Painting Fakes

So, back in late December Ellyse Perry was named the International Cricket Council's Female Cricketer of the Decade  as well as sweeping up the T20 and ODI player awards.  She is that rare cricketer who can change a game with either bat or ball, or both.  Not only that but she is also an international soccer player, having debuted for Australia in both soccer and cricket in 2007 at the age of just 16.  She continued to star in both sports until 2014, when the increasing professionalism of both meant she had to choose. Not only is she a super-gifted sportswoman, she is also a published author.  In 2016 she added her name to the growing sub-genre of children's books featuring the fictionalised exploits of sporting heroes.  Then in 2019 she published a more serious book of reflections on life as an elite sportsperson, Perspective.   It's fair to say her literary skills are not quite at the same level as her sporting ones.  I'm pretty sure most of the...

You might remember that I have a bit of a soft spot for disgraced Aussie cricketer David Warner.  It's irrational - after all, he cheated - but rationality is not everything. For those who came in late...  In March last year Warner, then Australia's cricket vice-captain, was suspended along with captain Steve Smith and fellow opening bat Cameron Bancroft for tampering with the condition of the ball during a test at Newlands, South Africa, and for lying about it afterwards.  Bancroft, at Warner's suggestion and with Smith's knowledge, applied sandpaper to the ball to rough up one side so it would swing.  Warner and Smith got 12 months, Bancroft got nine. In the last month, as the Aussie cricket season has rolled on, we have heard from both Smith and Bancroft.  Smith was first out of the blocks, featuring in some Vodaphone ads which neatly commercialise his suspension and doing a press conference as well as some interviews.  Here's one he did with fo...

In 2019, the National Rugby League will be played without Johnathan Thurston for the first time since 2001.  Cue the obligatory memoir! The latter part of Thurston's 2018 season was somewhat surreal. His North Queensland Cowboys had a terrible year and were out of title contention by mid-season.  Thurston himself was playing like a man who may possibly have stretched his career one season too many.  If his career had finished with his final on-field act of 2017 - overcoming a busted shoulder to kick a classic curling conversion from the sideline and win Queensland the second State of Origin game - that would have a been a more fitting farewell.  Yet everywhere he went he was feted, with opposing teams presenting him farewell gifts after each game. His final act on the field, so to speak, was perhaps an appropriate sign-off for both the season and the career.  The match was an otherwise inconsequential game between the Cowboys and the equally struggling Gold ...

For a short time, David Warner's Aussie cricketing mates called him 'The Rev', short for Reverend, after he announced his intention to moderate his combative on-field behaviour.  Over the last year that's gone out the window, and now he has been caught cheating  along with some other team-mates and banned for 12 months.  So definitely not 'the Rev' now.  Much less a prophet. Still, I can't help noticing the resemblance with Moses, the Hebrew stolen generation kid who ended up leading his people out of their Egyptian slavery. There's a lot to Moses' story but you could see it as a spiritual journey in four phases.  In the first, he is oblivious to his true identity.  Not that he is necessarily ignorant of his Hebrew heritage, but he has grown up in a high-status Egyptian household and can confidently look forward to a career in the Egyptian hierarchy and a comfortable, successful life.   In the second phase, he is awakened to the...

It being summer I've been watching copious amounts of cricket and avoiding anything too intellectual or work-related.  As an additional aid to this vegetative process, I've been reading some of the cricket memoirs that have been released over the past few months.  There is Michael Clarke's My Story,  Chris Rogers' Bucking the Trend  and Mitchell Johnson's Resilient. I find the thought processes of elite athletes fascinating.  To succeed at their sport, they have to be really focused - not just when they are performing at the elite level, but on the way up.  They have to make sacrifices, as do those around them - their parents, siblings, partners and children.  They have to do this amidst a huge amount of uncertainty.  They might not make the grade.  An injury or an illness can end their career at a single stroke.  Their best may not be quite good enough. These three men travelled quite different pathways to the top.   Michael Cl...

I should say at the outset of this post that I really enjoy the Olympics.  The tension of the contest, the sense of history being made and celebrated, the personalities large and small.  I enjoy the grace and technical skill of the gymnasts, the sheer power of the throwers, the speed and endurance of the runners and swimmers, the idea that these young people have focused single-mindedly on becoming the best they can at some arcane discipline. I enjoy the wins, of course, but what I enjoy most are those occasional moments of sporting ethics and friendship between athletes.  Like the Swiss pole vaulter helping the young Kiwi bronze medallist to clean up her face for the hundreds of photos that were about to be taken of her. Or the two women, previously strangers, who fell in their 5,000m heat and then coaxed each other through the rest of the race to finish together.  Or the tradition among decathletes of sharing the victory lap with the whole field.  These...

Amidst last year's retirements of numerous high-profile Australian cricketers, not to mention today's announcement from West Indies great Shivnarine Chanderpaul, it would be easy to miss Nathan Hauritz's retirement anouncement. Hauritz could well have a productive second career as part of the answer to one of Australia's most difficult sports trivia questions: name the spin bowlers who have played Test cricket for Australia since Shane Warne's 2007 retirement. Any casual cricket watcher would get Nathan Lyon, who recently became Australia's most prolific Test offspinner.  Most would also get Stuart MacGill, the world class leg-spinner who spent his whole career in Warne's shadow.  How would you go with the rest?  Brad Hogg, Beau Casson, Cameron White, Jason Krezja, Bryce McGain, Xavier Doherty, Michael Beer, Steven Smith, Glenn Maxwell, Ashton Agar, Steven O'Keeffe.  And Nathan Hauritz. It is hardly a roll-call of glory.  Why is that a country whi...

Cricket commentators around the world are asking, "can Test cricket survive?" They're particularly asking it here in Australia because we have just witnessed a soggy and depressing end to one of the least interesting Test series in history, played between Australia and a team of young men impersonating the West Indies.  Not many people turned up to watch, TV ratings were lukewarm and as one wit put it, by the third test even Mother Nature got bored and decided it was better to spend the time watering the grass. Meanwhile Australia's domestic cricketers, along with a fair number of actual West Indians and a smattering from other countries, have been playing T20 cricket in the Big Bash League in front of packed stadia and large TV audiences.  Even the women's version of the competition, in its very first year, is attracting enough interest for Channel 10 to increase its coverage. Of course threats to Test Cricket are not new.  In 1960, long before TV covera...