Hussey the Hero

"A mature person is one who is does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally... who walks humbly and deals charitably." When Eleanor Roosevelt uttered these words she was speaking with the wisdom of a first lady of the United States of America. A woman who had seen, from the outside, many people enter the political arena and just as many leave. Most of all she had seen the ones that fulfilled their potential, including her husband, and she no doubt saw the common traits that those successful men possessed.

On day three of the third and final test Australia, if not on the ropes, was certainly stunned by a plucky opponent. At 8-295, a deficit of not much less than 100 looked likely - a 300 chase could easily have been predicted. With Hussey barely 30 Stuart Macgill joined him. A couple of hours later (and indeed a few strokes of luck later) Macgill was dismissed for 22, Hussey was on 99 and the Australians were only a handful of runs behind and back in control of the encounter.

In the context of the game the 93-run stand meant so much more that those run alone. When the eighth wicket fell the West Indians could taste the scones and cream in the dressing room (scones that would have been sweeter with a 100-run lead). In a prolonged blink of the eye, however, they were all square, no advantage and no hope. Their psychological stamina was sapped.

The innings says a great deal of Hussey. At 30 years of age he is not young and he has been travelling around Australia for a decade waiting for his chance to play at the highest level. Now that it has come he has grabbed it, tucked it under his white shirt and bolted. In Hobart he scored his maiden test century opening the batting. In his next test he farmed the strike beautifully (with a handy display by Stuart Macgill) to pull a century, and a Test Match, from nowhere. Within a week he transformed from the effortless opening batsman, to a man who looked as if he had been batting with tailenders for years.

Even when his century was in sight he did not shift from his strike rotation pattern. He showed patience and poise to guide the Australians out of the storm.

What impressed me even more was the way he dealt with the media scrum after the knock. He paid credit to Stuart Macgill. He said that was finding Test Cricket extremely hard. He is the first new kid on the block in a long time to acknowledge that despite scoring two centuries in three matches the game is hard, no run, against any team, is god given. Hussey acknowledged that the rub of the green went his way, and not every innings will be as laden with luck. He walks as humbly as Mrs Roosevelt could ask of anyone.

I am looking forward to Hussey testing his ability and maturity against a more impressive South African line-up. Like any young colt impressing with every start; I have no doubt he will handle the class rise.

Triple Js guide to winning

I do not mind listening to "Today Today" on Triple J in the car of an afternoon when I get a chance to leave work on time. Their apathetic, indifferent brand of searching sarcasm is a touch better than listening to caller after caller ring other stations to discuss how they were picked up by their eventual second husband at their former mother-in-law's after-wake drinks.

I do get annoyed, though, as an avid sports lover, by their deriding attitude generally directed at sporting heroes, events and idols. That is not to say that I do not have time for people that are completely disinterested in sport. For example, I don't really put myself headlong into adding a spoiler to a car and rigging up fifteen gauges around my steering wheel like some do. However, I hope I am not looked down on by those automobile enthusiasts because of that fact. I don't choose to deride their hobbies; I just generally don't comment on them, or if I do, it is a passing slight at the apparently pointlessness of their pursuits, said tongue tightly touching the inside of my cheek.

Chris Taylor and Craig Reucassel take this derision of their topic of disinterest to a new level. Instead of leaving sport alone on their daily slot and spending their time dissecting whatever it is that interests them; they decide to take after Australia's sporting hysteria with a verbal pick axe and aim to make our love for sport seem petty and pointless.

Over the last few weeks we have seen a whole show dedicated to downplaying the spectacle of the Melbourne Cup, and parts of the following day’s show dedicated to downplaying the enormity of Makybe Diva's achievement.

Similarly last Wednesday we heard a show dedicated to telling anyone who cared to listen that if you support the Socceroos you are a bandwagon jumper and that "after they lose" everyone would jump off again. At one stage listeners had their ear drums grated by a less than hilarious spoof that went down the line of players already booking holidays for island holiday destinations at the same time Germany 2006 will take place.

(Before I note the lack of traction their arguments create I just want to point out that the butt of their jokes, on both occasions, turned out to be victorious. There may be something in that.)

Unfortunately, such is the strength of the sporting culture in Australia that all their satire succeeds in doing is splitting their listeners into two groups, on one side the small minority who have taken a stance against sport to display some symptom of "conforming through attempted rebellion syndrome," and the vast majority of listeners who drink beer, enjoy sport and either listen with scowling faces or turn on the CD player.

