Ashes Rumours

Sometimes I love twitter. When I have not been next to the TV or radio, I have been able to follow the ashes by watching the feed of my friends' twitter updates (I am @marcwestius), and not only do you get frequent updates, you get all sorts of colour in the form of personal opinion. Of the Ashes cricketers, Graham Swann, Jimmy Anderson and Phil Hughes are on twitter, with Hughes notably informing us of his sacking before the Edgbaston team was announced. By the way, does anyone else think that it is completely NOT in the spirit of twitter for Hughes to send his messages to his agent, who then sends them to "the IT guy" in India to update the twitter stream? Hardly fast-paced microblogging!

Anyway, one of the cool things that twitter does is aggregate opinion on various topics. By using a hashtag, status updates can be pooled by subject. One the best topics recently is #ashesrumours, started by @FollowTheAshes. There are some common themes, here are some of the best so far:

• on the same flight that david boon drank 52 cans of beer, geoff lawson drank 52 west coast coolers
• Shane Warne broke Boons 52 beer record at his daughters ballet recital.
• Sally left Brand Power as it has been taken over by a former English skipper and renamed Brand Gower.
• Justin Langer is in fact the first Terminator prototype, he went missing from a factory in Singapore in 1994
• as punishment for his poor bowling performance, @philtufnell was once made to run 10 laps of Mike Gatting
• Several Australian batsmen have been forced to sit out training after contracting Swann Flu
• @swannyg66 wanted to be the next Warney.....but he lost his mobile phone
• in honour of his father, bruce lee, brett lee once starred in a film called 'enter the batsman'
• Brett lee is the love child of a stripper name crystal and bing lee
• andrew strauss is a cyborg....but a really annoying one
• Andrew Strauss can carry 12 cricket balls clenched between his buttocks
• when don bradman met king george in 1934 he only referred to him as the 'g-dog'
• Ricky Ponting will change his nationality to a New Zealander if he becomes the 1st Aussie capt. to lose the Ashes twice in Eng
• Ricky Ponting and George W Bush swapped jobs for a period of 7 weeks in 2006 without anyone noticing
• Graeme Manou doesn't even know who he is
• Shane Watson & Sth African rugby player Percy Montgomery to play Prince Charming in Shrek 4. Darren Lehmann to play Shrek
• Shane Watson once broke his neck shaking his hair
• Shane Watson once cut his arm off whilst filing his nails
• shane watson once broke his leg padding up to bat.
• What, a buttock strain now? Shane Watson confident that his injuries are behind him
• Stuart Broad is still dressed by his mum before every match. She also does his hair.
• Nathan Hauritz likes to play with his new transformers figures for at least 30 minutes before taking the field
• graham Onions only realised he had an amusing surname when Monty Panesar started making bhaji jokes.
• eddie mcguire is also the president of paul collingwood the cricketer
• Andrew Flintoff practices his bowling style by throwing rocks at puppies.
• Umpires Billy Doctrove and Rudi Koertzen often enjoy a spliff or two during breaks
• despite being the great great grandson of alexander graham bell, ian bell has never used a telephone
• Ian Bell is so virile that he made 7 women pregnant, just by smiling at them
• shane warne's smoking makes up 50% of aus's greenhouse emissions.
• Sir Geofrey Boycott killed 17 Nazi Stormtroopers with a stick of his Grandmother's rhubarb
• Boycott to take all 11 batting slots at Edgbaston - as the only man who can do it properly.
• Boycs once killed a man with his bare hands for batting 'like a woman'
• Rumour has it that Mitchell Johnson can bowl
• Ravi Bopara can, in fact, bat.
• If he wanted to, Mitchell Johnson could probably hit a barn door at 10 paces
• Marcus North is taping a series of commercials in which he sells GPS devices to Mitchell Johnson.
• 3 women died of excitement at Lords, when Jimmy Anderson smiled at them
• At Lords, the Queen slipped her phone number to @JimmyAnderson9
• Daniel Radcliffe to be announced as 12th man, with a special brief to fill in for J Anderson if required.
• @jimmyanderson9 was once mistaken for derek zoolander. Actually, it may have been twice.
• The Headingley Test of 1981 was re-enacted on location in the Arizona desert when tapes of the original were lost.
• when simon katich wears a woollen jumper, the static from his chest hair powers his car.
• Richie Benaud invented the Flipper in honour of his favourite TV show.
• The pitch at Edgbaston is so wet that one of the rollers sank.
• Ian Thorpe will be 12th man for Australia at Edgbaston.
• Swimming googles have been supplied to all the players and officials for start of play at Edgbaston
• Phil Hughes had a small role as a House Elf in the new Harry Potter film
• It wasn't only Phil Hughes in the Potter film - Andrew McDonald played one of the Weasley brothers
• stuart broad was also in harry potter as malfoy's double. But he just couldn't look evil.

