At first I must admit I was on the whole “20/20 cricket is only hit and giggle cricket, it wont last” bandwagon but I have changed my tune. What the big bash and 20/20 cricket has given us is the opportunity to watch the legends of cricket continue their glittering careers, to continue thrilling cricket fans across the world for just a few more years before they truly give it up and it is just brilliant to see.

Without this form of cricket we would have never seen Hayden and Warne playing on past their international retirements, we would have never seen the likes of Afridi, Gayle, Bravo, McCullum and Razzaq playing domest cricket in Australia. This form of cricket is well and truly here and not only is it here to stay but it is going to grow and grow at a phenomenal pace.

Will it eventually take over test cricket? I think not but maybe one day cricket is dying a slow death.

I know I am really enjoying the big bash, I am quite enjoying listening to the live conversations between the commentators and the stars during play with the in-game microphone and I am looking forward to watching the whole series.

What do you guys think?

PS Warnie just took apart the Brisbane Heat with some brilliant bowling. What a sight to see!

This argument was one of the dominating themes of the most recent NBA lockout. The smaller city team owners fought for and wanted a system in place that would instil a competitive balance in the NBA where the superstar talent was shared amongst all teams rather than just your big city teams

They claimed that the over spending big city teams were able to use their so called market dominance to lure all the superstars into their markets.

Then less than 48 hours after the lock out ended there was the proposed 3 team mega trade that would have ultimately landed Chris Paul in a LA Lakers uniform. How could this happen after a 5 month lock out? One of the best pure point guards of all time going into yet another big market team? And of all teams, the Lakers? The small city team owners like Michael Jordan and Dan Gilbert angrily opposed the trade instantly firing off emails to the commissioner to block this trade. Giving in he agreed to block the trade for what he called “basketball reasons”

This argument that the small market teams cannot compete is not as accurate as the owners would have you believe. Take the Cleveland cavaliers for example who had Lebron James, arguably one of the best basketball players of all time on their roster for 7 years, 7 full seasons and he single handily took them to play offs and NBA finals. He then up and left through free agency and teamed up with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh at the Miami heat (a small market team) forming the first of the ‘super teams’. This enraged owner Dan Gilbert. He began to blame everyone but himself for losing Lebron. It is worth noting that the Knicks courted Lebron very aggressively and he turned them down!

Had Gilbert been a lot smarter business wise, he could have kept Lebron for years; he could have built a championship team around him and won multiple titles with him.

The same goes for Carmelo Anthony who spent years in Denver before demanding a trade to New York. Can anyone blame Chris Paul and Dwight Howard for wanting out of their teams? They don’t want to leave because of the size of the market they are playing in. they want to leave purely because of the bullshit rosters their owners and GM’s have surrounded them with.

So here lays the problem, the owners would rather blame the CBA and its structure for not being able to retain these kinds of players. They would rather blame rich teams for throwing large contracts at their star players. However the blame should fall square on their shoulders, they continue to shell out ridiculous contracts for subpar talent thinking that will make their superstar players happy enough to want to stick around for ever. They continue to make basketball decisions that leave you shaking your head.

for further proof that small market teams can compete and can win then look no further than the San Antonio Spurs who built a team around Tim Duncan that not only competed for power in the West for years but also won 19 division titles and more importantly during Tim Duncan’s time the spurs have won 4 championships. All because the owners and the GM’s built a championship calibre roster around Duncan by making smart business decisions proving that small city teams COULD in fact compete with the big city teams.

More recently the OKC Thunder made smart draft choices by drafting Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and have built one of the strongest rosters in the NBA. They will compete for the western conference title for years to come. Again another small market team competing with the power houses of the league.

Michael Jordan was an amazing player, a once in a lifetime kind of player, but as an owner of a small market city team, he is horrible and blaming the system and rich big city teams just doesn’t cut it. He needs to look at the decisions he has made. Who can forget him drafting Kwame Brown with the number 1 draft pick?

The NBA team owners need to make themselves more accountable for their decisions and start following the lead of teams like OKC and the Spurs. Championship teams are built by intelligent owners and GM’s. Big market teams didn’t just become championship teams because they are rich. They are well oiled machines that have been built with intelligence and smart basketball brains that have made the RIGHT decisions! No one gave the Lakers Kobe Bryant; The Lakers aquired him through a trade on draft day.

