Cricket: a thrilling test overshadowed by racism
For 24 minutes, a miracle almost looked possible, said Chris Bascombe in The Daily Telegraph. Unused to playing in such humble surroundings (a function room serving as a changing area; a pitch on which each pass “took several bobbles before reaching its destination”), Spurs began anxiously. And 19 minutes in, the home side even came close to scoring, when trainee plumber Neil Kengni struck a “swerving 30-yard dipper” that thundered into
The Third Test between Australia and India, which ended in a draw on Monday, was, in cricketing terms, an absolute belter, said Jack Skelton on BBC Sport. With this thrilling series poised at 1-1, Australia dominated much of the match, and set India a fourth-innings target of 407. Undaunted, the tourists went for victory – for a while, it looked as if they might “pull off the third-highest fourth-innings chase in Test history” – before settling for a draw.
Alas, pulsating cricket isn’t what this match will be remembered for, said Adam Shergold in the Daily
Mail. On two separate days, India’s cricketers complained to the umpires that sections of the
Sydney crowd were racially abusing them. During the second of these incidents, play was held up for ten minutes as several spectators were ejected from the ground. Afterwards, India’s veteran spinner, Ravichandran Ashwin, spoke of regularly enduring racist taunts in Australia. “This has been a continuous thing at Sydney,” he said. And it’s more than likely that in the wake of this incident, the heckling will be sanitised as “friendly
They call the Australian Open the “Happy Slam”, said Stuart Fraser in The Times. It’s not a label likely to chime with this year’s event. With some 1,270 people arriving in Melbourne for the tournament, details have emerged of the Covid-19 protocols that will be enforced – and the penalties for any breach.
Players and their teams, who must travel on one of 18 charter flights, will arrive in Melbourne under police guard, and will then have to spend 14 days quarantining in their hotels, allowed out for “no more than five hours a day to train at Melbourne Park”. Those who break quarantine “could be liable for a fine of up to £11,500” and even face arrest or deportation.
Televised live by the BBC, this match “might have felt like a bleak, forced, even rather grim occasion” imposed on the nation at a time of crisis, said Barney Ronay in The Guardian. In the event, it proved to be “an uplifting piece of theatre”, and a welcome sight of something “fond and familiar”. For months, sports fans have had to stare at the “dystopian hellscape of empty plastic mega-stadiums”. Here they were greeted with the sight of Marine’s cosy pitch, lined on one side by a row of Victorian terrace houses, in the gardens of which actual fans were gathered. Even José Mourinho rose to the occasion, said Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail. Despite having to sit on a plastic chair in a technical area “so tight his feet almost encroached onto the pitch”, Tottenham’s manager conducted himself gracefully, and paid Marine the respect of picking a strong side. The result was a contest that “encapsulated the spirit of the FA Cup, and lifted the mood of a nation in troublesome times”. banter”, said Gideon Haigh in The Times. “A certain proportion of cricket’s followers will defend to the death their right to abuse players from other countries in whatever terms they choose.”
But whether it was overtly racist or not, it’s impossible not to sympathise with this “admirable Indian team”, said Haigh. Since arriving in Australia in November, they have been “pinned down and penned up” by the country’s constantly changing Covid-19 rules. First, they endured a fortnight’s quarantine, and were “absurdly execrated” when a miniscule breach occurred; since then, they’ve been largely confined to their hotel rooms, while glimpsing “life going round them that looks close to normal – huge crowds in shopping plazas, on beaches, in pubs and restaurants”. They are said, understandably, to be “fed up”. When you consider what they’ve endured this tour so that “we comparatively fortunate Australians might have something to watch”, the fact that crowds see fit to jeer and harangue them is “certainly distasteful and arguably disgusting”.
Tennis: not such a “happy” Australian Open
No great surprise that Roger Federer – who usually travels by private jet – decided to skip the tournament.
But in one respect, this Open already feels familiar, said Mike Dickson in the Daily Mail. To prevent too many people entering the country, the qualifying rounds took place this week 7,000 miles from Melbourne – in Doha and Dubai. And, “in a glimpse of normality”, British players tumbled out: four of our five entrants lost their opening matches in straight sets to lower-ranked players. The fifth, Francesca Jones, qualified for the main draw of a grand slam for the first time, after beating Lu Jia-jing in the final qualifying round.