10 Things #53

GH on the road

1/ A first Ten Things from Et Al’s new North Melbourne habitat…..

2/ On capers the T20 World Cup - we won’t now be getting an India v Pakistan rematch, which may be all to the good. I don’t know about you, but think I’ve enjoyed it more for Australia’s premature exit, opening up the possibility of broader and/or more selective allegiances. Sam, and in similar vein Malcolm Knox, have written perceptively about the implications of the wider national indifference to the failure of Mitchell Marsh’s team. At the same time, there is simply so much cricket it is impossible, and I suspect it would actually be self-indulgent, to care about it all. Right now, at any rate, the only cricket I care about is what I’m playing at the Yarras - and, to be frank, this has always put everything else in the shade. South Africa and India, meanwhile, are running hot, which is great to watch and easy to turn off - essentially summing up my relationship to T20.

3/ Last week began with the twentieth anniversary of ABC’s Offsiders, reuniting some of the other original panellists, including me, with Roy Masters on the left, John Harms on the right and Richmond guernseys in the rear - we were at the Richmond Tavern.

Vanishingly few shows survive two decades, so it testifies to a public hankering for a discussion of sport that transcends the spear tackle of the week. Offsiders can still get caught up in the headlines, rather than what lies behind them. But its virtue is genuine independence. In twenty years, I’ve said pretty much what I’ve wanted without pushback - not to be taken for granted in a world where the people purporting to analyse sport are also those involved in selling it to you. The only feedback I’ve ever received from senior management was second hand: ‘Get that guy to wear a collar.’ Who said I can’t do as I’m told?