El Niche Cache

May 25, 2020

Scotty’s Word

Apparently Kane Williamson shouldn’t be Blackcaps captain? Something along these lines was reported recently, which was rather strange as it’s not the first time that narratives of Blackcaps angst related to Williamson’s captaincy has been discussed. I’m not going to judge the credibility of various people and their apparent sources, these are just some ramblings from my perspective.

There appear to be two factions - one revolving around Williamson and one revolving around Gary Stead. Otherwise portrayed as Northern Districts vs Canterbury and whether it’s deciding on Ish Sodhi or Todd Astle for a World Cup or the likes of Neil Wagner and Colin de Grandhomme both moving to ND, I am understanding of the general influence/power that Williamson holds. And I like it.

In no way, shape or form do I give this idea of dramas or issues around Williamson as overly interesting. I can see how things may appear to certain people, generally speaking though I appreciate the culture and nature of this Blackcaps group under Williamson’s guidance. Personally, I kinda feel that some of this may stem from jealousy or boredom.

The tour to Australia gets mentioned as a negative for Williamson, which again is fair given how things appear on the surface. At the time, and reflection has only made this more emphatic, I’m wasn’t overly fussed about what happened in Australia over the summer because as soon as you take some of Aotearoa’s best cricketers ever out of a Blackcaps 1st 11, playing Australia in Australia ain’t going to be easy.

Some use that against Williamson. I was more forgiving to the Blackcaps group in general. What appears to be happening though is that pockets of Aotearoa’s mainstream media have an agenda to poke the Williamson captaincy, perhaps via people in the cricket community who feel some kinda way about Williamson … and what is definitely his clique.

That clique helps Aotearoa win cricket games and I have no negative thoughts about Williamson’s ND clique. Again, I love the vibe, culture, attitude and way that the Blackcaps epitomise what it is to be a kiwi. That’s kinda all I care about and little headlines about Williamson vs Stead angst feels weird.

Not to mention…

Kane Williamson has the highest winning percentage in Tests of any Aotearoa captain (56.25%). No other Test captain has a winning percentage over 40.

Things are generally a lot better in ODI, Williamson’s still winning at 55.33%. Four captains have better winning percentages; Brendan McCullum is the only captain with a better percentage (61.86%) having captained 20+ ODIs.

All I know is that I like Kane Williamson as Blackcaps captain and can’t really envision that not being the case in the near future. Williamson has built this wider Blackcaps group and as one of the best cricketers in the world, with a fair amount of stripes earned playing for Aotearoa, I’ll happily accept Williamson as the Blackcaps overlord. The point though, is that Williamson’s never slipped into his power and I can only remember Williamson leading team-first ideals, aligned with our kiwi mana.

Any move away from that feels silly.

I’ve enjoy seeing this snippets from the Amazon Prime thing with the Australian cricket team via their Youtube page. There’s a bunch to suss out when you have time, this one deals with the aftermath of their loss to Ben Stokes/England in that Test and any time you have reasonably switched professionals dealing with a loss, I’m definitely tuning in to see the process - win or learn.

Sky Sports Cricket also serve up the best ‘masterclass’ type of content…

Wildcard’s Notebook

What to write about on a Monday. Monday monday monday. This used to be the busiest day of the week for myself as Flying Kiwis would take hours upon hours not to mention cramming in a Wellington Phoenix recap and perhaps even a Premmy Files edition too. Barely even time to eat with a schedule like that and yet not I can sit at the laptop on a Monday morning and just... stare at a blank screen. With a blank mind.

Scrolling through various feeds and homepages. Looking for my angry fix, as Allen Ginsberg would say. But there’s nothing happening... nothing that lights a spark at least. Trying to write about sports during a time of minimal sports has led to on and off bouts of writer’s block, it’s also led to some really fulfilling and creative ideas but the tap’s not always running when it comes to those things. The muse can be tempestuous. You know how it is. By the way, speaking of running taps... Aucklanders, conserve your water. Just because it magically appears when you turn the tap on doesn’t mean it comes from nowhere, jeezus.

