Heir to ODI throne will add pizzazz — GoT it?
Move over girls who follow the Netball World Cup at Liverpool because this star-studded all-boys cast set for the stage at Lord’s in London at the weekend requires a testosterone-fuelled touch on the TV remote control.
Oh don’t worry, this ICC World Cup live theatre has enough bromance to make grown women cry — just ask the Indians and Ockers after their shock exits from the ODI cricket semifinals in England.
But there’s violence — real stuff — with blood already spilled on hallowed turf at Edgbaston Cricket Ground, Birmingham, where the Poms bashed the Aussies by seven wickets yesterday.
It was an uppercut delivery through the helmet grill of Australia batsman Alex Carey that would have drawn rousing applause from England allrounder Ben Stokes.
You could be forgiven for mistaking the drama as episodes of Game of Thrones (GoT).
How could you not when a protagonist from the England team goes by the name of Jofra Archer, although the bloke media have dubbed the “Firestarter” was born in Barbados and made his debut for his adopted country in April.
“All batsmen buy two helmets cause went [sic] we meet they will be in use ... ,” the 24-year-old right-arm fast bowler had tweeted if anyone had doubts about his intentions going into the cup semifinal to finish with 19 scalps.
“Umpire you smoking a spliff from zac? Da ain out,” he had added later when umpire Kumar Dharmasena wrongly adjudged batsman Jason Roy out for 85 runs.
Archer, who is likened to former West Indian rib tickler Michael Holding dubbed the “Whispering Death”, has offered a timely reminder to New Zealand opening batsmen Martin Guptill and Henry Nicholls to ensure their chins are tucked away safely.
Akin to GoT, albeit one kingdom fewer, eight nations arrived in England and Wales but only two have been left standing in trying to tame wickets that just refused to play ball, as it were. The 20m long by 3m wide plots, used between 40 days of cup action, has offered more twists and turns than any Hollywood or Bollywood blockbusters.
Frankly the “big baddies” are gone. No Ockers means whoever clambers to the ODI throne cricket-dom will be the winner as neither England nor New Zealand have ever won it. Had Australia prevailed scribes would have generated a different genre of stories and the keyboard warriors would have stumbled over each other on social media platforms to liberally spray vitriol.
In a summer theatre where “knocking off the bastards” is juxtaposed with diplomacy that can help US President Donald Trump make countless friends, there had been skulduggery even before the tourney started on May 30. Censors could be forgiven for slapping an R18 classification, Roy’s expletives aside.
The Aussies had been caught with their hands in their undies, fishing for sandpaper during a tour of South Africa to make the ball behave uncharacteristically.
The irony is not even the myth of winning the toss and electing to pad up first could prevent a flogging of the Aussies.
The Kiwis will be out to prove that good guys can come first when the final starts at 10pm tomorrow.
Like any production soliciting success at the box office, protagonists are imperative. The Gary Stead-coached New Zealand have captain Kane Williamson, batsman Ross Taylor and bowler Trent Boult.
The Poms have skipper Eoin Morgan, Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root in the batting department and the likes of Archer and Chris Woakes.
But so are supporting acts, even a villain or two who surprise script writers with the rapport they build with the audience in facets of play no one could have anticipated before the tourney began. Enter Guptill the run-out merchant who can’t buy a run right now when it matters or Jimmy Neesham with his venus fly trap fingers at point to add to the turning points in the Black Caps’ stunning 18-run victory over India.
Just as spinner Mitchell Santner had stepped up in the semifinal so had Adil Rashid with his 3-54, albeit a tad expensive, for England. The eye-twitching ticket touts will be recycling passes at up to $18,000, reportedly 25 times their face value, but why feed that habit. If the price tag of avocados this winter is anything to go by then there’s proof the public is fast coming to grips with the economic ritual of supply and demand — don’t buy it and unscrupulous scalpers will get lost in the crowd.
There’s always a danger the final episode, just as it did in GoT, can become an anticlimax but those who prevail will beg to differ because winning ugly is just as palatable.
Punters backing Aussies are in the Poms’ corner with the bookies as $1.28 favourites. The Kiwis ($3.50) already have a legion of India fans who had presumptuously bought tickets.
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Cup details — Page 16
EVERYTHING suggested the final National Basketball League game between the Hawks and the Canterbury Rams in Napier on Thursday was going to be a farewell for the boys to the playoffs in Christchurch in a fortnight.
The televised round 14 encounter started with a welcome from the Kahurangi Maori Dance Company and finished with the Pettigrew-Green Arena faithful giving the Taylor Corporationsponsored Hawke’s Bay team a standing ovation to the tune of
Kool & The Gang’s Celebration.
With five minutes to go in the match, Hawkeye, the bootyshaking mascot, held up the proceedings in the final quarter much to the amusement of fans flirting with the TV cameras.
However, how the first semifinal of the Final Four plays out between the two sides at the Horncastle Arena in the Garden City on July 20 remains to be seen. What can anyone take from the PG Arena when nothing is riding on a game that the hosts won 77-71?
Hawks captain Jarrod Kenny was on the button with a matchhigh 21 points, eight rebounds and six assists but then you come to expect that from the Tall Blacks point guard at this juncture of the NBL campaign. Ditto Ethan Rusbatch who claimed a doubledouble 15 points and collected 10 off the boards.
It came as no surprise that small forward EJ Singler was clad in mufti and parked on the substitutes’ bench.
Workhorse Singler, fellow US import power forward Brandon Bowman, Kenny and swingmen Rusbatch and Dion Prewster won’t be catching the Hawks’ flight to Tasmania to play their final game against Australian newcomers, the Southern Huskies, tonight.
What was reassuring though was veteran shooting guard Everard Bartlett finding his mojo with 17 points in 25 minutes of court time from the bench and a 50 per cent three-point return.
But it was a match where the statistics resembled a turbulent day of frenzied trading of the Dow Jones index on the New York Stock Exchange. Even something as symptomatic as rebounding could become difficult to analyse.
The Hawks led 26-18 in the first quarter but had a smoko break in the second, 12-23 (38-41), to allow the Emmett Naar-captained Rams back into the game. The third had a storm shutter look about it in the hosts’ favour, 19-14 (57-55).
The final fling was a crowd pleaser. With three minutes left on the clock, Kenny dropped one from downtown to make it 76-all but that
was changed in the blink of an eye from two steals on defence. The hosts clocked out 20-16 in the last quarter.
Bartlett had raised the roof in the helter skelter with a threepointer on the top of the D as Canterbury forward Isaiah Wilkins came charging out at him like a banshee. The American import ran into empty chairs on the Rams’ bench in front of the corporate tables before cussing and kicking a chair on his way back on to the court. He had stopped to apologise to just about everyone as the dying minutes drained from the clock.
“I’m feeling good,” said a grinning Bartlett who had also received an apology from Wilkins. “It was a big day for us looking forward to next week because they’re the team we’re playing in the semis.”
The 32-year-old former Tall Black from Hastings said Rusbatch had playedpower forward at times in Singler’s absence but felt, overall, everyone had punched out their cards after a decent shift.
Bartlett agreed Rams coach Mick Downer, akin to Hawks counterpart Zico Coronel, was going to keep his cards close to his chest for the playoffs but, for the hosts, it was about dragging Big