OK, so having spent half the summer bagging old buggers who don’t know when to quit, let’s give some love to those who continue to ripen on the vine without rotting.
Firstly, Roger Federer. The Swiss master is known as FedEx because he delivers results fast. Last night, the Ex stood for Exhibition, as in exhibition match. There were two tennis players on Rod Laver Arena last night – Federer and Jim Courier, who interviewed him after the game.
Bernard Tomic was apparently also there, but pretty much just as a hitting partner. Oh, he tried. He came with a plan. A plan to blast Federer off the court instead of teasing him with deft touches he’d employed so well against lesser opponents. It was the Malaysia Solution of sporting strategies.
Meanwhile, on the other telly at my local pub, Brett Lee and Stuart MacGill were showing that there’s no substitute for a bit of wile and guile when defending a small score in cricket.
The Hobart Hurricanes are one of the sporting stories of the summer, even if their team is named after a weather event which occurs some 3,000 km north. They really should have been called the roaring forties.
Instead, it was a man well into his forties who roared. Stuart MacGill, who is ageing much more gracefully – and naturally – than Shane Warne, used all the grey matter underneath his grey mane to eke out the prize wicket of Travis Birt.
Not since Bickle has a man called Travis looked so menacing. But MacGill bowled the ball that fooled the big-hitting Tasmanian and left him stranded out of his crease.
Thirty-five year old Lee, meanwhile, did what Brett Lee has been doing well for years, bowling full and fast and with movement too. He set the tone with an early wicket, then despite some resistance from another oldie in Test discard Phil Jacques, the Sydney Sixers restricted the Hurricanes and made the Big bash final.
To cement a good weekend for oldies, 48 year old former pollie Pat Farmer completed a rather long jog, trotting off from one pole to the other and raising a bundle of money for the Red Cross in the process. Well done him.
Oh, and at the other end of the scale, some really young person sailed a sardine tin or some such around the globe. Apparently she was Dutch, though, so we’ll pretend it never happened.
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