But yes, what to write about? What indeed? Tell you what, while I was scrolling and feeding and reading and struggling for inspiration earlier, one of the things I got stuck on was a website called Radical Reads which compiles lists of books that famous/influential people have recommended over the years. Specifically I was trying to follow up on a feeling I had that Leonard Cohen dug himself some WB Yeats (both fellas who’ve featured in my notebook thingy here in recent weeks – I guess I was trying to wrap those two rabbit holes up in a nice little bundle with a bow on top)... but then ended up peeking at various other lists from the likes of Anthony Bourdain, David Lynch, Cate Blanchett, Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, etc. I love seeing these kinds of things, I’m always on the lookout for new stuff to read and especially for trends or connections that make that agonising decision of What To Read Next a little easier. So here are a few of my own favourite books. Not gonna think about this at all, it’ll be straight off the dome so don’t expect anything definitive... stream of consciousness all the way... yeah but maybe you’ll find something you like, I dunno.

The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi

Currently reading this as we speak and it’s brilliant, really loving it. A mixed-race kid (with an Indian father and white-English mother) grows up in the suburbs outside London in the early 1970s, going to the same high school as David Bowie who would later do the soundtrack for the TV adaptation, trying to find his way in a world in which he’s not sure where he belongs amongst all sorts of mixed messages. Very funny, pushing all sorts of boundaries, right on.

The Dharma Bums – Jack Kerouac

Everyone talks about On The Road but I prefer this one, which gets more into Kerouac’s eastern philosophies and which gives Gary Snyder a prominent role (in alter ego form, as always – Japhy Ryder). Kerouac’s avatar climbs a mountain with Snyder’s avatar and Snyder helps him embrace the wonders of nature and to turn to zen calmness in dealing with everything else. Like, On The Road offers an escape but Dharma Bums offers transcendence.

The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

Read it for the first time at intermediate school, have gone through it I think three more times since then. I don’t tend to re-read books often but LOTR is one of them ones that seems to offer new things at various times. The last re-read was a couple years ago and the sublime rustic beauty of the first half of the first book was what struck me. Tom Bombadil for the win. And that first group of elves. And the hobbits before they leave the Garden of Eden, basically. Tolkien was all about creating a mythology with his work and it’s that early pastoral beauty which I think of first when I think of Tolkien.

The Infinite Blacktop – Sara Gran

Noir detective stories are a cheeky fave of mine and it’d be easy to nudge a few of them golden era hardboilers but this is a modern one that’s doing something different. The third in Gran’s Claire DeWitt series, in which all sorts of esoteric and new age techniques have their use (a healthy update from the likes of Phillip Marlowe who relied on guns and whiskey, although there’s plenty of that here too – as well as a fabled French detective manual) but naturally DeWitt’s also carrying dark secrets from her past which three books in have still only been hinted at. They’re fantastic, I’m telling ya.

All The Pretty Horses – Cormac McCarthy

Nobody writes prettier prose than McCarthy and his border trilogy (of which this is the first) is almost too pure to read, it’s that good. That level of romanticism was a departure for McCarthy after the notoriously bleak and violent Blood Meridian, also a masterpiece, but safe to say there’s some darkness mixed in with the light here too as a couple young Texan buddies who, during the death rattle of the Old West, travel on horseback into Mexico and the rest of what happens doesn’t even matter, you’re there to spend time with McCarthy’s incredible control of language (and his disdain for punctuation).

And with that I realise I’m nearing a thousand words here and I don’t wanna be here all day, perhaps this’ll be a full on piece another day... it’d be something to write about at a time when there ain’t much else going on so that’s actually a legit possibility. But here are a few more books that I’ve loved, blurbs excluded and sticking to fiction for now since it’s easier...