Uncategorized – Sport Microcosm

Edgbaston 2005: Freddie Flintoff consoles Brett Lee

There are often moments in sport where competitors shrug off their roles as rivals and indulge in gestures that show camaraderie exists behind all the competition. In 2005 one such incident took place, but the historic context applied to that moment, makes it all the more incredible.

Ashes is among the most heated and competitive series that is seen in cricket outside of maybe an India-Pakistan series, which unfortunately, has gone extinct over the past decade. The English and the Aussies have never liked each other. Maybe some of it has to do with Australia being used as the Kingdom’s private jail for decades in the history, but there are better articles you can read to delve more deeply into that. For us, it is enough to know that the English and Aussie fans do not get along and both sets of fans enjoy nothing more than an Ashes victory to boast of. The sentiment is quite common among the players as well, considering they are often fans of the same rivalry growing up.

In 2005, when Australia was visiting England for the Ashes, there was a sense of impending doom. Sure, the English talk was about new faces and all round abilities, but these were Aussies led by Ricky Ponting. The most successful captain of the Australian team (highest winning percentage as a captain in all of Int’l cricket), following in the previous most successful captain in Australian cricket history, in Steve Waugh. The last Ashes the English team had won was 18 years ago. That is a lot of Ashes and lots of misery. The Aussies were ranked 1 in the World and won the first game of the series. The talk around the series was somewhat along the lines of this hit number from Queen – Another One Bites the Dust

Game 2 of the series kicked off and with Aussies losing Glenn McGrath to injury before Day 1, this was the chance for the English team to fightback. And fight back they did. After 407 batting first, the English bowlers came hard at the Aussies and bowled them out for 308, giving the team a 99 run first innings lead. In the second innings, the English batsmen failed to handle Shane Warne’s music and folded for a mere 182 runs. But with the 99 run lead from the first innings in the boot, they looked pretty solid.

To help the matters, they sent 8 Aussie batsmen back to the pavilion with 107 runs still left to win. The only batsmen left for the Aussies were Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Michael Kasprowicz. None of them complete duds with the bat, but also not players you’d rely on in the 4th innings to get 100+ runs. However Warne and Brett Lee fought their way to a 45 run partnership before Warne was out hit-wicket (WHAT!!?). But Brett Lee formed another partnership with Kasprowicz that put English hearts in their mouths. They brought things up to the point where they needed just 2 runs to stave off a loss and pull a miracle that surely would’ve ended the series for the English.

But alas, it was not be, as Brett Lee who had fought on for so long, could only watch as a Kasprowicz was dismissed with the Aussies just 3 runs away from an extremely famous victory. A distraught Brett Lee was on his knees having given it his all, while the Englishmen ran around joyously having secured a famous victory over a team that had won 16 out of the last 20 games head to head against them.

The real moment of magic came at this point. Andrew Flintoff who had been a one-man miracle machine through all 4 innings, with a total of 143 runs and 7 wickets, instead of celebrating with his teammates, found his way to the middle of the pitch where Brett Lee was still on his knee, unable to come to terms with a loss that he was so close to converting into the most memorable of wins.

Flintoff pulled Brett Lee up. He consoled and congratulated him on the massive effort. He made sure the guy from the hated opponents team, felt the respect for his good work. Sports Psychologists would say this was a prime opportunity to show your dominance. In terms of margin of loss by runs, this ranks as the closest Ashes loss of all time and 2nd closest margin of loss in all of International Test Cricket. Nothing kills a team’s spirit like a close loss. And this was the closest of losses. And Andrew Flintoff was the golden boy in this win. He, more than anyone else, had a reason to be at the center of the wild celebrations. But instead he chose to head straight towards an opponent; because some times sportsmanship can overshadow sports, and Freddie Flintoff made that choice for himself.

When Adam Silver refused to bow down to China

Great Sport Moment #43497

The NBA is often understood to be at the forefront of social change in sports in North America. It’s the most progressive and inclusive of the big American Leagues and it has the numbers to back up this claim.

NBA is the only American sport with a bigger fan share of black Americans (45%) than white (40%). The age numbers also paint a rosy picture for the NBA with 45% the fans being under the age of 35, as compared to an NFL where nearly half the accounted fan base is over the age of 50. Even when it comes to gender, NBA is the leader, where through the WNBA, NBA is the only major sporting league that has a sister concern (established since 1996) offering an avenue for female athletes to go pro after college.

In an interview with the Atlantic, Richard Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida said “The NBA understood that diversity was a moral imperative. But it was the first league to understand that diversity and inclusion are also business imperatives.” The league has really high inclusiveness scores (in fact the highest among all sports) on Lapchick’s reports for both gender and racial hiring.

This has been a growing trend since the time of late David Stern (former NBA Commissioner)and has continued in the time of the current commissioner Adam Silver.

It is no secret that NBA is the American sport with the biggest international market. The sport of basketball is much more popular than the likes of Baseball and American Football and the NBA having the best talents from around the globe competing in it, helps raise its popularity all around. It is also very well known that the NBA’s biggest market outside of the US is its market in China.

The sport of basketball is big in China and NBA stars are massive figures in the country. Yao Ming’s years at the NBA solidified that bond and the ties have only grown stronger ever since then. From Michael Jordan to Kobe Bryant and now James Harden, NBA stars have visited China often and they have been celebrated there like idols. That was an active strategy the NBA used to market the league through the players, who were at times considered bigger than the sport.

The Chinese market and NBA were a match made in heaven, but it all came to a grinding halt when the General Manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protest against the Chinese bid to reclaim it as a part of its sovereign. In hindsight it wasn’t the smartest move by a GM in a league which pulls major revenue from the country in question, given that the country in question has always been known to be prickly about pretty much anything that it feels is an interference.

But as much as NBA would like to keep it’s business alive, it is a league that prides itself on being progressive and also operates out of America. With negotiations between the two nations on bilateral treaties being a major talking point, NBA got dragged into the conversation as sponsors and broadcasters in China threaten to pull out of their deals with the NBA if the League didn’t apologize for the statements of Morey and pretty much have him fired. That the Houston Rockets are the team Morey is the GM of, this was even more damning, given that Rockets are among the teams that have the biggest fan base in China, thanks in no small part to Yao Ming playing his prime years on a good Rockets team.

The NBA released a first statement that said Morey did not speak for the Association and that he should have considered the reaction to the tweet before sending it, but soon Adam Silver responded to the calls for Morey’s head by instead relying on the values of Freedom of Speech. Adam Silver not only refused to have Morey removed, he went on the offensive against the idea that the league would ever consider firing someone who is a part of the league, for having their own beliefs and speaking in favor of them.

There is no doubt about what Adam Silver felt about the whole thing. I am sure it was something he wishes would never have happened and he didn’t have to go against a big money making market of the league, but what happened happened and Silver’s refusal to let money decide the course of his action speaks to the ideals of NBA, because it was not a small matter. The revenue being talked about is not a single digits in millions.

$400 Million is the estimated amount that the NBA will lose from this season alone after all Chinese ties were cut due to Silver’s stance in support of Morey’s freedom of speech. And that impact will be felt all over the league. Already the booming salary cap is expected to fall below expectations for the first time in years for the 2020-21, and the real impact of the cut ties is only going to be felt in the 2021-22 season. This cuts into the pocket of everyone in the league, the staff, the players, the owners, everyone. But the NBA stood for the players rights to speak against the President of the country, it wasn’t going to change that stance for an employees personal stance in favour of protestors in a different country, even if it brought on major financial implications on the league.

And that is pretty freaking great.