 Or so it’s supposed to be. As a rugby fan and ex player, the RWC is my sporting highlight, 4 or 5 weeks of pure rugby with the world’s best players on show. But for those who aren’t ardent supporter’s, is rugby winning the battle over other codes such as soccer, or more particularly in Australia, over rugby league and AFL? From comments I have heard from those that aren’t rugby fans, after the world cup was done and dusted, I would have to say the answer is no. The majority of comments I have heard aren’t too positive. Too many penalties, the rules are too confusing, not enough tries scored, the list goes on. I am lucky enough to witness 4 games of club rugby every weekend for about 6 months of the year. Yeah there can be some bad games, but the majority are very entertaining and enjoyable and I reckon those who aren’t rugby supporters could be won over. Unfortunately club rugby struggles for popularity and once we get to the Super rugby level in most cases and International rugby in almost every case, the game seems to bog down and become unattractive. Individual flair gives way to the fear of trying something and failing and it becomes 80 mins of whistle blowing and penalty goal kicking.

So where does rugby go? Does it continue to plod along being dictated to by the powerful UK unions? Or does it make some radical changes in an attempt to gain some more mainstream support? One idea I have heard of is increasing the value of a conversion to 3 points while decreasing a penalty goal to 2 points. Would this encourage more teams to go for the try instead of plonking over penalty goal after penalty goal, or would it just encourage defending teams to give away more penalties as they won’t be punished as heavily on the scoreboard?

I would love to know everyone’s thoughts, especially those that aren’t fans of the game. What does rugby have to do to become more appealing? How can we attract fans from other sports to watch our game? Rugby has just under 4 years to get it right, otherwise we are in for another bore fest at RWC 2015.

The fatman out……….

First, let’s take a look at GWS.

The AFL’s long term growth and expansion strategy is to expand its game and profile into the heart land of rugby league in the greater western Sydney. This is no secret. They have publicly declared war on rugby league in this region. Sydney is a big city and having the Swans as the sole AFL side in a rugby league dominated state is not enough. Expansion into this region is the key.

So how are they attacking this area?

First they needed to find the right head coach who could handle such a mission and lead from the front. Enter Kevin Sheedy. A known fighter who has risen to meet all challenge throughout his illustrious career. A four-time premiership winner as coach and 3 time premiership winner as a player and a current AFL hall of famer. But are his credentials relevant outside of the AFL’s circles? Do the people of western Sydney really care?

Secondly the club needed the right players to lead this assault. They could not afford to put together a side that would loiter around the bottom of the table without success on the field. A failing side would not capture the local communities support. This has been evident in the Gold Coast. Where crowd numbers dropped off considerably when the results weren’t being produced on the field. The first blow they dealt the NRL on the player front was snaring the signature of one of its brightest young superstars, Israel Falou who became the face of the franchise already had an army of young supporters looking up to his every move. It can be argued that many of them have jumped on his AFL band wagon?

The GWS have a good mix of young talent and seasoned professionals. The likes of Dean Brogan who has won a premiership with Port, triple premiership winner Luke Power and Chad Cornes also from Port providing guidance for the younger players will go a long way to keeping them on the right path. Players like Tom Scully, Adam Treloar and Callan Ward will be out to prove they are the future of the game and will be hungry for instant success in 2012.

Thirdly and what I think was most important is that the Giants built their training facilities in Blacktown. Setting up in one of the fastest growing areas in western Sydney with a purpose built ‘Olympic Park’ that boasts a 10,000 seat main oval to go with a secondary AFL/Cricket field.  They instantly got amongst the community and all the schools in the area where there is 8,000 Auskick participants alone offering a variety of programs and activities which resulted in some very positive media coverage for the AFL. To date they have already got 1,900 members and we are still some 4 months before the commencement of the 2012 season. They have captured the flag in this area, built their support base and army and now it’s time to take on Penrith, Parramatta, Canterbury and the Wests Tigers.

The AFL and GWS Giants have so far shown that they have done their research and have a sound strategy in place in their fight against NRL’s most prized region.

Now we take a look at what the NRL is doing in the battle for the west.

