If shrinks don’t have a term like disproportionate response — you know, getting jailed for clearing the snow off your path or some such madness — then they certainly should have. We need it to do justice to the lunatic levels of hoo-ha, from players, commentators and fans, over Graeme Smith’s referral and phantom snick in the third Test at Johannesburg. As Michael Vaughan, bless, had to point out, it was only a cricket match; nobody had died. It’s pointless bitching that Smith should have walked: I mean, does he look the kind of guy who walks? Mark you, some might think Hashim Amla doesn’t look like the kind of guy who walks, but he absolutely is, every time. Quite possibly the only big-name player these days who always does, now Adam Gilchrist has retired.
And at least the referral system is now here to stay, or so it seems. The ECB isn’t that keen though, and at £5m a pop, a ‘hotspot’ camera isn’t something you can pick up at Boots… it’s the size of a van for a start. But the fantastic levels of added tension from referrals can only be a good thing. Not to mention the joy of stump mikes: I heard a gloriously uncynical ‘F***ing hell’ from Matt Prior on Saturday as a ball from Graham Swann ripped from outside off for an untouchable leg bye.
Talking of judicious use of obscenity, there was a fascinating interview with Stuart Broad by the Daily Mail’s Martin Samuel the other day. Broad revealed he loved the hard no-nonsense approach of the Aussies in last summer’s Ashes, not least the fact that Ricky Ponting didn’t exchange a word with anyone on the English side until he came into the dressing room for a beer after the last day of the last Test. Apart from once: at the Oval, Ponting was fielding at short cover when Prior smashed him in the face with full-blooded drive. ‘Are you OK?’ asked Prior. Wiping the blood from his mouth, Ponts replied, ‘F*** off.’
But that’s it for summer games for a bit — I can’t get too worked up (yet) about England’s one-dayers v. Pakistan in Dubai. Still, with next month’s mouth-watering Winter Olympics looming, the downhill skiing is building up nicely. Man of the moment is the laid-back ‘Manimal’, Canadian Manuel Osborne-Paradis. As the late, great Bill McLaren used to say, he’s a solid citizen. He is to Pirmin Zurbriggen what Angel Cabrera is to Justin Rose. As one interviewer put it to him, he doesn’t look like a normal athlete. ‘I’m not an athlete, I’m a downhill skier,’ he replied.
But what an athlete he is. At last weekend’s Lauberhorn in Wengen, the longest downhill of all at a gut-busting 4.5km, he came second with a time of two minutes 32.89 seconds (you do the math — it’s very fast). If you missed it last weekend, catch on BBC’s iPlayer, or forever rue the day: it is breathtaking. Not least the landscape, with the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau glowering in the background.
The chubby, charming ‘Manimal’ is the big home hope at the winter games at Vancouver, where he learnt to ski from the age of three on the slopes of Whistler. But he’s so easy-going he won’t get phased by the pressure: the downhill, the blue riband event, is on the first day of competition. But before that the downhill circus moves on this weekend to Kitzbühel for the most terrifying of all races, the Hahnenkamm, the most difficult and scary ski run in the world: 3.3km, steep slopes up to 80 per cent, 80-metre jumps and speeds nearing 140kph. The winner at Wengen was Swiss wonderboy Carlo Janka, who now goes top of the overall standings. There’s everything to race for in Kitz. Compulsive viewing on Sunday if you can’t get there. I’d love to go, but I’m off to Mürren to ski the Inferno race for amateurs… though unfortunately the only thing I have in common with the ‘Manimal’ is bulk.
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