A day to remember, more rain and three awful results add up to another intriguing Good, Bad and Ugly of Sport.
GOOD
Jake Jonas would wish he could bottle up Saturday on Queen Elizabeth Park Oval and keep it forever.
Described by coach Mark Childs as “the single best all-round performance I’ve ever seen from a Wairarapa cricketer”, Jonas stood head and shoulders above the rest with 82 out of a total of 176, 3 for 9 off 10 overs, throwing down the stumps side-on from the boundary for a run out and a stunning catch, in Wairarapa’s first-innings win over Whanganui, moving them to second in the Furlong Cup standings.
Staying with cricket, Emma McLeod set the national secondary school championships alight with a sublime 101no in St Matthew’s second-round win over St Hilda’s [Dunedin]. At the time of writing, St Matt’s were the only unbeaten team after three rounds and on the cusp of national championship glory.
New Zealand beat Bangladesh in trying conditions in Dhaka, led by a fine double with the bat by Glenn Phillips [87 and 40no], but more about that when this column gets ugly.
Giants Blue and Red are into their respective finals of the Intercity Softball Premier Two and Premier Three championships. That’s the good news, and you would imagine both would have their finals at South Park as the top qualifiers and the Blues will be at home, but bizarrely, the Reds must travel to Paremata to play Paremata-Plimmerton. Beats me, but then again, nothing surprises me with Intercity Softball.
The first half of the Wairarapa Tennis Interclub season concluded with South edging North 9–7 in a thrilling encounter at Martinborough. The clubs will now revert to the traditional four-men, two-women teams for the second half.
NZ Cycle Classic race director Jorge Sandoval pulled off a massive coup, luring the USA endurance track team to the five-day tour as part of their prep for the Paris Olympics.
The Wellington Phoenix women overcame the sudden retirement of Chloe Knott and injuries to key players to draw 2–2 with Melbourne Victory and stay in the top four in the Women’s A-League.
The good news from Super Rugby powerbrokers is that they intend to limit the interference by TMOs in an effort to make for a more free-flowing, less stop-start spectacle. Now, they just must convince the boffins at WRC HQ in Dublin to do the same.
BAD
Rain, rain go away, but it didn’t in time, after it came in at lunch on Sunday, ending any hope of Wairarapa pushing for an outright win in their Furlong Cup two-day cricket match with Whanganui.
UGLY
The Dhaka pitch for the second test between Bangladesh and New Zealand was rated “unsatisfactory” by the ICC, and Black Caps skipper Tim Southee said it was “probably the worst I’ve come across in my career.” What more can be said other than ugly pitch leads to ugly cricket?
Three bad results from teams you follow all add up to one ugly weekend. The Breakers go from bad to worse, jack-jumped at home 97–80 by ‘Tassie’, and sit bottom equal in the ANBL; the Phoenix lost their unbeaten record in the A-League, blown away 3–0 by the Newcastle Jets, and Man U succumbed to Bournemouth supremacy humbled 3–0 at home, and to make it even uglier for my beloved Red Devils, they suffered their worst ever Champions League, bundled out by Bayern Munich with a 1–0 loss at home.
However, I would imagine the latter two results would bring a smile to many of your faces.
