Roger Alton reviews the week in Sport
How depressing, and poignant, to hear Danny Cipriani talking at the weekend about his imminent departure to join his new rugby team Down Under, the Melbourne Rebels — one of the country’s most gifted fly-halfs is heading away just when England is really short of quality at No 10. And all because the blazers at Twickenham axed a real coach in Brian Ashton (that’s a coach who makes you a better player once you start working with him) and decided to get someone famous, whether or not he was any good at coaching. And as Danny Cip recognises, the team now running England don’t want him (and why? Because, I guess, he got in the papers a bit, and upset Brian Moore). ‘It’s been made clear to me I am not in their plans, so instead of banging my head against a brick wall, I will go round it… and come back at 24.’ What a trouper, and what a loss.
Mark you, there is always a second chance. Nothing’s been cheerier recently than the sight of the fabulous and Very Very Special VVS Laxman batting through such acute back pain he could barely bend forward for a defensive shot to steer India to a sensational one-wicket victory over the Aussies in the current shamefully abbreviated two-Test series. It was the mercurial and sumptuously talented Laxman of course who created India’s wonderful victory, again over Australia, after following on in the second Test at Calcutta in 2001, in which he scored 281.
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