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Sports

Friday musing – Serena Slam v Grand Slam, Test match cricket, Cameron Smith plays 300

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Chris Barwin HillsI first turn my attention to the Serena Slam. Apart from Serena Williams essentially referring to herself in the third person, I cannot understand why she is not considered a Grand Slam winner. I know it is considered to be holding all the championships in the one calendarUnknown-2 year, but I cannot see the difference. If any player holds all four championships at the same time they should be considered winners of the Grand Slam. Forget the Serena Slam it is a Grand Slam.

It is amazing the difference a week can make in cricket. I went to bed last Saturday night thinking that Australia had a good chance to bat through the day and consider launching an attack on the last day to try and win the test match in Cardiff. I was disappointed to wake up Unknownand hear they were all out and the top scoring batsman was Mitch Johnson. Surely if Johnson can make 77 runs, the other specialist batsmen should have been able to cobble together a decent score! The disappointment of last week was put aside this morning when I woke up to hear that Australia had amassed a score of 337 for the loss of one wicket.

This brings me to one of my hobby horses – test pitches. Too often these days pitches are prepared to favour the team that wins the toss and bats first. A traditional test match pitch should offer some hope to the bowlers in the first session, last night there was nothing in that pitch at all and the only wicket to fall was to a somewhat profligate shot. I think it might be time for the ICC to step in and have the match referee involved in the pitch preparation.

Congratulations to Cameron Smith for his 300th NRL game this weekend. I am not a huge NRL fan, but I must say that Cam Smith is one of the more impressive people in Australian sport. Not only is he a great player and a great leader, but he handles himself well in Unknown-1
public no better than the recent controversy that he was somehow landed in. He has chosen not to comment on the matter in public and wants to meet with Alex McKinnon and sort it out behind closed doors. How refreshing!

Have a great weekend!

News, Sports

Friday musing – Alex McKinnon, NRL, Nathan Berry, T-20……

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Chris Barwin HillsI guess there has been a bit of bad news in the world of sport this week with the confirmation that Alex McKinnon may be a partial quadriplegic and the death of jockey, Nathan Berry.

I don’t profess to be an expert on rugby league and I have no view on the tackle being illegal or not, but it does seem that similar instances occur every week and this looks to be a tragic accident. The NRL had to be seen to be doing something and while the Melbourne Storm may be aggrieved with the penalty, in deference to the injured player I think they should simply accept the penalty. I did think it was interesting that the Newcastle Knights came out and suggested that all three tacklers should have been cited, but if that was the case it may have been more difficult to sustain a charge. Either way it is a true sporting tragedy.

The death of Nathan Berry was also a tragedy, but it does not seem it was in any way linked to his sport, just a diabolical condition that struck him down in his prime. He was due to ride Unencumbered in the Golden Slipper this Saturday and I might just have a small wager on it for sentimental reasons.

Talking about the Golden Slipper, Earthquake looks hard to beat, but it does have a difficult barrier. Perhaps it will have to go into a quinella with Unencumbered.

I note that the T20 World Cup is coming to a conclusion. I don’t know about you, but since the football season started there has been no interest in the cricket or this tournament in particular. This may be linked to the poor performance of Australia and the fact that it is on pay TV, but it is also not getting much coverage in the newspapers either. Does this bode well for the World One Cup in Australia/New Zealand next year? I would have to answer in the negative, but I have already purchased my ticket for the final.

Have a great weekend!