KEVIN MCCALLUM: Of babes, resting-death-stare-face and spitting the dummy

The news that the world’s “oldest baby” was born last weekend is a claim that may be disputed by fans of the England cricket team and the British & Irish Lions. 

The MIT Technology Review broke the story that Thaddeus Daniel Pierce was born on July 26 “from a human embryo that was frozen more than three decades ago”.

Last year, Lindsey and Tim Pierce of Ohio adopted the embryo, which had been frozen in 1994 “before either parent had started primary school”.

“We didn’t go into it saying we would break any records,” said Lindsey Pierce. “We just wanted to have a baby. The baby has a 30-year-old sister.

“We had a rough birth, but we’re both doing well now,” Lindsey told MIT Technology Review. “He is so chill. We are in awe that we have this precious baby.”

India head coach Gautam Gambhir is having a rough old time of it in England. Since he took over as head coach he has won just two and lost eight of 12 Tests. The BCCI have the patience of a kid at Christmas. Words have been traded.

Gambhir is a bristly character with “the air of a bloke for whom the entire universe is a perceived slight”, wrote James Wallace. “The guy has got resting-death-stare-face, appearing permanently close to putting up his dukes and offering people outside.”

He and Lee Fortis, the head groundskeeper at the Oval, had some words when India were preparing for the final Test of the series this week. Fortis was displeased that India had taken a cool box on to the main square, which he has, naturally, been very protective about it. Groundskeepers can be tricky. 

Gambhir went full BCCI on Fortis. “You can’t tell us what to do … you’re just the groundsman, nothing beyond.”

“It is quite a big game coming up. It is not my job to be happy with [Gambhir] or not. I have never met him before today. You saw what he was like this morning. It’s OK, I am fine. We have nothing to hide,” said Fortis.

Gambhir has also spat the dummy over the tricky topic of injury replacements. Wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant fractured his foot after being hit by a delivery. Injuries are part of cricket and, over the long term, they tend to even out. 

“The game is played over five days for a reason,” wrote Steve Finn on X. “[Some] teams bat long to wear a bowling unit down. If you could substitute a fresh bowler in because of injury it would just be wrong. How on earth do you determine what an injury is? MRI scanners at every ground to check a muscle tear?”

And how to check a rugby decision? Well, just take the law, divide it in two and feed the result into ChatGPT and guess from there. That seems to be the reasoning behind Andrea Piardi’s choice when it came to not awarding a penalty against Jac Morgan for a clean-out that led to Hugo Keenan’s match-winning 80th-minute try. Wallaby coach Joe Schmidt fumed. Law 9.20 states: “A player must not make contact with an opponent above the line of the shoulders.”

Australia are bitter, their press and Rugby Australia saying they wuz robbed. Oh, the headlines. “Australia tears its hair out as it tries to come to terms with Lions series defeat.” Former captain Sam Warburton wrote: “Jac Morgan got it spot on, unlike play-acting Australian.”

Carlo Tizzano, whom Morgan cleaned out and apparently play acted, won’t play in Sydney for Australia against the British & Irish Lions on Saturday. The Wallabies are claiming Morgan’s clear-out registered a force of 54G. He has also been the target of online abuse for what was described as his reaction, “reeling from the contact with operatic passion, hands clutching the back of his head in mock-agony — have also polarised. Was this cowardly ‘diving’ or canny gamesmanship to catch the camera’s eye?”

Defeat teaches you how to win, unless you are a Wales rugby player, like, er, Morgan.

But that’s enough oldest baby talk for this week, which reminds me, Nic White, who is still recovering from that Faf de Klerk brush to his moustache, has been called up by the Wallabies for Saturday.

Now there’s a big, old baby.