Gäste Forum » take stock at the end of an extraordinary season.

Robin Smith v West Indies, Edgbaston 1995 Its a myth that England has just discovered S&M. It was on TV often in the first half of the 90s, and before the watershed too. Robin Smith was 50 shades of black and blue on a number of occasions after being assaulted by West Indies sadistic fast bowlers, and he relished every bruise. When he was batting, it was clear why machismo is a near-anagram of masochism. He was addicted to the challenge and the adrenaline rush of a cricketing joyride, and did not care for conventional notions of pain. Whats the definition of pain? he said. Pain for me is blokes I know getting bayonets stuck into their thighs and calves during the Rhodesian war.Yet even Smith had a pain threshold, just about. When he was batting against Courtney Walsh and Ian Bishop at Edgbaston, the bounce was so nasty and unpredictable that Smith wore a visor for one of the few times in his career. He also says it was one of only two times he was in the zone. He made 46 and 41 in totals of 147 and 89 and batted 300 minutes in the match, which was over before lunch on the third day. In total, England only lasted 372 minutes. Smiths captain Mike Atherton, who knew a few things about courage, later said it was the bravest batting he saw during his career.Yet Smith was an indestructible hero with porcelain confidence, and could be brought to his knees by more insidious forms of bowling; he was physically scared facing Shane Warne. In a sense, he was the point at which old and new masculinity meet and, for my teenage self, an introduction to the nuances and complexities of adulthood: the strong, silent, insecure type. There have been few more fascinating cricketers.Smiths insane courage was so stirring that his sheer skill at playing fast bowling is sometimes forgotten; not so much his defining square cut but the suppleness and reflexes that allowed him to jerk away from bouncers like a limbo dancer a millisecond before they reshaped his face. For a young and essentially cowardly England cricket fan, there was no greater vicarious thrill, and no greater hero.Desmond Haynes v India, Jamaica 1983 Batting needs its own inflation calculator. The pace of scoring has increased so much this century that we need a tool to tell us exactly what historical innings are worth. A good example is Desmond Haynes 34 from 21 balls in West Indies stunning victory over India. His scoring rate does not look that spectacular to modern eyes, but it was 22 years ago: at the time it was the fastest recorded innings of 20 or more by an opener in a Test.It sparked one of the great steals, West Indies version of the miracle of Adelaide. At tea on the final day India were 168 for 6, a lead of 165. Then Andy Roberts took four quick wickets and the captain Clive Lloyd told his side to go for the runs, an instruction that verged on the anarchic in the climate of the time. Haynes, usually the relatively sober partner to Gordon Greenidge, went off like a pacemaker, hitting four fours and a six in an innings Wisden called delightful.As word spread around Kingston that something magical might be happening, the crowd grew. That meant there was an appropriate audience for an innings that Viv Richards, despite some extremely stiff competition, regards as his favourite: a storming 61 off 36 balls, made with a broken thumb. West Indies won with four balls to spare. The chase of 172 is still the fastest of over 100 in Test history, and looks pretty impressive even without an inflation calculator.AB de Villiers v Australia, Adelaide 2012 The moment I realised AB de Villiers could do anything was when he did nothing. His monastic 33 from 220 balls, which helped South Africa to an epic draw, was a masterpiece of apparently effortless self-denial. A man who can hit any ball to any part of any ground did not hit a single boundary. At 220 balls, its the longest boundary-less innings in Test history. (Oddly, the fourth longest was also played by a man called de Villiers in Adelaide: Fanie lasted 170 balls for his 30 in January 1994.)We often refer to the oxygen of runs, yet really runs are more like food - you can survive without them for far longer than you realise, but that is rarely evident in a modern culture of impatience and instant gratification. De Villiers showed what can be done if you train your brain accordingly. For his next trick, six days later, he smashed 169 off 184 balls to win the series.Winston Benjamin v Pakistan, Barbados 1988 The word immaturity can have positive connotations too. Ask any West Indies fan who was at the Kensington Oval on April 27, 1988. Pakistan, the only team to consistently stand up to the great West Indian side of the 80s, led 1-0 going into the third and final Test. West Indies proud unbeaten records - 53 years in Tests in Barbados, 15 years in a series at home, eight years in a series anywhere - were about to disappear. In a medium-scoring scrap they were 207 for 8, needing 266 to win, when Winston Benjamin came to the crease.The situation was pretty fraught; Abdul Qadir, exasperated when Jeff Dujon survived a huge bat-pad appeal, had just punched a heckler. Benjamin was 23 