Ben Stokes - holding his head high in Rangiora. Photo/AP.
Ben Stokes - holding his head high in Rangiora. Photo/AP.
Canterbury - what the heck are you doing? Have you gone completely mad?
As the first cricket test between New Zealand and the West Indies settled into an interesting grind, with the odd outstanding flourish from batters and bowlers, the public went mad for suspended England cricket star Ben Stokes. Or so we are led to believe.
This may be the most bizarre journey into public affection in the history of sport. That unfortunate scrap outside a Bristol club has helped New Zealand discover Ben Stokes. His agent, up until now, had been getting it all wrong. Just no creative thinking.
Yes people, Stokesy is kin, he's really one of ours, and we ain't letting him down.
And the other lesson: We will do absolutely anything to beat Australia, even by helping England.
What a stellar moment for sport, a bloke involved in a fracas which left someone's eye socket on the blink getting a good old leg back up towards The Ashes in the splendour of Canterbury town life.
You can almost hear the birds chirping, the lovely sound of freshly made lemonade hitting the glass as he lined up against Otago.
I'm all for natural justice, the right to a presumption of innocence. But the more this plays out, the less it feels like natural justice, not while there's a victim hanging about with an eye socket hanging about.
I didn't really know what to think at first but natural justice - the only available sort at the moment - is about what feels right. And this feels very wrong, balanced out.
Credit where it's due though. Canterbury cricket is now in a two horse race with one arm of the Duco boxing outfit for the Tacky Promotion of the Year Award. Duco will get the most nominations by far, but Canterbury cricket's ability to follow boxing outside of the ropes has them as the clear favourite in my view.
Tacky is not illegal of course. But it is still tacky.
People in England might be mucking about over this, but not Canterbury cricket. No siree.
The initial shock was actually sporting related. New Zealand are playing against England this summer. Why give the opposition a hand when it is such a marginal situation?
And Ben Stokes at least partially assisted himself into this mess, whether charges and a conviction follow or not. Sorry, I mean Stokesy got himself into this mess.
If he needed some help after an injury, that might be another matter. If Stokesy was on the comeback after tripping over his shoelace while helping a little old lady across the road to give money to a street person, well all well and very good.
But after a very serious physical conflict with charges a possibility, while suspended by his own national team? Nah.
Canterbury is taking advantage of a situation in which there has been a victim of violence, even if a court had not decided the outcome, yet.
So do we really care about all victims of violence, or does it depend on who they are, or who we think they are, where it happened, what time of the day or night it happened, and whether it involves a sports star who will sign autographs in Rangiora.
And will Stokesy end up in a charitable boxing event? (If he does, you heard the suggestion here first).
TOM HUMS
Tom Blundell - surprise debut. Photo/Getty
Apart from that, what a promising start to the summer, even if the test series underway in Wellington lacks top star power (one of the Windies stars is touring commentator Ian Bishop - love the ex pace bowler's stuff).
The summer can get a heck of a lot better with series involving Pakistan, Australia (briefly) and Stokesy's England to come.
The Black Caps have been brilliant, the Windies are fighting back.
Look, I'm like 99.999 per cent of the population and don't follow domestic cricket at all so century maker Tom Blundell was a complete unknown. Great effort.
Colin de Grandhomme certainly isn't an unknown, although one suspects he would like to be after watching his TV interviews. A man of few words, you might say.
CDG beats the ball with a powerful disdain. He reminds me of the former England opener Graham "Stand and Deliver" Gooch in mannerism.
SOUTH AFRICA WAILS
Welsh hero Hadleigh Parkes - more blues for South Africa. Photo/Photosport
Also shocked that Wales beat South Africa in rugby yesterday morning. That's crazy, the Springboks still playing. It's December for goodness sake.
