There's a decided lack of sport to follow this weekend; we've gone from a famine to a feast. At one point last Saturday, there was live cricket on all three Sky channels with the Ashes test, the Black Caps in India and the domestic T-20 competition. Thankfully the Indian tour finishes tonight!
So today we thought we'd pause and reflect on the year that has gone. We blogged last week about the addition of a people's choice "best moment of the year" award to the Halberg Awards; today, let's take a look at the Halbergs themselves. Who have been the stars of New Zealand sport this year? There are four main categories; male, female and team, from whom the supreme winner is chosen, and coach.
Let's have some names for any or all of the categories, and we can see if the collective wisdom of the Keeping Stock faithful is any better than the judging panel which does the Halberg nominations - pass the envelope please!
9 comments:
Before I get into that I have a question:
Why didn't Franklin bowl the other day?
It was his day, he was in the groove. If I had been captain I would have tossed him the new ball and said - finish them off Franko!!
Not being a native, are there any additional criteria around these awards? Skewed to give a nudge to minority sports or anything?
The team award should definitely go to the All Whites, even though the AB's only lost the once, Ted's men didn't take their sport anywhere it hadn't been before. By extension then the male award can only go to Ryan Nelsen because it was his drive and organisation at the root of that team acheivement.
Female? Well I'm going to let my sporting biases have their way on this and give it to Ali Shanks a fantastic ride for the gold in Delhi, plus there's always room for more footage of attractive lasses in lycra on TV.
Coach is harder because you'd have to say Ricki Herbert, Graham Henry [/gritted teeth], Titch and Ruth Aitken are all well in the frame.
So, I'm going for Gordon Tietjens because frankly it's absurd that he's never won it before and he just seems able to always build a winning team out of whatever scraps he's allowed after the AB's and S14/15 teams have had their pick.
@pdm - who would know? Bad captaincy I'd say. As Strauss and Pietersen demonstrated, it's a basic law of cricket that when a player's hot, he's hot and things inevitably go his way.
Good question pdm - I didn't take much notice of the bowling effort, so I hadn't noticed that.
Having said that, I think that Franklin could be handy come the World Cup. He is a better batsman than Elliott, and could conceivably share 10 overs with Styris as the fifth bowler. There must be doubt over whether Oram will be fit for the World Cup. All that depends on McCullum keeping wickets. If Hopkins has to play as 'keeper, that Black Caps batting suffers. It's notable that they scored their best total for some time WITHOUT Hopkins during the week.
On his day Franklin is a 10 over man and a swinger of the ball. A far better cricketer than Elliott.
What happened to McGlashan as back up keeper?
I nominate INV2 for the supreme award for services to beach dodge-ball – keeping her head in the sand about the performance of her beloved government and dodging the difficult questions in favour of answering her own patsy ones.
PDM, James, Gnat Guy, Gravedigger, Adolf and various others are nominated for runners-up awards for services to blind following. They stayed together as a pack and created a wonderfully smooth ride for each other in the slipstream of INV2. Any closer to dear leader, and heads would disappear up arses.
To all Anons, no awards for you. You're not team players! You think to much for yourselves. You're multiple individuals. And we can't have those.
FYI Anon, this is a weekly thread where the topic is sport. Your conspiracy theories are getting the better of you.
If you want to set the agenda, start a blog of your own.
Oooooohhhhh. Someone's got a golf club in their knickerbockers. Game set and match. Kick the comment don't pass it.
Another stunning batting effort by the Black Caps.
Sounds like some strange bowling changes according to cric info as the try to defend the indefensible - 103.
anon - go away and stuff up the Standard or Red Alert - they will love you there.
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