Trying to find meaning in the hit and giggle
PLUS: Peak Steve Adams virulence, a sprint sensation and a pair of pods.
Sometimes it’s just the luck of the draw, right?
On Saturday night, more than 10,000 people sat cheek by jowl at Bay Oval to watch a inconsequential game of cricket, lining the pockets of Duco in the process.
Now, with the meat of the domestic and international season upon us, tours and tournaments have been postponed or modified to work within the protocols of the red-light Covid-protection framework system, potentially having a profound effect on the sport’s bottom line.
Last summer, New Zealand Cricket had the cards fall in its favour. Having watched rugby struggle for portions of their2020 season under lockdown conditions, restrictions were eased in time for summer.
Omicron has ensured that this season will be a different story.
That will play out over the next month or so but before that I want to rewind to the Black Clash. I attended as a corporate guest in a desperate attempt at social climbing. My interest in the match was close to zero. I have no appetite for “festival” sport. I’ve been fortunate enough to watch pinnacle sports events for a living and have little interest in spending my hard-earned on hit and giggle.
But I quite like beer and an occasional night out with friends and what I discovered upon arrival at the Mount was the Black Clash was less of a sporting event and more of a cultural phenomenon. Seeing the snaking queues an hour before the first ball was due to be bowled reminded me more of a concert than a cricket match.
Most of the appeal is the novelty; of watching guys like Kieran Read, Will Jordan and Jordie Barrett playing their “second” sports and doing it pretty bloody well. Part of the appeal is scarcity; as a once-a-year proposition it works. Anything more and it would lose its lustre.
As it stands it’s the most popular single game of cricket in the country. You have to wonder how the current crop of stars, our greatest generation of cricketers, feels when they see the banks full and the off-the-charts TV ratings. Kane Williamson was at the match - did he feel a pang of resentment not so much at the way the game is embraced, but is so feverishly promoted.
Which brings me circuitously around to the Super Smash.
It’s a fantastic competition with great talent but I’m not sure anybody could argue it resembles a high-octane franchise T20 competition.
You can’t help but wonder what Duco would do with the competition if they entered into a joint venture with New Zealand Cricket to promote it.
There would be some great ideas - and some terrible ones - but there’s a few things that would be non-negotiable:
Make the Super Smash a city-based tournament, rather than regional;
Engage in a competitive process to become a city base and try to attract both municipal and private investment (it might be that Auckland, for example, has two teams, though given it doesn’t have an appropriate venue, this could be difficult);
Play all but one or two games at night;
Have separate windows for the men’s and women’s tournaments. Double-headers make little sense outside of broadcast logistics given the great attraction of the short format is its brevity;
Have an annual draft and try to attract overseas players.
The pandemic has wreaked havoc with the global sports and events industry but it also offers an opportunity for a reset.
There is much to admire about the village-green atmosphere of the Super Smash but the time feels right to unchain it from the major associations and at least try something a bit different.
It pays to be cautious when people talk about the next big thing in New Zealand sprinting, but it really might be time to pay close attention to Zoe Hobbs, who broke her own national 100m record in Hastings in the weekend.
Hobbs won her heat in 11.21s, taking .06s off her own record, and went even faster in the final, clocking a wind-assisted 11.14s that gave her the Potts Classic title but didn’t register as a time in the books.
It’s not just the times that are eye-catching. Even the 11.14s would barely put her in the same frame as Olympic champ Elaine Thompson-Herah who has a best time of 10.54s, but Hobbs, 24, looks like she has more time to shave off the clock and is only entering her peak years now.
It would be a crying shame if she didn’t make the team for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games due to what many in the sprinting community describe as unrealistic qualification standards.
We have officially reached peak inverted commas “Steven Adams” when he lifted up a slightly smaller man who wasn’t struggling particularly hard and the clip went viral and every media outlet, including this edition of The Bounce, covered it.
It really hasn’t been a great month for Tennis Australia, which is coming under fire for demanding fans remove t-shirts that asked: “Where is Peng Shuai?”
As for the actual tennis, given she’s No 1-seed, I’m not being particularly bold when I suggest that Ash Barty looks like she’ll be tough to beat in front of a partisan crowd.
My men’s pre-tournament pick Matteo Berrettini has stuck around for the second week, but I fear he might have played too much in the first to lift the trophy.
I’ve never been the world’s biggest Rafael Nadal fan but I wouldn't mind him winning grand slam No 21 and separating himself, albeit temporarily, from Novak Djokovic. Roger Federer will always be the men’s GOAT to these eyes though.
Speaking of GOATs, today might have been the full stop on one of the greatest careers in any sport. If it was, then Tom Brady went out the right way, dragging his Tampa Bay Buccaneers back from 27-3 to 27-27, before a last-second Los Angeles Rams field goal sunk them.
The legendary quarterback, who has been part of seven Super Bowl-winning teams, is reportedly unsure whether he will return later this year, when he will be 45.
Also weighing up his future is Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, whose team was knocked out in equally dramatic circumstances by little-fancied San Francisco 49ers. Rodgers, 38, is believed by many to be the most talented quarterback of all time but he has just one ring to Brady’s seven.
Oh, and the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills 42-36 in one of the greatest NFL playoff matches of all time. The Chiefs led this game 26-21 with 1m 54s left. You do the math. The Chiefs are one game away from their third Super Bowl appearance in four years. In their way are the Cincinnati Bengals, who hadn’t won a single playoff game since January 1991.
A PAIR OF PODS
I missed the latest BYC, but the teams toiled on manfully without me, wrapping up the Ashes.
I did catch up with Jarrod Kimber for a slot talking about Ross Taylor on his Red Inker pod. Please excuse the frightening use of an old mug shot!
THIS WEEK
Normal service resumes this week, with at least three, possibly four newsletters depending on what the week throws up. Thanks for reading.
Love your ideas about the Super Smash Dylan. It does need a boost. If the competition was to take off, the trick would be to think long term like Duco, and resist the urge to overdose on too much of a good thing, a la the Big Bash.
Potentially 3 Super Bowls in 3 years for the Chiefs, having lost in 2021 to Brady's Bucs, and won in 2020 vs the 49ers - rematch still on the cards! Rams made the final in 2019, and the 49ers aforementioned. Only relative newcomer is the Bengals, making their first conference final since 1988.