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Three days. Three sports. One perfect Sydney weekend. But which code would offer the best bang for your buck?
In the red corner we had cricket, in the form of Australia (or was it Australia B+?) against the West Indies in One Day International number four at the SCG.
In the blue corner we had football, with A-League premiers the Brisbane Roar taking on A-League salary cap miracle workers Sydney FC in the battle of the mid-table strugglers at the SFS.
And in the naughty corner we had basketball, with the NBL’s back-to-back champs the New Zealand Breakers keen to make it 11 straight wins, while the Sydney Kings wanted to avoid six straight losses.
It’s a no-brainer, right? Depending on which superstars found form on the day, cricket and football would have most of the memorable moments, with the basketballers pounding the Sydney Ent Cent court in relative anonymity with the skill set to match.
Sadly for cricket fans, the fight probably should’ve been stopped early.
Even a half-time disco from Sneaky Sound System and the World’s Biggest Dress-Up Party (including the day’s clear winners, Willy Wonka and his Oompa-Loompas) couldn’t disguise the fact that the game was effectively over before most of the 18,161 in attendance had settled into their seats.
Thank you Mitch Johnson, thanks for nothing Calypso Kings.
True, a day at the cricket is still the most fun you can have sitting around doing nothing for eight hours. But as Australia casually worked their way to victory you couldn’t help but wish the Windies had five more Kieron Pollards in their batting line-up to make a game of it.
We made for the exits before Australia had administered the last rites.
Night two took us to Darling Harbour, where we were greeted with news that the cheap seats for the Kings game had sold out. Was the NBL back, or was the figure inflated because half of Bondi was in attendance to support their brethren from across the Tasman?
A touch over 7,000 people were inside, around 30 percent of whom were under 10-years-old and having the best time of their young lives. Even this cynical old hack cracked a smile at the antics of the risqué Lion mascot, and who could forget the Psy impersonator attempting to lead the world’s largest ‘Gangnam Style’ at halftime.
The skills mightn’t have been totally silky on the court but, despite having no inside game, the Kings somehow took it to the clearly better drilled Breakers. When Sydney forced overtime thanks to a Darnell Lazare lay-up off a deliberately missed free-throw from ‘Mighty Mouse’ Corin Henry, the place erupted – Kings fans, Breakers fans, displaced Bullets fans like myself, the lot.
The vibe kicked up another notch again when James Harvey nailed a clutch three-pointer to lock things up again with four seconds of OT left, until Breakers main man Cedric Jackson drove to the basket to lay in the two and seal the win 96-94.
An anti-climax for the local faithful, but oh what a night. High fives all round!
Day three and it’s back to Moore Park to wrap up this long weekend with the A-League. Two sides who only occasionally remember how to win, both below strength, in blustery conditions under dismal skies. This threatened to be one for the true believers.
There were 14,589 there, and the mood was typically boisterous. Whatever your feelings on The Cove and whether their dedication to their team is matched by the attention they pay to them playing, they do put on a good party.
And though they usually sing the praise of Alessandro Del Piero, today they shared the honours with another man – Brisbane’s quite unlikeable striker Beshart Berisha.
The Cove questioned his heritage, his parentage, the extra-curricular activities of his wife, and generally gave him a hard time – and he returned the favour after slotting a penalty goal. Champagne comedy all round.
In the end, the two teams slugged it out with entertaining end-to-end football, struggling to find the knockout blow. Peter Traintis eventually landed it, and Del Piero basically made everyone look like they were lucky to be on the same field as him.
So against all the odds, it was the poor cousin of the Australian sporting summer that delivered the weekend’s most memorable moments.
And though there’s no LeBron James or Kobe Bryant or Patty Mills or Joe Ingles – or even an Andrew Gaze or Shane Heal or James Crawford or Leroy Loggins – it’s well worth dropping some of your hard-earned on a night out with Henry or Jackson or Kevin Lisch or Jonny Flynn.
At its very best, the NBL can still hit the heights of its 80s/90s heyday. The A-League is getting better all the time. And ODI cricket proves that all the bells and whistles in the world can’t overcome a no contest.
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