What is this? A statue that has never been controversial for its subject matter or pulled apart by critics for looking like it was created by his first year students at TAFE?
Yes. It is possible. Cricket great Allan Border has a life-size bronze statue named after him, just 100 meters from the house where he grew up on Sydney's Lower North Shore.・It was unveiled at the Oval (formerly Mosman Oval), leaving an immortal name. This is where his cricketing journey began in the 1970s.
The gutsy left-hander went on to become a great batsman and captain, scoring over 11,000 Test runs and lifting Australian cricket out of its doldrums. The statue, created by Australia's leading sculptor Linda Klarfeld and officially unveiled by former Test captain Ian Chappell, depicts AB Cover hitting the ball into the boundary line.
Unlike other disasters in the sports world, the resemblance to the real thing is uncanny. The most famous example of sports law gone wrong was the horrifying bust of Cristiano Ronaldo that was unveiled at Madeira airport in 2017.
The bronze statue bears little resemblance to the Portuguese superstar, with critics likening it to Jim Carrey's character from The Mask, or a combination of Vanilla Ice, Johnny Bravo and Mr. Incredible. It attracted criticism from inside. It was eventually replaced amid much controversy.
The current state of Australian sport is far from the worst.
Back home, Australia's sporting statues are largely spot on. Most, but not all.
A statue of iconic NRL commentator Ray Warren was installed in his hometown of Junee in 2011, leading to an ugly legal battle between fellow broadcasters Andrew Vos and Ray Hadley. occured. Vos suggested on Sunday Roast that his bust did not bear much resemblance to Warren, prompting a furious on-air response from 2GB's Hadley.
Voss sued Hadley for defamation, and the case was settled before it even went to court. Klarfeld admitted there was a lot of pressure to get it right.
“The biggest challenge was understanding the poses. I didn't know anything about cricket when I was asked to do it,” she told Yahoo Sport Australia. She said: “I wanted to capture the steely determination and courage of the legendary cricketer, also known as 'Captain Grumpy.'
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“He's very meticulous and very focused. The angle of the bat, the pose, everything had to be right. We had to be right historically, especially when AB I am proud of this sculpture, considering that I was only a small child when he saved cricket.''It was then that I was honored to meet this great man in person and honor his legacy for hundreds of years to come.'' I never thought I would end up creating a sculpture of him. ”
Border, now 68, was satisfied with the result. “It's a good shot. It's really special to have a statue in the open air,” he told the Mothman Collective website.