Summer Sport..

I really have enjoyed the Australian Open. I know, its apples and oranges, chalk and cheese, but its hard to think of a sportsman, sportswomen, or a team as dominant as Roger Federer. Some of the shots that Federer made against Andy Roddick were unbelievable. I think Federer has now won four of the last five major tennis finals (losing the fifth to Raphel Nadeal). Simply stunning. But he is more than his record; Federer is a credit to the sport, both on and off the court.

I’ve been thinking a little bit about what I’ll call the romance of sport, which I think save the suburban grounds is slowly disappearing.

If you watch a lot of Rugby League, and Rugby Union you would have seen the Video Referee for some time.

If you spend a lot of summer in front of the cricket you would be quite familiar with the use of video replays to adjudicate run outs and stumpings. It think that there has been talk to extend this to include ‘LBWs’ and ‘catches’.

If you watched any of the Australian open, you will have noticed a little bit new technology on Rod Laver Arena. Players are able to use "Hawkeye" and challenge two calls in each set.

Sadly I think with each of these “technological developments” we lose the thing what I find to be special about sport, the unpredictability of human judgment. Well I think it is at least what I love about sport, and with the quest to make the calls perfect we are now able to look at everything, sped up, slowed down, from above, from in front, and from behind.

There’s something to be said for non-competitive sport, were players more often than not are playing because they love the game and perhaps “in the spirit”.

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Thinking about the spirit of the game, players who concede points, or who walk when they are out, or mention to the umpires if they did not catch a ball cleanly seem to be quite rare. It was saddening seeing both Craig McMillan (NZL v AUS), and Mike Hussey (AUS v ENG) remain in the middle, while seemingly knowing they were out. I like to seeing batsmen walk.

I am not too disappointed with how New Zealand has gone. They pushed Australia all the way in two of the three games: losing by 2 wickets (and but for a dropped catch, and messed up runout may well have won), and 8 runs (chasing 345). Given that England have just about wrapped up tonight's game, it looks like NZ will have to win one more game to qualify for the finals. We’ll see, irrespective of these two games, hopefully they can have a good World Cup.