have been battling of late and I’m looking forward to returning and catching as much of the India test as is reasonably possible. I’ll rely on my local netball coven to supply the deets on the Silver Ferns ahead of the second test against Australia, but it’s this morning’s World Cup victory I can’t get out of my mind, even as I holiday many miles away

The White Ferns victory was so utterly unexpected that even as I was furiously hitting refresh on my Cricinfo live scoring in case there was a lag, I was contemplating deeper philosophical questions. At the top of mind was this one: Is all the pain of the past couple of years worth it to get a result like this?

Yeah, I think it probably is.

Nah, scratch the ‘probably’ part of that. It definitely is.

The good old redemption-arc narrative has become so overused in sport to have lost most of its meaning, but it was impossible not to feel something for this side: for the senior leaders like Sophie Devine and Suzie Bates who must have spent the past few years wondering whether the good times would ever come back; the younger crew like Georgia Plimmer and Eden Carson who must have wondered whether there was any such thing as good times; and coach Ben Sawyer who must have wondered what the hell he had signed himself up for.

Clearly they needed a lot to go their way, like avoiding twin nemeses Australia and England in the semis and final, and I’m guessing at slightly holding conditions that suited their more methodical style of innings building, but those are things to ponder in the cold light of day, not while we’re still deep In the champagne hours.

That’ll do from me. Having not seen more than a ball here or there (or a midcourt interception, a beat to windward, or an overtake in the DRS zone), it’d be a fool’s errand to try to add layers.

Instead I’ll just comfort myself with the fact that when I return in a couple of days, I have a lot of highlights to savour from one of the greatest weekends in NZ cricket history.