Nine decades ago this week, Australia’s under-fire cricket board rowed back on complaints against the tourists’ brutal bowlingIn this era of cricketing glut, some matches pound through the sausage machine so effectively, they might never have happened at all. But one series continues to hold fast in the imagination: England’s Bodyline tour to Australia of 1932-33.It was 90 years ago on Wednesday that the Australian Cricket Board swallowed their pride and sent a cable to the MCC, taking back their earlier complaints of “unsportsmanlike” behaviour by the English cricket team, who had been pounding down brutal leg theory bowling in the name of victory. It was done through gritted teeth, under pressure from the then Australian prime minister Joseph Lyon,...
The loss of the pregnant Diamonds star forces coach Stacey Marinkovich to pivot and reassess the whole attack endThis changes everything. That was the netball world’s collective reaction when Gretel Bueta – arguably the best player on the planet – revealed at the weekend she is pregnant, meaning she will miss the World Cup in South Africa later this year and the Super Netball season.The 29-year-old has not played for Australia since last year’s gold medal-winning Commonwealth Games campaign, where she was among the Diamonds’ most dominant players, terrorising defenders with her agility, aggression and accuracy. Continue reading...
Novak Djokovic touched his finger to his temple after winning the Australian Open from within his own vacuumStefanos Tsitsipas has always had a Novak Djokovic problem. It was a lost-the-last-nine-matches type of problem – not the archetypal self-affirmation statistic for his bathroom mirror. Now it is 10 and he is no less of a competitor for it, merely the latest victim of a champion who, in Tsitsipas’s own post-match words, is “the greatest that has ever held a tennis racket”.At least he is not alone. A lot of people have a Djokovic problem, and the list is not limited to other players (though 22 grand slam singles titles means there are many of those). The public, the media, even Ukraine’s...
The Australian matched the former Wimbledon champion for tenacity, but not for experience and match managementSometimes chants work, sometimes they do not. And the great minds in the gallery who endeavoured to stretch the word “Kokkinakis” across the breadth of the Seven Nation Army riff had been too ambitious with their syllables. It was a bit Billy Mack, except that Christmas is All Around topped the charts – this lot had no excuse. At least back in the Lleyton era we got “Walking in a Hewitt wonderland”. Now we must endure “Let’s go, Kokky, let’s go”.Granted, it was after 10pm by the time Margaret Court Arena welcomed Thanasi Kokkinakis and Andy Murray, and with late nights come the inevitable late-night...
Statistics show a large majority of Matildas and Socceroos games are staged in New South Wales but context is needed to understand whyLast week, Matildas’ coach Tony Gustavsson cut a customarily jovial figure as he helped announce February’s Cup of Nations. The Swede had good reason to be convivial; the mini-tournament provides a chance to continue momentum from a successful November international window with a group-stage simulation against Spain, Jamaica and Czechia across Sydney, Gosford and Newcastle.The New South Wales slant of the host cities is clear, and has been met with predictable reactions. In the wake of furious backlash to the Australian Professional Leagues’s sale of hosting rights for the next three A-Leagues grand finals to Sydney, Football Australia’s...