The Nine Darter, Week 2: My Cross To Bear

Welcome to The Nine Darter, Uproxx Sports’ weekly recap of what happened during this week’s episode of BBC America’s Thursday Night Darts, which chronicles each week of the 2018 Unibet Premier League Darts. This week, we head to Motorpoint Arena Cardiff in Wales for the second week of action.

Thousands upon thousands of fans went into Motorpoint Arena Cardiff to watch a fun evening of darts, one which put a pair of surprising names atop the table and has the defending world champion sitting uncomfortably in last place. Oh, and we also saw the world No. 1 take on the world No. 2 in a delightful match. Let’s darts.

1. The Results And Table

Michael Smith 7 — 4 Daryl Gurney
Rob Cross 1 — 7 Simon Whitlock
Michael van Gerwen 5 — 7 Peter Wright
Gerwyn Price 3 — 7 Gary Anderson
Raymond van Barneveld 7 — 5 Mensur Suljovic

1. Simon Whitlock: 2-0-0, +8, 4 points
2. Michael Smith: 2-0-0, +5, 4 points
T3. Peter Wright: 1-1-0, +2, 3 points
T3. Raymond van Barneveld: 1-1-0, +2, 3 points
5. Michael van Gerwen: 1-0-1, +3, 2 points
6. Gary Anderson: 1-0-1, +2, 2 points
7. Daryl Gurney: 0-1-1, -3, 1 point
8. Gerwyn Price: 0-1-1, -4, 1 point
9. Mensur Suljovic: 0-0-2, -4, 0 points
10. Rob Cross: 0-0-2, -11, 0 points

2. Rob Cross wyd

Cross is an incredible story. He started playing darts professionally 11 months before the 2018 World Darts Championship, which he won by stunning van Gerwen in the semifinals and mowing through Phil Taylor, the best player ever, in the finals.

Now, uh, he’s in the Premier League and looks like someone who started playing darts 11 months ago. He played well but lost 7-2 to van Gerwen last week. This week, Cross averaged 87.74 and got smacked around by Whitlock, who averaged 93.14 in a 7-1 victory.

We’ll get into the match in a sec, but Cross was only able to win one leg early on before getting dragged by Whitlock. He’s obviously a very good darts player, but maybe he’s just getting caught up in the magnitude of his first stint on the Premier League and just got unfavorable draws early on against the best player in the world and a veteran.

3. AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE

If there is one thing I did not expect at, well, any point of this tournament, it was for Whitlock to race out in front of everyone else and be atop the table. He was lights out against Suljovic in Week 1, winning 7-5 and averaging 106.49, and in Week 2, he absolutely manhandled Cross. Whitlock, as mentioned above, took down the world champion with ease.

Whitlock only needed one match dart to get the win over Cross, checking out from 106 with ease. His final dart, a double 16 to win the match, could not have been more perfect.

It stands to reason that Whitlock, who as we wrote last week had the worst odds to win the whole thing at 200/1, will fall off eventually. But if he keeps up this run of form, who knows? He might be to darts what Leicester City was the to the Premier League in 2015-16.

4. The world title match we deserved

This year’s world championship should have been a showdown between van Gerwen and Wright, but due to van Gerwen losing in the semifinals and Wright getting bounced in the second round as he was working to come back from gallstones, that didn’t happen. It’s unfortunate, because we have not seen those two play on the sport’s biggest stage since the 2014 tournament, which van Gerwen won.

This time, though, the world No. 2 took down the world No. 1 came out on top, as Wright averaged 101.04 to MVG’s 101.12 and won, 7-5. It was somewhat surprising, as van Gerwen’s sloppy play gave Wright a window to get in and control the match.

But still, van Gerwen is van Gerwen, and is capable of setting a crowd ablaze by closing out 170s like it’s nothing.

In the end, though, it was Snakebite’s night. Let’s play some Pitbull, y’all.

5. Barney Army

Poor Suljovic, who has been excellent during the Premier League thus far but has just gotten outdueled by a pair of legends — Whitlock last week, and van Barneveld this week. Here’s how locked in Barney was, as he casually took out a 167 in the fourth leg while Suljovic was one dart away from winning the leg.

Suljovic had a chance to win the match’s 12th leg to force a draw, but despite having three darts and needing a low ton, but could not get the job done. You can see his frustration on his final dart of the match, as he knew Barney wasn’t missing D8.

The good news for Suljovic is that if he keeps playing as well as he had the first two weeks, he’ll be fine. Thursday was just Barney’s night.

6. This Charming Man

Smith was the first well-regarded player to fall to Cross during the World Championships, so it’s really nice to see that he’s been able to start the Premier League off strong. After beating Anderson last week, he came back this week and beat Gurney, 7-5.

Smith was locked in early on, and despite Gurney having a higher average (101.96 to 99.15), he was able to establish an early lead and walk out with the win.

Gurney was able to fight back to tie things at 4-4, but from there, Smith was able to lock up a win.

Smith came in 10th in his first and only appearance in the Premier League back in 2016. With two wins this time around, he already has picked up more victories than the one he got in his first stint.

7. Rounding into form

Anderson, when he is on his game, is perhaps the best challenger for MVG’s claim of being the best darts player in the world. You might not have guessed that if you watched him collapse last week while dealing with a bad back, but this week, Anderson started to look like himself against Price, who was making a homecoming as the only Welsh player in the field.

Still, Anderson is a two-time world champion for the reason, and ended up running away with this one, 7-3. He averaged 99.22 to Price’s 92.71.

Anderson will need to be a little better next week because he’s going up against van Gerwen, but if he plays like the world champion that he is, that’s going to be an absolute firecracker.

8. For real, air the walk-ons

Let’s end by following up on something Robby started with last week: The lack of walk-ons. The thing with darts is that, while it is a really fun sport to watch, it is not something you are going to watch and immediately get captured by. The actual act of watching people play darts is something of an acquired taste — it’s one that I acquired pretty quickly, and I contend most people who have a little interest in would acquire quickly would like, too.

But if you’re going to get into darts, it’s by watching walk-ons. They are magnetic. Here’s Joe Cullen’s walk-on.

Cullen is ranked 18th in the world, a fine player but not someone whose dart playing ability is captivating. But listen to everyone lose their mind to Gala’s “Freed from Desire,” a song you have not thought about in 15 years, plays. It rules. This is how people like darts.

BBC America, though, does not show walk-ons. It’s unfortunate, because this is the kind of thing that everyone would love to watch. Please change this, BBC America. For everyone.

9. What to watch next week

Never would I have expected to say this with an Anderson-MVG battle on the slate, but the match to watch is the showdown between Suljovic and Smith. The former is the only guy to average 102+ in each of his first two matches in the tournament (despite picking up a pair of losses), while the latter sits in second on leg differential. Beyond that, Anderson and van Gerwen is a rematch of the 2017 World Championship final. Also: If Cross isn’t careful, Wright is the type of player who can whitewash him.

Full schedule of action for Week 2:

Mensur Suljovic v. Michael Smith
Daryl Gurney v. Gerwyn Price
Peter Wright v. Rob Cross
Gary Anderson v. Michael van Gerwen
Simon Whitlock v. Raymond van Barneveld