All Blacks fullback Jordie Barrett falls victim to MCG fun police, banned for 24 hours
The younger brother of rugby superstar Beauden Barrett, Jordie, himself an All Black, was ejected from the MCG during the Boxing Day Test for the ‘crime’ of sculling a beer. Really.
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All Blacks fullback Jordie Barrett will be hoping to forge better Bledisloe Cup memories at the MCG than Boxing Day Test ones.
The 22-year-old was kicked out by the fun police at 2.50pm on Saturday and slapped with a 24-hour ban from the venue.
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Witnesses suggested that Barrett – the younger brother of rugby star Beauden Barrett – was stiff.
He sculled a beer, much to the enjoyment of the nearby crowd, and was evicted minutes later, co-operating with security in a calm manner.
It stoked memories of the Demons’ Boxing Day binge in 2012, when former players Jeremy Howe, James Frawley, Jared Rivers and Ricky Petterd soaked up beers in the Bay 13 sun and even held aloft a beer train of empty cups.
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The DRS technology which Tim Paine finds infuriating was put through “rigorous testing” three years ago by engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
MIT created a square frame with a laser field within it, so that when a ball passed through it could measure the exact coordinates.
The frame was built in Boston and shipped to Winchester in England for testing, with the ICC watching closely.
Virtual Eye boss Ian Taylor said his technology passed the experiment and learnt plenty from MIT for future enhancements.
A $1 million upgrade was then road-tested last year and has since been rolled out, helping deliver real-time speed tracking out of a bowler’s hand.
That technology is a world-first, with the speed of Mitchell Starc rockets now able to be tracked every millimetre as the ball travels down the pitch and then back off the bat.
Speaking of Starc, he should’ve had centurion Tom Blundell lbw for a second-ball duck on Sunday.
If only Paine had reviewed.
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Here’s a trivia question – what do Shikhar Dhawan, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell and Trent Boult have in common?
They’ve all been hospitalised in 2019 thanks to wearing short balls from either Pat Cummins or Mitchell Starc.
Dhawan soldiered on to crush Australia with 117 at The Oval although post-match scans confirmed the Cummins thunderbolt had ended his World Cup after just two games while Cummins broke Marsh’s arm in the nets, denying him a place in the semi-final team.
Starc said ‘Maxi’ clumsily took his eyes off the ball in the same nets session and, while he escaped with a bruise, on Saturday Starc broke Boult’s right hand, with the Kiwi star set to miss a month.
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Remember in 1981 when Greg Chappell instructed younger brother Trevor to bowl the final delivery of an ODI at the MCG underarm?
New Zealand required six runs for victory but the ball rolled along the ground, denying tailender Brian McKechnie the chance to strike it over the fence.
The incident remains a source of frustration in New Zealand and so we thought we’d ask current captain Kane Williamson for his take.
“The older generation probably had a bit more energy for it,” Williamson told the Herald Sun. “They were certainly thinking outside the box on that one. I guess there’s always a catalyst for rules to be changed – as we’ve seen recently.
“That was one moment in time and we’ve had others since.”
Williamson was obviously hinting at the abolished and farcical boundary countback rule, which awarded the World Cup to England this year. Very well answered, Kane.
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Former Australian allrounder Simon O’Donnell made an overdue visit to his very own MCG seat on Sunday.
O’Donnell had never previously sat in the beige seat, which stands out in the sea of blue neighbouring seats in the MCG outer, and commemorates the massive six he blasted during a Sheffield Shield match against New South Wales.
O’Donnell’s maximum was measured at 122m, an MCG record which still stands today. Similarly, Marvel Stadium has a red seat in honour of Victorian Brad Hodge, who blasted a 96m six into the top tier in his final Big Bash game for Melbourne Renegades.
Originally published as All Blacks fullback Jordie Barrett falls victim to MCG fun police, banned for 24 hours