Winning all four majors in a single year, and doing so twice, is a wondrous feat worthy of the verdict: ‘The best of the best’ Rod Laver recognises the apples/oranges element inherent in comparing records across eras, but the player acknowledged as the finest of his generation and voted as the best of the 20th century did something no other tennis great ever has: win the grand slam, twice. Repeat: all four majors in the same year. Twice.The first, in 1962, was from a so-called amateur field already weakened by the defection to the professional ranks of players such as Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall and Pancho Gonzales. The second – and most significant – followed Laver’s own 21-slam exile while...
Australian group launches another unusual venture in US league curtailed by coronavirus, after Colorado withdrawalMajor League Rugby last week announced a new team for 2021: the LA Giltinis. Related: Austin Gilgronis: why would a US rugby club name itself after a cocktail? Related: State of the union: Old Glory DC bring Major League Rugby to Washington Continue reading...
If a player contracts coronavirus he could be isolated and substituted as an extension of the concussion regulationsEngland’s Test series against West Indies and Pakistan look ever more likely to happen, albeit behind closed doors. We await confirmation from the government that this will be permitted even though it may be that the resumption of international cricket has not been at the top of their list of priorities of late.Meanwhile in the offices of the England and Wales Cricket Board and the International Cricket Council the details of the necessary protocols for playing a Test in such extraordinary times are being finalised. They must try to anticipate every eventuality although the guidelines may not include mandatory 60-mile journeys as an...
Athletes and supporters are compelled to wait, with no guarantee of a satisfying resolutionWaiting and cricket go hand in glove. It is an instruction barked urgently as a defensive push scuttles towards a fielder. It is the next batter, padded up, visualising their fate. It is the commentator’s lament as rain pools on tarpaulin covers.Cricket does not have a monopoly on waiting in sport, but the duration of a Test provides room for the passage of time to take on great significance, so much so that a contest could be understood almost entirely in the context of waiting. The pitch? How could you know how it’s faring until both sides have batted, or seen how much it turns on days...
Lockdown decluttering has led me down a path to the fascinating, well-lived life of a larrikin named Aubrey HodgsonA recent lockdown clear-out prompted the discovery of a semi-skimmed and long-forgotten letter forwarded to me by my mother some years ago; a piece of correspondence she had chanced upon while doing some domestic decluttering of her own. It had been written by my uncle, a former professor of anatomy at the University of Galway, during his days doing the rounds at a Sydney hospital way back in 1978.Writing to my father on the flimsiest of airmail notepaper, with a neatness of hand that belied his profession, he revealed that he had been lucky enough to get talking to “a very interesting...