Looking forward to more!

Who will win the Ashes from here?

With England up 1-0 after 2 Tests, can Australia fight back? Or is the momentum now against them? They fought back from 1-0 down in 1997 in England, but that was a vastly different team. Have a vote in our poll - we'll shut it down just before the 3rd Test to capture what people are thinking at this stage of the series.

Test Retirement

There was a time when players used to retire from cricket at the end of their career. However a new concept has begun to raise it’s ugly head; “Test retirement”. The second announcement in a week of a prominent cricketer came today when Chaminda Vaas announced that he was retiring from test cricket to focus on Twenty20 and Limited Overs cricket. This coming of course, off the back of the much publicised announcement from Andrew Flintoff of exactly the same thing.

It comes as little surprise for this generation of players. Test cricket is a long cruelling game of stamina and can quite easily take it’s toll on the body, so it’s natural to understand why players like Flintoff who has struggled with injuries throughout his career would clearly look to find a way of extending it. Having a long career in cricket can be very lucrative these days, with all the money from the IPL it has never been a better time to play cricket.

In fact, the pay difference between playing test cricket and Twenty20 cricket is so great, that it’s getting to a point where Test cricket is actually becoming a bit of liability.

Look at the recent turmoil currently taking place with West Indian cricket. Pay is the central problem at the moment in the dispute – one can easily speculate the catalyst for this dispute, or at the very least one of the major pain points for some of the high profile players. The Test series between England and the West Indies. It was not part of the Future Tours Program, and the Windies had just recently defeated the English on home soil in a war of attrition 1-0 series. With Sri Lanka pulling out because of their players commitments to the IPL, the Windies were a last minute replacement, and the impact of this meant that star players like Chris Gayle were suddenly out of pocket, significantly.

The reality of the situation is that, unless you’re Australian, playing Test cricket can actually cost you money. Only Australian’s have voluntarily omitted themselves from playing in the IPL, this year Ricky Ponting, Michael Hussey, Michael Clarke and Mitchell Johnson were all high profile players that chose to make themselves unavailable for this competition – in fact Clarke and Johnson have steadfastly avoided even being a part of the draft process entirely. Is it really just a coincidence that these players are actually the top 4  money earners under lucrative Cricket Australia contracts?

It’s because they’re just about the only players who can afford it.

Ashes survival guide (if you're into science...)

Ashes backyard cricket
Originally uploaded by westius.

The sporting highlight of 2009 is here! The Ashes cricket series between Australia and England means little sleep for cricket-obsessed Aussies, and little work done by the English.

Here is our science survival guide to the Ashes:

• Ashes success and El Nino

Is the winner of The Ashes already pre-determined? Manoj Joshi has shown that the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon has a significant effect on the results of The Ashes cricket series when the series is held in Australia. The Australian Cricket team is more likely to succeed after El Nino years, while the English cricket team does better following La Nina years (the opposite phase). Their study, Could El Niño Southern Oscillation affect the results of the Ashes series in Australia? was published in the journal Weather.