The important point to be made on this point is that while some don't see the reason for 80,000 people packing into a stadium to watch 22, 26, 30 or 36 blokes kick around the modern, synthetic version of a pigskin, it is our passion and one derived from two factors.

First and foremost the active reason is historical in that, during Australia's hardest time, the 1930s, it was two sportsmen (or one human and a horse) that gave Australians something to be proud of; two athletes that gave Australians a reason to dream and to dare ourselves out of the depression. It has now become a part of our nature to turn to sport, and the sportsmen that play in that realm, for inspiration and a reaffirmation of ourselves and who we are as Australians.

I am very careful there to point out that sport does not create us, but like any cultural medium is certainly an expression of us.

The second reason is a passive one. Sport is our passion because we don't have gangland warfare to any measure that is seen in other parts of the world. There are no warring factions in our streets launching grenades in a bid to secure parcels of land and racism and oppression are of the kind that are the envy of the vast, vast majority of the world, underdeveloped, developing or developed.

And while I don't think that every Australian cricket captain should be Australian of the Year upon retirement, sport has a very high place on the Australian list of priorities and it is a place richly deserved.

So, even though sport may seem trivial by comparison to the lives that are lost daily on the West Bank or the struggles in Kashmir, I would prefer to live in a nation that has publicly funded pariahs call my sport watching pursuits futile than have to wake up to the sound of bombs, death and destruction.

Immortality

In my time away from the blogging window I have seen some remarkable feats in sport and the next few posts will be desperately attempting to fathom the unexpected highs that Australian sport has received recently.

Horse racing is a passion for some, a pastime for others and a once a year foray for most. Through the 150 years that horses have been galloping on our turf we have seen some great beasts. There are those that are remembered as dominating a generation of horses, the type that won a half-a-dozen Group One races over their couple of seasons at the top. In recent years we have seen Northerly, Sunline and Lohnro all do this. Horse that will be remembered by the people who saw them, by the people who backed them, yet did not quite take that next step into legend.

Then there are those that achieved remarkable feats. We all know of Rising Fast's triple crown of 1954 as it is constantly referred to as one of the greatest, most dominant spring carnivals, ever. Similarly, among a string of outstanding achievements, Might and Power backed up from a Caulfield-Melbourne Cup double to win the Cox Plate the next year. The difference between these two classes is only a matter of metres. If Let's Elope finishes ahead of Super Impose in the 1992 Cox Plate she is on a par with Might and Power, and not cantering in the level below.

And while mentioning Super Impose we are faced with the dilemma of placing horses whose major victories are outside of the five big staying races alongside the achievements of horses in the more popular events. Where does one position Super Impose? Where do you place the great sprinter Manikato?

There is one class of horse, though, that is not open for dispute, a category that is purely and simply for the most elite horses ever to grace the turf, and while that category used to number just three, on November 1 2005, there was a fourth immortal added to the Australian Racing story.

While one debates the competing merits of Super Impose's four Randwick mile wins to Might and Power's career Triple Crown, Makybe Diva plays joyfully in her box on the immortal cloud.

Carbine, Phar Lap, Tulloch and Makybe Diva transcend the sport. Their influence in their time and their long term impact on racing is so great that their place in racing is assured. Their achievements are rarely mentioned next to their names because their names are greater than the sum of their achievements. Few people realise that Phar Lap won on all four days of the Cup Carnival in 1930, yet everyone knows that Phar Lap was great. Few say Tulloch's name and mention the 11 Group Ones he won as a three-year-old, yet they all know he was a superstar. And while Makybe Diva’s achievement of three Melbourne Cups is unlikely to be matched in the life of this racing tragic, in two or three decades her name will become revered to the point that many won’t know her achievements, they will simply know she was incredible.

The sheer force of their achievements drags with it a public affection and general aura that could not be done justice by a simple resume of racing achievements.

There has been much written about Miss (for another season) Diva’s third Melbourne Cup, some saying she was aided and abetted by the track; others say that she should have carried more weight. Despite the bitching and moaning, however, one thing is for certain: all of those doubts, those “clouds” that surround her victory, will be blown away in a short period of time. The graffiti of the legacy vandals will be washed off by the enduring rains of reverence and awe.

I am happy to see Makybe added to the exclusive club of immortals. It took a while to convert me, but in the end, her last campaign, her most recent achievements, are no doubt her finest.