Max is going to Merc. Raducanu is ripping it. Gill is filling his boots. Bumrah is bummed. India is bidding for the 2030 Commonwealth Games and 2036 Olympics. Farrell to get called up by daddy. Gauff gaffes at Wimbledon. Safa have no money to pay bonuses and salaries. There are only two contenders to win the Tour de France.
Some of these statements are shocks. No regards for guessing which ones are not surprises. Shubman Gill, the captain of India, scored an unbeaten and nearly flawless 114 on day one of the second Test at Edgbaston. No surprise there. Andy Farrell is said to be calling son Owen up to replace Elliot Daly after the Saracens player injured his arm against the Reds. Couldn’t see that coming.
Jonas Vingegaard is hoping that Tadej Pogacar will eventually run out of puff at the Tour, which starts on Saturday. He is the only real threat to Pogacar. Most of the other teams are targeting top five on general classification or stage wins. That’s what they have been reduced to by the dominance of the Slovenian.
India saying they will bid for the Olympics and Commonwealth Games seems strange. The 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi was notable only for corruption, incompetence and snakes in the athlete’s village. The Times of India called it “the Commonwealth Games scam, one of the major Indian scams, involving a pilferage of around 70,000 crore (around $8,3bn)”. Not holding out much hope there.
Then again, Sascoc president Barry Hendricks told the SABC this week SA won’t be bidding for 2036, but maybe 2040. Sascoc missed the deadline to submit documentation. “We’ve not been able to get cabinet approval through the ministry of sport, arts & culture, so we’re putting the bid on hold for now. Instead, we are looking towards 2040,” said Hendricks. Echoes of the 2022 Commonwealth Games, when the sports ministry managed to lose a one-horse race as hosts.
Quite why they opted to omit Bumrah here in a game they cannot afford to lose is anyone’s guess.
Coco Gauff getting knocked out at Wimbledon in the first round was flabbergasting, as was the smile on Emma Raducanu’s face when she beat Marketa Vondrousova, the 2023 Wimbledon champion.
Mike Atherton was dumbfounded that India dropped Jasprit Bumrah, the No 1 bowler in the world, for the Birmingham Test.
“Quite why they opted to omit Bumrah here in a game they cannot afford to lose is anyone’s guess. The Lord’s Test [the third Test] is a glittering occasion, of course, and one that all overseas players want to grace, but the here and now needed to be the focus, and the changes India made to their line-up, bringing in Akash Deep, the fast bowler, alongside Reddy and Sundar made little sense set alongside the absence of Bumrah.” Daft and it may cost them.
The least surprising news is that Safa have no money to pay their players.
“The Amajita team are unlikely to receive bonuses for winning the U20 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt in May,” TimesLIVE reported. This after SA Football Association (Safa) CEO Lydia Monyepao revealed after its congress at the weekend that the costs of running the team exceed what the association received for winning the event. Amajita, who received R3.6m for winning the tournament for the first time with coach Raymond Mdaka in Egypt, qualified for the World Cup with Morocco, Egypt and Nigeria.
It’s the Danny Jordaan vanishing act. Now you see the R3.6m, then you don’t. Wait, there’s more from Safa.
“Last week’s lacklustre send-off by Safa was already a slap in the face. But then came the real gut punch: news that the squad had downed tools over unpaid salaries,” News24 said. “According to reports by the SABC, the team, which had arrived in Morocco on Wednesday, refused to train on Friday in protest, a desperate but necessary act to get the attention of a federation that continues to fail them.”
And Sasol announced on Thursday that they have ended their 16-year sponsorship of women’s football because Safa didn’t get around to talking to them about a renewal.
“We await feedback from Safa regarding the terms of a potential renewal. Until an agreement is reached, Sasol no longer holds the rights to associate with Banyana Banyana and the Sasol League.”
No surprises. Same old same old.
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