Netball has been a pretty interesting
sport to follow over the last couple of months. A drawn two test
series against Aussie in September provided some really good
spectator sport, and the recent series against England has been one
of few sports to actually crack the political shell surrounding news
media. The ridiculous premise of a two-test series was canned for the
England tour, a smart move based on the fact that a one-all draw is
the most useless result imaginable. After a huge win a few weeks back
and a narrow loss two weekends ago, the Silver Ferns will no doubt
have turned up on Saturday with all guns blazing, and I definitely
favour our girls to take it out, even though England turned up in the
second test with ruthless determination, we're just better. If we
lost on the weekend, take back what I said so I don't sound like an
idiot.
The Black Caps managed to defeat
Bangladesh last week in a three-match ODI series. Despite the fact
that the Bangladeshi's lost 14 of their top players (14 isn't a
typo) they managed to beat us in the first ODI at Dhaka by an
embarrassing 7 wickets. Our boys would have been happy about the
media missing that one, but after what was one of the most pathetic
batting efforts of recent seasons, the boys turned up to win the
second and third matches, restoring some sort of pride back into Kiwi
cricket fans. Kind of. The batting this year has been woeful. The
ICC's batting rankings place our best batsman, Scott Styris, at a
measly 27th place, with Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor
following in 28th and 29th respectively. With
only a few standout performances (Jacob Oram's man of the series
effort of 135 at 67.5 and taking four wickets, Ross Taylor's 103)
in a series where you'd expect us to dominate, there could be
trouble ahead as we head to Aussie for test matches in November.
After Manly gang-banged Melbourne in
the dark, the league focus has shifted now to the international
stuff. If you're reading this on any day after Saturday then the
Kiwi's have already (presumably) beaten Tonga at Mt Smart. The
one-off test is build-up for the League World Cup, which is becoming
identifiable as a pretty low quality event. There have already been
big talks about the financial aspect of the competition, as the prize
money for all ten finalists has been announced at A$2m, a pretty
rubbish effort for an international competition. Even the website
(www.worldcup.leagueunlimited.com) is crap. Essentially the
competition is just the Gillette Tri-Nations with some other teams
trying to win some shit on the side. Aussie will win again no doubt.
Really there isn't much else going
on. TheV8s came down to an awesome finish at Bathurst, with Kiwi boys
Greg Murphy and Jason Richards placing second behind Craig Lowndes
and Jamie Whincup (who have now won ((hey that's a palindrome)) the
last three). Richie McCaw will have started for Canterbury on the
weekend, which would have been a decent win for them over Hawke's
Bay; they should be through to play Wellington who should have beaten
Southland on Friday. Should have...
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