On the surface it appears that the NRL is at war with itself about how to fight the AFL. Phil Gould has publicly declared that the NRL has failed in protecting this region and has accused it of not doing enough to secure the regions talent and keeping it in rugby league. The league world will tell you that the AFL has made no in roads at all into this rugby league strong hold.

Is that a naive statement or does the AFL really have no chance of infiltrating rugby league heartland?

From a recruitment point of view, all four league clubs have recruited well and are set to compete for premierships for years to come. Their rosters rich with talent.

The wests tigers have been the most successful of the clubs in recent years and have a strong army of supporters who back their team 100%.

Phil Gould is now in charge of the Panthers and is using his full influence over the rugby league community to take the fight to the AFL.  But he cannot succeed on his own. It will take a collective effort by ALL Sydney NRL clubs to fight off the AFL not just the four western Sydney clubs.

The question is will they unite as one to take on the AFL? The first step will be the independent commission. The commission then needs to engage the full support of the entire rugby league community and develop its strategy to take on the AFL.

Currently from an administration stand point the AFL is beating the NRL to a pulp. 

But is it on the administration front that this war will be won? I don’t think so.

Rugby league is a beast in itself. It may not appear that the administration is united but its fans are and ultimately it will be the fans who decide who will win this battle. It will be the fans who decide which sport they will enrol their kids in at the age of 4 and 5. Without a fan base GWS will not survive and they will just end up another AFL club in some heavy debt.

That being said, the NRL/Commission needs to urgently develop and implement its strategies to continue the participation at grass-roots level in rugby league. NRL clubs in Sydney go back 100 years and have generations of supporters. This is an area where the AFL will struggle to shift the balance of support amongst the fans.

In my opinion rugby league can withstand the AFL’s attempts to infiltrate its strong hold, but they cannot sit back and let it happen on its own. They need to stamp their authority in this region and they need to do it fast.

During the glory years of the 90’s and early 2000’s there were players breaking records at state level and still getting over looked for national selection. Players like Michael Di Venuto who played 331 first class matches scoring 24,909 runs with 145 fifties and 60 hundreds but yet retired with 0 international test matches to his name.

The reality is we are not going to see another Mcgrath, or Warnie! Not in this lifetime anyway. Players of that calibre, including the likes of Hayden, Langer, Ponting, Gilly and the Waugh twins just to name a few, do not come around often. What made these types of legends is how hard they had to work at state level fine tuning the unbelievable talent they were blessed with to prove they belonged. The countless hours they put in bowling or batting in the nets. All you have to do is read their autobiographies for proof of the hard work, determination and struggles they endured to play for their country.

We were spoilt for years with world class cricket talent.

Now we have to sit back and watch cricket Australia constantly selecting unproven talent, desperate to unearth the next Mcgrath or the next Warnie. In my opinion devaluing the honour or wearing the baggy green by handing cap after cap to these no bodies. Picking players who have one, maybe two first class matches to their name.

What have the likes of Michael Beer, Nathan Lyon, Xavier Doherty done to earn national selection? Bowl a few spinning deliveries in a hand full of first class matches? If that? Impressing no one yet still receiving almost instant selection to play for Australia just for being ‘spin bowlers’! You can find players of their talent turning their arm over in almost any park across the country on a Saturday afternoon.  Why don’t cricket Australia’s selectors just go for a drive on the weekends and pick a few players off some suburban ground? It seems we are almost that desperate.

I just wish they would bring back the value and honour to the baggy green. Bringing back what it represents and WHO it represents. How can we even mention some of the players who have worn the cap over the past few years in the same breath as the likes of Alan Border, Sir Donald Bradman, and Steve Waugh?  The simple answer is, we can’t!

It’s time to force players to start proving themselves again before picking them to play for their country. Start letting their stats speak for themselves and giving them compelling arguments as to why they should play for Australia! Is that too much to ask? Are the talent levels out there that bad that this thought is just ridiculous? All you have to do is listen to the likes of Mark Waugh for the truth about the state of cricket in Australia.

Or you can listen to garbage the selectors feed the media and if that’s what you choose to do then we are in some serious trouble.

This year’s free agent class is headlined by Tyson Chandler and David West. Two dominant big men!

