Everyone remembers the cricket but few recall the day John Walker took to the track in MelbourneIt started with a tweet. On 4 March 2018, reacting to the news that barrier-busting miler Roger Bannister had died, Mike Selvey – the long-term lord of this manor – posted the following: “The great John Walker ran a sub-four-minute mile on a track laid out on the outfield of the MCG during the Centenary Test in March 1977.”Hold up. He did what? During the most fondly recalled Test ever staged at the G? Continue reading...
For all his flaws and wasted gifts, he surely does not deserve the vilification that has fallen upon himWhen Bernard Tomic announced he was the first player on the ATP tour to self-isolate after showing symptoms of coronavirus, the 27-year-old Australian was not drowned in universal sympathy.The Covid-19 pandemic has loosened the worst and best instincts of humanity and Tomic, who could have been one of the outstanding players of his generation, endured mostly a blizzard of scorn after telling an Australian newspaper on Sunday: “Since Tuesday, Istarted feeling not right. I already had shortness of breath and my immune system was low and run down. I’m currently in Miami and isolated away from everyone, as advised. I’m yet to...
Six-part show may serve as PR for Australia in the aftermath of scandal, but it adeptly chronicles a dramatic 16 monthsFrom the aftermath of their 2018 ball-tampering meltdown through to last summer’s Ashes defence, Australia’s male cricketers were followed by a camera crew. Net sessions, team meetings, coach journeys, the dressing room – hundreds of hours of access-all-areas footage were shot inside the team bubble.Those 16 months have been edited down into an eight-part documentary series for Amazon Prime entitled The Test: A New Era for Australia’s Team, which begins this week. It is a hefty slab of work, the production values of which point to the director Adrian Brown’s team being deft operators and remind you how burnished cricket’s...
Tennis Australia managed to smooth over the latest controversy surrounding Court yet it is neither they nor the celebrated commentators who should be apologisingMartina Navratilova and John McEnroe, for once, had nothing of substance to apologise for. Nevertheless, two of the most outspoken voices in tennis, went through the motions here on Wednesday to soothe the ego of Margaret Court, Australia’s finest ever woman player, who is also a homophobe of no regrets and holds views that went out of fashion in the 19th century, as well as the sensitivities of Craig Tiley, whose normally excellent stewardship of the Australian Open has looked more like the captain of the Hesperus ignoring an advancing storm that his drunken first mate could...
How long can sport, like Hollywood, continue to wave away the contradictions between its activities and its supposed ideals?Someone once told me about a film actor who had developed a powerful ecological conscience, and in this spirit he bought every cast and crew member on his latest production a reusable coffee cup. As the shoot wore on, he’d make spot checks to see if they were using them. This was a source of some irritation but more amusement to the crew, who’d observe darkly to each other that – with the best will in the world on the old coffee cup front – they were literally MAKING A MOVIE HERE. There are few more disposably indulgent, bigger footprint projects than...