The Ashes: Archer’s brutal spell felt like watching a fight night… thrill of sport laced with danger
IN September 1991, three teenage boys clambered into a battered Ford Fiesta and headed for White Hart Lane.
We were off to see Chris Eubank — the eccentric and cartoonish man who had become our unlikely hero — defend his WBO world super-middleweight title against fellow Brit Michael Watson.
Watson, the overwhelming crowd favourite, was way ahead on points in the 11th round when he floored Eubank.
Yet Eubank got to his feet and then caught Watson with a savage uppercut.
The referee stopped the fight soon after when Watson collapsed.
Wild with delight — unlike 95 per cent of the audience — we travelled home buzzing on second-hand adrenaline.
In that pre-internet era, we had to wait until the following day to hear that Watson was in a coma and fighting for his life having sustained devastating brain injuries.
Watson’s painstaking recovery would make the news every now and again — and I would wince with regret each time I heard about this incredible man.
Medical procedures have improved since, partly because Watson successfully sued the authorities for neglect.
But nobody — least of all the pugilists themselves — doubt the inherently life-threatening nature of their sport. And yet still they box.
After that night, I chose not to watch boxing live until it became part of my job a decade later. And despite the horrors of Eubank-Watson, the spectacle almost immediately gripped me again.
There is no logic behind the fact that so many of us want to see Jofra Archer bowling bouncers at Steve Smith again — even some who knew Phil Hughes and felt his death keenly.
Dave Kidd
Covering Anthony Joshua v Wladimir Klitschko and Deontay Wilder v Tyson Fury have been among the greatest highlights of my working life.
Very little else in sport can rival the pulsating excitement of a genuine big fight.
Yet Saturday at Lord’s brought one such rare opportunity for the vicarious thrills and guilty pleasures of watching sport laced with life-threatening danger.
That absorbing duel between Steve Smith, the world’s greatest batsman, and Jofra Archer, the debutant fast bowler with an appetite for destruction, was an instant Ashes classic.
We’d watched Smith amass 286 runs during Australia’s First Test victory — and we’d wondered how England could ever unsettle him.
Yet here was Archer showing us how, bowling with all his callous 96mph pace and strangely languid aggression.
First he bruised Smith’s arm with a short ball.
Then, having rattled him, forced the Aussie into an error which saw him duck into another bouncer and take a chilling blow to the back of the neck.
The incident had mortifying echoes of the incident which cost Phil Hughes — Smith’s former team-mate — his life during a Sheffield Shield match in 2014.
So there should be no snide talk of over-zealous political correctness or ‘the nanny state’ when some people argue to make cricket, and other sports, safer.
Or even to ban professional boxing, these are just and reasoned arguments.
But let us consider how Smith chose not to wear a stem guard — connected to the helmet and designed to protect his neck — which was recommended after the Hughes tragedy.
Let us recall how reluctant Smith was to retire hurt, then how keen he was to return to the crease when cleared by concussion protocols, on Saturday afternoon.
Smith clearly wasn’t right — that was obvious given that England actually got him out for less than three figures.
But the greatest sportsmen do not just need talent, they must also possess depths of courage and resolve which separate them from the rest of us — the cowardly voyeurs who marvel at them.
It’s what made Ayrton Senna such a great driver, yet ultimately what led to the Brazilian maestro’s death in an era when Formula One racing was more dangerous and compelling.
Who could rightly argue against increased driver safety?
Or against measures introduced to limit the dangers of concussion in rugby or American football? And yet who could argue that Smith will not be instinctively desperate to ignore medical advice and play in the Third Test at Headingley on Thursday?
Or that all lovers of great sport want to see Smith taking guard at Leeds, with Archer tearing in again, dreads in his hair and dread in opposition eyes.
We know that even though the Lord’s Test ended as a draw, Archer’s Saturday afternoon burst — followed up by another violent spell on Sunday — could prove the turning point in this series.
And we know that if Smith misses Headingley, England’s chances will greatly increase.
There is no logic behind the fact that so many of us want to see Archer bowling bouncers at Smith again — even some who knew Hughes and felt his death keenly.
Just as there is no reason behind the fact that we can roar with glee while witnessing Watson suffer terrible injuries, then go on to marvel at the spectacle of prize-fighting once more.
There’s a recklessness about even making the argument but there is also a truth.
Because sport in the raw is the greatest sport of all.
REGULAR readers will know VAR was always going to be a damaging shambles — welcomed only by people who applaud traffic wardens.
So after Manchester City’s disallowed ‘winner’ against Tottenham, here are a few questions:
Can we stop trying to blame the handball law INSTEAD of VAR?
The handball law was altered BECAUSE of VAR in a bid to make the situation artificially black and white (it’s similar with tight offside calls).
How long until teams stop celebrating goals — the game’s greatest joy — for fear they will be cut short, even when there is no suggestion of anything being wrong?
Can we please stop saying VAR is inevitably here to stay? Not if administrators, refs, managers, players and supporters realise it is a blight on the game. And we’re getting there.
THE appointment of Edu as Arsenal’s technical director is rife with humour if you remember the circumstances of his arrival as a player.
In 2000, Arsenal agreed a then-hefty £6million fee with Corinthians to sign the midfielder — yet Brazilian Edu’s arrival was delayed by six months after he tried to get through Heathrow on a forged passport.
My esteemed colleague Andrew Dillon, who broke that story, reported the nearest Edu got to Highbury was ‘a bird’s eye view of Staines reservoir’.
We trust Arsenal’s new recruitment chief will be more careful over paperwork than his predecessors...
BETWEEN them, Manchester City and Liverpool won TWENTY-ONE consecutive league games before Spurs drew at the Etihad.
Even then, City out-shot last season’s fourth-placed team, and Champions League runners-up, by a margin of 30-3.
And they were only denied victory by a VAR abomination.
Liverpool and City seem so far clear of the rest that it needs something genuinely freakish to stop them both winning every single match.
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WAYNE ROONEY hit out at rules limiting the number of flights clubs like his DC United can take in a season, tweeting: “Looking forward to a 12-hour travel day which could be done in 6 but hey this is MLS.’
Has anyone told our Derby-bound hero about those M1 roadworks?
AND finally... Bury FC.
If the famous Shakers from Gigg Lane who once won an FA Cup final 6-0 are allowed to go under this week, then the Football League must finally be shamed into declaring war on rogue owners and safeguarding the historic institutions that make up their number.