Feats of Watson and Armstrong leave the imagination spinning
The Age
Wednesday July 22, 2009
Maybe Shane Warne could have made a difference, writes Richard Hinds. THE face of sport is tanned, taut, occasionally pimpled. Yet, for those emerging with eyes bloodshot and remote-control fingers throbbing after five heavily caffeinated days on the couch, the three faces that captivated were more like those you might expect to find in the change queue at the local pokies palace than in the thick of the action.There was Tom Watson waddling around Turnberry with his newly replaced hip having steered yet another pinpoint drive down the fairways. For those of us who spend six weeks in traction if we go past parallel at the top of our backswing, it remains impossible to fathom how Watson could have held the British Open field at bay for 71 minutes, much less 71 holes.There are all sorts of ways to put Watson's refusal to act his age in context: Richard Nixon was in the White House when Watson won his first tournament; Watson hit his first shot on the PGA tour before Alan Shepard hit the first shot on the moon; Watson almost won his sixth British Open 34 years after his first and so it went. But all you really needed to say was 59. Fifty-bloody-nine!There was Lance Armstrong, still strong and durable but, up close, bearing the worn, leathery complexion of the former athlete who now settles your insurance claim or gives you a quote on a renovation, not that of a genuine contender in one of the world's most arduous events. This time, at 37, the former cancer patient was fighting something that cannot be treated, the ravages of age, yet somehow winning this battle, too.And finally, in glorious close-up, there was Shane Warne. Still front and square at Lord's. Quickly imposing himself on his English counterparts. Tongue like a razor, reflexes sharp. And, if you didn't know about the sponsored hair-hat and the stuff from his mum's medicine cabinet that removes the bags from beneath the eyes, looking pretty good at 40.So good that, as you crossed from the geriatric jubilation at the British Open and the tour back to the cricket, the thought was unavoidable - how much different would things have been if Warne was using his guile to stump Andrew Strauss rather than Sir Ian Botham (the full title still sounds weird)? If Watson and Armstrong could contend, were the selectors - and we cynics - too hasty to dismiss the idea that the greatest bowler in history had one more Ashes campaign in him?The only man who will really know that is Warne, who dismissed very vague reports last year that he wanted to play. But was that because a man still trundling away in the even-more-limited-overs form of the game can no longer pull a flipper out of his hat or because it was made clear to him that he was not required?As it was, in the final overs at Cardiff when something special was required to dislodge the tailenders, Warne was playing poker. During stressful times in the field in both Tests when Ricky Ponting could have used a wise word from first slip, the skipper was left to grimace and chew in confused solitude while Warne talked into a microphone.Of course, before we all start searching the chemists' shelves for a cream that causes wrinkles rather than removes them, it must be remembered Watson did not win the British Open and Armstrong will not win the tour. Younger, stronger men with unbroken preparations got them in the end.There is nothing to say a well-worn Warne would have made a difference in Cardiff or at Lord's. But, after a weekend when we found old acquaintances should not be forgotten, you could not help wonder if the man who could turn a ball on glass could also have turned back time.
© 2009 The Age