Following the wonderful and certainly unexpected first test triumph in India the self-congratulatory nonsense in our media had me recoil with embarrassment.
For that glorious victory coincided with the Americas Cup win, our women’s 20/20 cricket team’s success in the final against South Africa and a netball victory over Australia.
New Zealand Punching above its weight nonsensically bragged our newspapers, all saying we were the envy of the world and such-like garbage.
My 600 pages 2013 book FIGHTING TALK published by Random House listed the hundreds of everyday expressions in which their roots lay in boxing.
On the “Punching Above Its Weight” cliche I cited the numerous justifiable criticisms of its always hyperbolic bragging exaggeration. In particular I quoted John Allen, our former Foreign Affairs Head who in a 2010 speech, summed it up as “a mantra often chanted without true justification and thus liable to lead to smugness”. Such indeed was the case a fortnight back.
The test win, a rarity for any side playing in India, but in this case, specially magical after our disastrous losses against Sri Lanka a few weeks earlier, deserved all the praise accorded it.
Alternatively, the 20/20 girls “rounders” victory win was simply a fluke of no moment, had zero sporting significance and was immediately forgotten. The stand-out side by a country mile were the Aussies, but as can happen in 20/20 frivolity, fluke results occur and in the knock-out contest they had a one-off bad day against South Africa who in turn lost in the final to our New Zealand girls.
I watched some of these games for their amusement value (the Australians excepted) specifically their hopeless fielding as time and again balls would go between the fielders’ legs or slip out of their hands.
The Bangladesh’s were the most hopeless, but alone had some pretty girls, this a rarity in women’s cricket. But sporting-wise 20/20 cricket is about as significant as competitive basket-weaving.
Then there was the grossly over-hyped Americas Cup. This is sport’s oldest trophy, dating back to 1851 when an American yacht beat an English one in a race around the Isle of Wight.
What solely made it interesting was that over 130 years or so, America successfully fended off all challenges until the colourful English-born Aussie Alan Bond successfully challenged for the trophy in 1983.
Subsequently made “Australian of the Year” then twice jailed for fraud and bankrupted, then remaking his fortune before dying of a heart attack in 2015. Bond’s success ended the Cup’s seeming American invincibility and with that its sole point of interest.
Thereafter New Zealand got involved and its successes saw our media delude themselves that the rest of the world cared. They don’t.
The recent races in Barcelona were of zero interest outside of New Zealand and Britain (the challenger) and understandably so as they’re a tedious, and nowadays, ludicrous spectacle with sail-driven contraptions flying along on tiny floats, bearing no resemblance to yachts.
I was astonished that Barcelona was talked into funding this exercise as the city suffers from excess tourism, to the huge irritation of the locals. Subsequently, it was quick off the mark to say they wouldn’t be in it again.
The hard reality is that this event is solely a rich man’s peculiar pursuit but claiming the participants represent their home country is absurd. They represent themselves in competing, not in who can outsail one another but who can out-design their rivals. It’s a technology contest, not a sports event.
In conclusion, our media’s grossly hyperbolic punching above its weight bragging a fortnight back was ignorant and embarrassing.
But mostly it was a shame as our Indian test win, followed by our subsequent exciting second and third tests, victories was a hugely significant moment in New Zealand sporting.
This was a feat no other cricket nation had ever achieved, that is winning every game in a three test series in India.
Within half an hour of the last test victory the Sydney Morning Herald, albeit near midnight, was rightly acclaiming it as an all time great cricket achievement, so too Britain’s Guardian website. Neither had mentioned the Americas cup victory three weeks earlier.
Every member of our team without exception, had golden moments in the series, which matches were truly gripping thrillers, from go to whoa. The series victory will rate as one of the greatest moments in New Zealand sporting history.
Additionally to add to the pleasure, of this wonderful sporting triumph was another nail in superstition’s coffin given our team was not just up against the hitherto invincible at home Indian side, but also at least a billion Indians praying to their various imagined Gods for rain.