Batfist of the Week

How quickly the weeks are passing.  With haste, one realises that it is already not only Winter, but the end of financial year in Australia – meaning contract discussions, budget reviews and all sorts of movements in sport.  Time is flying by, which means – how soon it is that yet another Batfist day is upon us.

Given my form with either mozzing or motivating teams at present, I am hesitant to do anything but accept full responsibility for both the Miami Heat’s NBA championship and England’s remarkable recovery against the Springboks last week.  Both were sledged earlier on in Batfist columns and both improved remarkably.  Well played, boys.  If I knew that appearing in Batfist was a motivator all along, the North Melbourne Football Club would have featured a lot more heavily.  Lessons learned – onwards and upwards to this week’s edition:

Honourable Mention: Brock McLean (Australia) (AFL – Aussie Rules)

Ahh, the wonders of social media.  It wasn’t that long ago that no one even knew what the internet was – remember that classic line from Homer Simpson: “Oh, the INTERnet.  They have that on computers now?”   Yet at present, social media is catching out our professional athletes left, right and centre.

The most recent athlete caught out in social media was Carlton’s Brock McLean, who on Tuesday tweeted that the day could “f*ck right off”.  A random response was received of “did they finally delist you”.

Okay, so neither of those two were particularly bad, but McLean’s response of along the lines of “no, your mum has given me aids” probably was less than awesome.

McLean’s punishment ultimately consisted of a suspended one match penalty, some “education” and a $5,000 donation to charity.

Two things:

(1) If athletes in Australia aren’t yet understanding that Twitter is a public forum and you can be sanctioned for your tweets, then I’m not sure they ever will; and

(2) Given his seven word response contains grammatical errors, (it’s AIDS, buddy – it’s a syndrome that has had some recognition world wide) let’s all hope that McLean’s “education” includes some English lessons.

Honourable Mention: Irish squad (Ireland) (Rugby)

After a cracking second test match against the ever powerful All Blacks which saw the Irish boys lose 22-19, fans of the Irish rugby team were holding their collective breath to see how the third test from Waikato was going to pan out.  With an extra week, many thought it may be possible for Ireland to walk away with their first win on New Zealand soil.

My, but what a long time a week is in sport.

In one of the most brutal test matches in recent years, the All Blacks never let the Irish even look like sniffing victory.  A demolition was well under-way when, by half time, the All Blacks led a lack lustre Irish squad 29-0.

With Ireland struggling to pull together consistent phases, wasting opportunities and making silly mistakes, the fact the game finished with the All Blacks winning 60-0 is probably a credit to Ireland for

(a) letting the All Blacks score ONLY 60; and

(b) managing to keep their score out of the negatives.

If anyone sees the Irish team this weekend, let them know the Waikato crowd are STILL looking for them.

Maybe that is why the Irish drink so much…

Third Place: Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka) (Cricket)

Poor Kumar Sangakkara.  The Sri Lankan batsman was having a brilliant game against Pakistan in the first test at Galle.  The seemingly effortless stroke-play of the left-handed batsman over a huge nine hours was leading to one thing – another double century, the ninth in his career.

When the ninth wicket fell and Nuwan Pradeep strode to the pitch with Sangakkara sitting on 182, it was always going to be a difficult task.  But he did it.  Sitting on 194, Sangakkara hit a monster six and raised his arms in celebration of his double century.

Trouble was, the scoreboard at Galle was incorrect and he was actually on 193 before that hit.

Once his celebrations of his “double century” waned, Sangakkara’s team-mates – who were upstairs watching on the television – let him know immediately that he was on 199 and actually needed another run, despite the scoreboard stating he was on 200.

With a dot ball signalling the last of the over, Pradeep was left to face an over from Mohammed Hafeez before giving Sangakkara the strike and (again) reach that illustrious double tonne.

You guessed it.

In his haste to make a single and get Sangakkara back on strike, Pradeep was bowled and Sangakkara was left stranded up the non-strikers end on 199.

How Pradeep must have felt is anyone’s guess.  How the scorer at the ground must be feeling even now, is anyone’s guess.  But Sangakkara?  He was being realistic about it all and delivered this pearler:

“I would still like to remember this day in a positive way. Today is my father’s birthday and making something close to 200 means I won’t have to buy him a gift.”

So happy birthday, Mr Sangakkara.  Your birthday present is a premature celebration and a non-existent gift.

Second Place: embroiderers for the South African Olympic mens hockey team (South Africa) (Hockey)

With just 29 days to go before the big dance commences in London, excitement is beginning to climb.  It feels like it has been forever since London started their official Olympic countdown, towards being the first city in the world to hold the Summer Olympics three times.  London 2012 has been seen everywhere, in anticipation of what England have promised to be the best Games yet.

As an athlete, it is a privilege, an honour to make an Olympic team.  The flag, the uniform – everything associated with the experience fills you with pride.  So spare a thought for the South African mens hockey team, when their Olympic uniforms arrived, with the proud nation’s name “SOUTH AFICA” on the back of their tracksuits.

Yep, you read correctly.  South Afica.

To make matters worse, in an even bigger blunder, South Afica are set to compete at the Londndon 2012 Olympics.

There’s four points that need to be raised from this:

1.  Given the fraud allegations flying around surrounding the accommodation arrangements of athletes for the Games, I hope that no one has booked accommodation in Londndon;

2.  Thank heavens the error was found BEFORE the Olympics;

3.  You can guarantee that South Afica will bring home the gold medal (and silver and bronze) from the Londndon Olympic Games given their competition; and

4.  HEY ANC – NOW YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND WHY LIMPOPO NEEDS THOSE DAMN TEXTBOOKS!

Winner – Batfist of the Week – Lewis Hamilton (England) (Motorsport – Formula One)

The European Grand Prix.  What an amazing race it turned out to be.

With Sebastian Vettel qualifying in pole position and off to a flying start, it seemed to be all but a given that he was going to be the eventual winner of the race – until after 34 laps, his Red Bull vehicle decided to die a death and just stop.

Fernando Alonso for Ferrari, Romain Grosjean for Lotus and Lewis Hamilton for McLaren seemed to be chomping at the bit to make the Valencia circuit their own, until Grosjean also crashed out, leaving Hamilton chasing a leading Ferrari.

Hamilton, with another disaster of a pit-stop (seriously, McLaren, this is just getting past the worrying point now and bordering on downright comical), had his work cut out for him but was slowly making up time on Alonso.  It didn’t matter – short of a disaster, Alonso was going to win – but Hamilton and Ferrari were focused on the podium, eyeing off that second tier.

Now this, boys and girls, is where we welcome Pastor Maldonado to the story.

After a few close calls along the way, Hamilton (in his never-say-die, I’m always right way) cut close to Maldonado on a few of the remaining corners, but it was one of the last ones that was the killer.

After a brisk rub earlier which saw Hamilton pull away the better, Maldonado was happy to challenge again.

And on the last lap of the race, challenge he did – if by challenge, I mean “shunt Hamilton into the wall, sending him crashing out of contention”.

Proof?

 

 Hamilton was left fuming and cursing (no different, really) and had the pleasure of seeing a podium of former world champions in Alonso, Kimmi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher take the cake.

So, for picking the wrong driver for a fight, albeit with a multi-million dollar vehicle – AND LOSING – well done, Lewis Hamilton.  You are this week’s winner of Batfist of the Week.