Adam drops a catch
Great sportsmen rarely make great sports writers. Adam Parore offers a prime example of this in today’s Herald, with a column about the Zimbabwe cricket tour. He writes:
The other part of the issue that took me by surprise was the degree of confusion surrounding our country’s politicians, who seemed to have a very tenuous understanding of their subject matter.
First there was Phil Goff, treating the ICC like a colonial white man’s club, then Rob Donald prattling on about force majeur; Jim Anderton coming in with a suggestion from outer space, and then the token show of hands in Parliament.
It really showed the politicians up for what they were. Remember, the Government could have legislated to veto the tour, allowing the team to escape from their contractual obligations without penalty. It wouldn’t have worried the ICC a jot; Pakistan and India do it all the time.
But to instead call on NZC to withdraw illegally from the tour, knowing full well that such a move would effectively bankrupt the game here and lead to the Black Caps being ostracised on the international scene was pretty gutless, I thought.
What took me by surprise here was the degree of confusion surrounding our sportswriters, who seem to have a very tenuous understanding of their subject matter. The prime objective of Rod’s campaign was to get the Government to pass legislation to make the tour illegal, thus getting NZ Cricket off the contractual hook. To write a whole column which misunderstands this fundamental point was pretty brainless, I thought.
July 30th, 2005 at 12:40 pm
Rob Donald? For Parore to miss the point entirely is one thing, but he should at least get the names right. I mean come on.
July 31st, 2005 at 12:52 pm
What the heck is all the fuss about, anyway? So Mugabe is demolishing suburbia, and human rights people call this an immense violation. Since when did living in suburbia become a basic human right? It’s not like he’s running a shoot to kill policy on anyone ‘foreign looking’ acting suspiciously. You can count the people that have been killed by this policy in single digits.
Zimbawe was a country where roughly 3,000 descendants of conquest owned 70% of the land. Mugabe set up a programme in the early 90’s where this could be peacefully redistributed back, they didn’t play game and now he’s addressing the issue another way. Have a read on Wikipedia, it’s all there.
Personally I see the link between suburbia and increased division in wealth very clearly. However people are just reading the headlines where he’s breaking down the isolating walls of white picket fences that are, in the opinion of his people, destroying the country, and automatically assuming he is some kind of madman.
August 2nd, 2005 at 10:32 pm
I retract my earlier comment. It seems that Mugabe is not demolishing suburbia, but slums, which paints an entirely different picture of the situation.