Friendly Weekend Sports Update

It's all gone a bit "sideways" over the last few days.

"We win together and we lose together," said Martin Whitmarsh. So did Lewis Hamilton. And it is this singular inability to be able to face the truth in front of the public that has always stood between McLaren F1 and absolute domination. You can understand why Whitmarsh would want to protect the beloved "organization" (it's always "organization" at McLaren, never "team") but I had no idea that it's been so deeply ingrained in the setup that the Number One refuses to lay so much as a shred of blame on Mr. Right Front Tyre, who, everyone knows, cost Lewis six seconds at the second pitstop. Six seconds that separate Lewis from Rubens Barrichello. And people will go on and on about how popular this win is in the F1 paddock, but all I can think of is how afraid McLaren have really become of admitting even the slightest weakness within their "organization." It was all Ron Dennis' virus, this "protect the organization" crap, and Whitmarsh is evidently cut from the same cloth. He could destroy the pace-setters with strategy and he could dish out the most legendary private bollockings that F1 has ever seen, could Dennis. It's a shame that the man now in charge of what is clearly the best car on the grid can't do either. It's a bigger shame that the same fear of adversity ("whether real or perceived", as ITV's James Allen would say) that ruined Dennis has caught up with Whitmarsh as well.

Also delighting me this weekend was Ricky Ponting's Australia surrendering the Ashes to England. Always behind the eight-ball after the first innings capitulation, they were never going to be able to bat out two-and-a-bit days. It's just not in their makeup. Therefore, the only, improbable hope was that 546 was possible. And I didn't believe it when I first heard it (and, come to think of it, I still can't quite wrap my head around it) but when Watson and Katich (there's a story about "The Katich" that must surely grace this blog sometime in the future!) were batting together late on Day Three, the odds on Australia winning were four to one! Needing thirty more runs than have ever been scored in a successful fourth innings chase in the history of all first-class cricket. Four to one. Unbelievable. And I get Michael Atherton's point about wickets such as the one we saw at The Oval being infinitely preferable to wickets designed for flat-track bullies (there's a lovely Graeme Hick/Michael Atherton story that comes to mind) but, in my mind, if Australia had won the toss, they would've won that cricket match. Simple as that. That's not an excuse for the inexplicable decision to not play Nathan Hauritz, nor is it a justification for the captain and vice-captain being run-out in the chase for 546 and it certainly isn't a reason to hide behind for the six Australian batsmen who really have issues judging the line of a cricket ball relative to their off-stump. But it does highlight the kinds of fickle things that cricket can turn on. And the feeling that Australia were hard done by is simply impossible to shake off.

The only bright spot, if one could call it that, was that when Ricky Ponting came out to bat in the fourth innnings, amidst all the vitriol (a lot of it admittedly a consequence of Ponting's own confrontational interview tactics) and all the propaganda that has been flying throughout the English summer, despite the state of the game when he walked in to bat, despite everything "wrong" that Ricky Ponting has done in cricket, I did not hear one person in that capacity crowd jeer the man. I doubt that would have (or, indeed, will) happen if the match had been played in India. This willingness to crucify Ponting has been a funnily Indian phenomenon, driven by his cocksure attitude (which has been uniformly directed at all teams), driven by his handling of the famous Symonds/Harbhajan situation (where he was as justified in standing by Symonds as the Indian captain was in standing by Harbhajan), even driven by Indian "fans'" very real fear that he'll score more Test runs than Sachin Tendulkar (where, in my book, he'd just be better than Tendulkar in that respect, fullstop). Despite my vehement disagreement with a lot of what Ponting has done in his career, I've found the Indian attitude to him really strange or really sickening, I'm not sure which. And I'm glad that, at least on this occasion, which, I'm sure, would have hurt Ponting more than any match he's ever lost to India, there was genuine appreciation for an excellent batsman almost certainly playing his last match in England. And I think that speaks volumes. Even the English, the ones you'd think have the most reason to hate his guts, even the English, despite the prospect of Andrew Strauss' men on the threshold of an historic Ashes win on a perfect afternoon, even the English, despite their heads been woollied by a steady consumption of beer. Even the English cheered Ponting.

And just like so many other little gestures that I've watched occur on a cricket field over so many years, I know I'll remember this one forever.