What caught our eye this week? Osman Samiuddin takes a look back on the best and worst from sport over the past week.
1 Best cure for insomnia
These days almost every game involving Manchester United is in the running for this prize. But especially, and gallingly, at Old Trafford, paint drying has produced greater viewing material than some of their performances. Against Southampton at the weekend, fans sat through an 11th home game without a United goal in the first half. It was not much of game in the second, either, and to say that Charlie Austin’s 85th-minute winner for the visitors livened proceedings would be to fib.
2 Best performance
The absence of Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander from South Africa’s Test side this season has been a harsh reminder of how difficult life will be once they are properly gone. So the feats of Kagiso Rabada in a consolation win against England have become especially significant. Rabada took 13-144, broke several records, most impressive of which is that those are the second-best match figures ever by a South African.
3 Best non-feud
It is no feud if an elephant is boxing a fly. Roger Federer told reporters at the Brisbane International that Bernard Tomic needed to get his act together to be top-10 player, a fair assessment. Tomic reacted, taking a dig at Federer’s losses to Novak Djokovic. Federer apologised this week, after learning that Tomic is ranked 17 and not 50 as he had thought. Nice, but one, he was not totally wrong and two, he is a 17-time grand slam winner so maybe he knows a thing or two about what it takes, eh Bernard?
4 Best memo
From one Pietersen, Kevin, to the England and Wales Cricket Board. Subject: Squad for World Twenty20. Granted England are in a far better place in limited-overs cricket than they have been for some time, but Pietersen’s Twenty20 form has been impossible to ignore this winter. First he dominated the Ram Slam in South Africa. Then he tore up the Big Bash League, ending up as third-highest run-scorer. His nose for the big stage is undimmed too: he made 50s in the semis and final.
5 Biggest letdown
The Golden State Warriors, the San Antonio Spurs; this, right here, was what basketball was supposed to be all about. The league’s best offence against the best defence; a side aiming for the best win-loss record in the league against one on a 13-game winning streak; except, it did not go quite as we had been sold. The Warriors were rampant, a 120-90 win that even against a side missing Tim Duncan, and at home was big enough to get people worrying about their dominance.
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