Where will they end up? There is no shortage of rumours out there.

Rondo is on the block, Boston unhappy with his prickly attitude are looking to move him and add another piece to their ageing line up as their hall of fame line up comes to its end. Boston’s big three of Ray Allen, Kevin Garnet and Paul Peirce only have a season left together, maybe two!

Then there is Dwight Howard, the NBA’s most dominant big man since Shaq in his prime, going into the final year of his contract before he leaves Orlando. Will Orlando trade him this season and take all they can for him or will they risk losing him to free agency next season and getting nothing back if he chooses not to resign? Rumours have him heading to the LA, to either the Lakers or the clippers, where it seems all dominant big men end up. However an intriguing suitor has emerged in the Nets who would love to see him team up with Deron Williams and form their own powerhouse duo.

Chris Paul is rumoured to have asked for a trade out of New Orleans to team up with his mates Carmelo and Amare in New York, forming what would undoubtedly be the most dominant ‘super team’ in the league. Miami’s own super team of James, Wade and Bosh would be no match against the Knicks if Paul gets his wish. Wouldn’t you love to see him in New York? Chances are this won’t happen because the Knicks gutted their team to acquire Anthony last season and have no assets left to offer the hornets for Paul.

The Indiana Pacers with the most cap space of any team in the league this season. They have spent the past 3 years shedding the bad contracts off their books and now look to improve on their roster via free agency or trades. They have a good young core group of players and are looking to add an all-star power forward and point guard to their roster which will rocket them up the easts power rankings. They are rumoured to be pursuing Rondo, David West and Paul Millsap, all of which would be upgrades to the team. As a Pacers fan, the past few post brawl years have been hard to endure and finally it seems there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Let’s not forget the amnesty clause now available to teams to waive one player off their books without that contract counting against salary cap. There is an intriguing list of players on the amnesty list this season and it will be very interesting to see which team they end up on.

It has been far too long since we spoke about the NBA and not the lockout, bring on free agency and lets look forward to a huge Christmas day schedule to kick off the shortened season.

I don’t agree!

Even though you could say he “failed” against the kiwis this morning by not going on and turning his good start into a big hundred, it is not time to end his career.
Has he played past his time? Has he dropped well below his best? Yes, It is hard to argue against that but a man of his stature in world cricket, who many regard as the greatest Australian batsman since Sir Donald Bradman deserves a life line, he deserves to have the opportunity to bat on this summer. He deserves to face India in this summer’s block buster series.

He may not be able to pile in the runs and rack up the stats as Jacques Kallis and Sachin Tendulkar have done and are doing in the twilight of their careers but he deserves to play on this summer.

He has earned that right for all his contributions over the past decade and a half.
Maybe he should bat down the order?
If Ricky fails against India? Then yes, it’s time to call it quits on his amazing career.
But for now, for the sake of his career, let’s hope he has one heck of a summer with that bat.

However I will not be one of those to judge him, nor will I be one of those to write him off, Tiger Woods is a golfer, arguably the greatest of all time. This is what the focus should really be on!

I have seen enough of Tiger Woods in his latest comeback to declare that he is back. The trials and tribulations he has endured recently are now behind him.

Tiger has rebuilt his image as well as his swing to ease the stress he puts on his body and it is now coming together nicely. The injuries are gone and he has shot scores in the 60’s in 8 of his last 9 rounds that he has played in.

A few weeks ago he finished 3rd in the Australian open. Then there was the president’s cup where many questioned his selection on the team. Team captain Freddy Couples using his captains pick to select Tiger. He did not disappoint, although his putter was letting him down in the first couple of days, he was hitting his irons with purpose and precision. On the final day he put together an unbeatable display dismantling Aaron Baddeley along the way. Take nothing away from Baddeley, he was playing a great round of golf, But Tiger was once again in a league of his own and playing even better!

Enter the Chevron Challenge, where Tiger holds a 36 hole lead. 3 shots ahead of Korean K.J Choi. But Tiger well and truly knows the job is far from complete “I want the lead after the four days,” … “Two days is nice, but four days is even better. I know I’m playing better, and it’s nice to see my position on the leader board kind of equating to it.”

Consider it official, the golf world has been put on notice.

Tiger is back!

Adam Mourad