years old, playing his fourth Test. His immaturity was a blessing, because he had not fully grasped the significance of what was going on. And even that which he did understand did not faze him. Positive visualisation comes instinctively to the young.Benjamin reversed the usual relationship between junior and senior partner. While Dujon held up an end, he tucked into Qadir, slog-sweeping and straight-driving sixes out of the ground, one of which injured a passer-by. He learned to pick Qadir - kind of. He heard the wicketkeeper Saleem Yousuf say legbreak, googly, flipper, and repeated it to himself. (Qadir became so exasperated by the umpires failure to read his flipper and give lbws that he told them in advance when he was going to bowl it.)It was off a pre-picked googly that Benjamin smacked the winning boundary. He had made 40 from 72 balls in a partnership of 61 with Dujon. He only realised the size of his achievement when he got to the dressing room and found his captain, Viv Richards, in tears. Len Hutton v Australia, Sydney 1946 For such a numbers-oriented game, cricket has always had a keen eye for the qualitative ? perhaps never more so than during this Test. Don Bradman and Sid Barnes both made 234 each in Australias innings victory, yet all most people were talking about after the game was Len Huttons 37 in 24 minutes, an innings drenched in glory. Neville Cardus, in the Guardian, said it elevated a match of mass production and utility to the realms of fine art.It may have been fine art, but it also had cult appeal. Those who saw it talked about it until their dying day; so did many of those who didnt. A young Harold Pinter heard about it on the radio, and it became instant serotonin. Sometimes, when I feel a little exhausted with it all and the worlds sitting heavily on my head, I pick up a Wisden and read about Len Huttons 37 in 24 minutes in Sydney in 1946.Hutton took Keith Miller and Fred Freer to the cleaners, driving and pulling with exhilarating authority, until, off the last ball before lunch, he accidentally hit his own wicket. His innings lived fast and died young. This, wrote Cardus, was a crying shame, challenging justice and philosophy. Many who saw the innings cited Victor Trumper. On this occasion, none were accused of blasphemy. And nobody wanted to look at the data afterwards.Marcus Davenport Womens Jersey . 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World champions Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov of Russia won the gold medal with 237.71 points, Moore-Towers and Moscovitch followed at 208.45 and Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov of Russia were third at 187.Essendon coach John Worsfold has evoked the memory of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, urging the Bombers to put their dismal AFL season behind them.Ravaged by the loss of 12 players to doping suspensions, Worsfolds side managed just three wins to claim the wooden spoon.In his address to the clubs best-and-fairest ceremony on Wednesday night at Crown Casino, Worsfold said Essendon could learn from the challenges faced by Ali during his career as they looked to climb back up the ladder.In 2016, the world lost Muhammad Ali, a man with an incomparable work ethic and a fearlessness for standing up for his beliefs, Worsfold said.A man who was arrested, stripped of his titles and exiled from his sport for three years - three of his prime years - but then he took part in what was billed as the Fight of the Century with Joe Frazier and he lost.But then he made a comeback and is recognised as one of the greatest athletes of all time.Barack Obama said of Muhammad Ali: hes a man who believes real success comes when we rise after we fall.Though not identical, theres some lessons we can learn there.None of the banned players was present at the ceremony as they served the last weeks of their penalties.Club chairman Lindsay Tanner told the gathering he was proud of the progress made in the long recovery processs after the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) January decision to uphold the doping bans stemming from the 2012 supplements program.ddddddddddddWeve come to the end of an extremely challenging season, one that is unique in AFL history, Tanner said.We all know why and I dont intend to revisit the causes tonight. The events of the past few years have been very serious for Essendon Football Club, our members and particularly for the players involved. The effects will be with us for some time.On that awful day in mid-January when the CAS decision was handed down, my message was very simple: We will get through this.We can now take stock at the end of an extraordinary season. The recovery process is by no means over, but we have made great progress.Despite his earlier assertion, Tanner couldnt resist one small dig at CAS as he praised the unity and resilience of the players and club.We havent turned on each other, he said.We havent been distracted by the temptation to publicly re-fight the CAS decision - outrageous though it may have been.The banned players are allowed to return to the club in September and are awaiting the verdict of their appeal to a Swiss court. ' ' '