Thoughts on the weekend sport
I enjoy summer sport – when football is off the back pages – although there is still endless transfer speculation, no doubt fuelled by agents.
There are new tourneys to enjoy every week: Wimbledon glides into The Open, then the Tour de France, not to mention as well an absorbing-matched Test series between England and India and the British & Irish Lions v Wallabies.
I have not mentioned The Lionesses‘ triumph but – in true Rust fashion – I will confine comments to the less obvious.
Over the weekend I mainly watched the Tour de France and followed the Test at Old Trafford, either on radio or Skysports.
The Tour was won by the exceptional Tadej Pogacar, who destroyed his greatest rival Jonas Vingegaard in the Pyrenees, and after that his yellow jersey victory was a formality.
Incidentally, that guru of cycling correspondents David Walsh, predicted a Vingegaard triumph, just as Jonathan Agnew led the media charge that Jofra Archer was undercooked and should not be recalled at Lords.
He bowled for long periods as did Ben Stokes.
Joe Root deserves all his accolades, but surely Shibman Gil also deserved a mention for a series average of 100+ and for batting out two sessions in achieving an unlikely draw for India.
There are few more enjoyable things to a sports-loving Brit like me than to beat the Aussies, though that is reciprocated with interest.
Ref Andrea Piardi saw the dive in the final “clean out” which led to the Hugo Keenan winning try. You don’t need such a finale if much beforehand is attritional – as it was in the Lords Test match – but it helps and provided à fitting and exciting climax to a fantastic contest.
