WHAT A HAT-TRICK! BAGGY GREEN CAP WORN BY SHANE RAISES £528,000
Steady Joe admits he needs to bat big but get a move on
JOE DENLY has admitted he must do better for England at No.3 after gumming up the works and failing to go on and get a big score in Cape Town.
Denly faced 241 balls in the match, but only scored 38 and then 31 in his two innings, which may have played their part but can hardly be described as match winning.
So far in his 12-Test career perhaps only his 94 at the Oval in the Ashes could be given that title, although his 69 in St Lucia was more than handy. The problem
SHANE WARNE has capped another Aussie cricket legend Don Bradman – and it was all for a great cause.
Warne auctioned his ‘baggy green’ cap to raise funds for the Red Cross bushfire appeal and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s winning bid of £528,514 was more than double the £225,000 the iconic Bradman’s made in though is that while Denly has done a satisfactory job, especially at No.3, for England, a breakthrough still needs to be made when it comes to
either scoring 2003. The game’s greatest leg spinner, who took 708 wickets during his 145-Test career, wore the same cap throughout his 15 years at international level.
But he often reverted to the wide-brimmed floppy hat after the first session in the field since he preferred the fit and the sun protection it offered.
Warne famously refused to wear his baggy green cap that first ton, or going on after he gets a start.
His last three scores have all been in the 30s and at Newlands they were painfully slow, which is much more forgivable when the end-product is something significant. “Batting big in the first innings is a plan of ours and as a top-order batter you obviously want to bat time,” admitted Denly. “But it is a case of understanding the game situation, there may have been times in this game when I maybe could have got on with it a bit more. “I think it is just having that game sense, trying to understand what the bowlers are doing, trying to get the bowlers back for more and more spells in to the Wimbledon men’s final in 2001 when then skipper Steve Waugh asked the team to do so in support of fellow Australian star Pat Rafter.
But the cap still meant plenty to the 50-year-old Warne, who will now see it taken on a naional tour of Australia to raise further funds for victims of the terrible fires before being placed in the Bradman their legs, which allows our long batting line-up to take advantage when they are tired. It is frustrating that I haven’t kicked on and got that really big score.
“But I really believe it is just a matter of time if I keep doing the things I’ve been doing.
“I’m feeling more and more confident out there with each game I play, and each knock I have. It is about being solid up front and building partnerships to allow these guys in the middle-order to come in and play the way they can play. But, like I say, .............. 12 ............... 23 ................. 720 ......... 94 ........ 31.30 ..... 1808 .... 39.82 ............. 0 .................. 6 .................. 95 .................... 4 museum. Warne later tweeted: “Thank you so much to everyone that placed a bid & a huge Thankyou / congrats to the successful bidder – you have blown me away with your generosity and this was way beyond my expectations!
“The money will go direct to the Red Cross bushfire appeal. Thank You, Thank you Thank you.” it will be nice to go on and get that big one. “Hopefully, it is not too far away.”
Port Elizabeth from Thursday would be the perfect place for him to take the step that Dom Sibley took in Cape Town and end any debate about the No.3 position.
With his Kent team-mate Zak Crawley set to be given the next two games to see if he can make his own quantum leap as a Test batsman, there could be some very serious competition when Rory Burns returns to the top of the order.
GREAT BRITAIN stands third in the all-time Olympic boxing table behind the USA and Cuba with 56 medals, 18 of which are gold.
While a chunk of that bounty was returned in the early years of Olympic competition, the last three cycles in Beijing, London and Rio were the most successful for half a century.
At the start of another Olympic year the podium squad has just touched down in Colorado for a 10-day camp ahead of the first Tokyo qualifier in London in March. There are 13 places – eight for men and five for women – up for grabs. With the likes of the McCormack twins, Luke (above) and Pat, Ben Whitaker, and 2019 double European and World gold medallist Lauren Price (below) in the squad, GB is again well placed to push on.
Before the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton there were no camps abroad. The Irish squad went to Slieve Donard Hotel in County Down for three weeks, then we flew to Edmonton 10 days before the Games began. There were no salaries. Today’s kids receive grants of £30kplus a year and everything is paid for at the GB headquarters in Sheffield.
As well as boxing experts they have a first-class support team of strength and conditioning coaches, nutritionists, physios, psychologists, etc. The whole thing is much more professional.
Our young boxers now have the same facilities as the old Eastern European, Soviet and Cuban fighters, who benefited from state-backed systems with no expense spared.
The ability to fly off to Colorado shows how preparations have been ratcheted up. The real spike in the curve is sparring with the best in the world. When they go to an international training camp they are sparring with elite rivals and performance goes through the roof.
Top sparring is almost better than international fights. You don’t feel sorry if you get schooled. You just come back tomorrow and try to do better.
It is all about competition. It is the same in any sport. When kids asked the great Arnold Palmer how to get better, he would always say “compete.”
In my day kids with potential would often slip through the net. Not now. And there is every incentive for kids to stick at it, knowing there is every chance they might make it to the Olympics one day.
Believe me, it doesn’t get much better than that.
Follow Barry on Twitter at @ClonesCyclone @McGuigans_Gym @CyclonePromo