• How to rank cricketers
  

Cricket is one of the world's most statistical sports, and mathematicians in cricket-loving nations love nothing more than delving into the minutiae of the numbers and diving into averages, strike-rates and custom-made measures of batting and bowling effectiveness.

For many people, including me, cricket isn't just a sport, it is a way of life.

These words could easily have come from me, but are actually the words of Rob Eastaway, a cricket-loving mathematician from the UK, and originator of the official International Cricket Council cricket-ratings which rank not only teams, but players within each team. In this podcast, I chat to Rob about how you mathematically rank cricketers.


• Science, Psychology and Cricket

Every cricket season, the TV coverage of cricket becomes more spectacular and technological, with the introduction of microphones to detect the finest of edges through to the keeper, improved abilities to determine the trajectory of a ball once it has left the bowler’s hand, and now even heat sensors to see how the batsman sweats.

But the scientific aspects of cricket are not limited to TV companies, with science playing an increasing role in shaping the performance of players, from their general fitness to specific training techniques for both their physical, and possibly more importantly mental, well-being. It is with science that countries are aiming to find the competitive edge.


• The curse of the duck

The recent news of the great Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar surpassing West Indian Brian Lara's record number of test runs has given maths-loving cricket geeks another opportunity to pull out their calculators and Excel spreadsheets. At the time of writing, Tendulkar had scored 12,027 runs across 247 innings, to overtake Lara's 11,953 from 232 innings. After a little investigation, I found that despite his outstanding average of over 54 runs per innings, Tendulkar's most common score in test cricket is ... zero! Even the great Don Bradman scored a duck more times than any other score. And their next most common? One! We look at how are cricket scores are distributed.

• Science, Cricket, Fitness and Psychology

Do you need to be fit to play cricket? Do the best batsmen in the world really have the ability to predict the type of ball they will receive before it even arrives? And is cricket really more of a mental game than a physical one?

In this podcast episode, we talk to Dr Rob Duffield from the School of Human Movement at Charles Sturt University who has found that indeed you really do not need to be as physically fit to play cricket as you do other sports such as football. We also chat to Dr Allistair McRobert from Liverpool John Moores University whose work has shown that the best batsmen can predict to some extent where a bowler will bowl. This work encompasses a look into the subconscious mental game of cricket and how the most successful players are more mentally prepared for the top level than lesser players. More on this topic can also be found in our article The Science of Cricket.


• Sex before Sport?

It is the virile sports-person's eternal question - should one abstain from a little bit of nookie before a big sporting event? If I was Michael Clarke and engaged to Lara Bingle, I wouldn't be...


• Economists, oil, cricket and correlation

Can we predict cricket results using the price of oil? Or is this just bad stats. Also see our article Poor correlations, or why it's not the fault of Aussie cricketers.

Good luck to all and come on you Aussies!

Choosing the right sub-atomic particle analysis facility is a little bit like medium pace bowling

I love this clip of former Australian cricket Damien Fleming on the comedy show Thank God You're Here, the Australian theatre-sports style show which essentially aims to embarrass celebrities. In this challenge, as Australian sportsmen tend to talk a lot about things they don't know, Fleming was set the challenge of marketing the Australian Synchrotron. His opening line, "choosing the right sub-atomic particle analysis facility is a little bit like medium pace bowling" is brilliant. Check it out below or on the youtube video:

The Sri Lankan Big Bash

With the seeming failure of the Southern Premier League getting off the ground, Australia's  Big Bash Twenty20 tournament is taking matters into their own hands with Cricket Australia allowing each state to recruit up to two international players to their teams. This is a great idea as the appeal of the Indian Premier League has shown that the lure of international stars is big business. Of course while the Australia competition can't compete in money terms with the IPL the timing of the tournament means that it's a good additional option for international players as it will never clash with the cashed up Indian tournament.

Without having a clear understanding of the touring schedules of the different nations it's interesting to see that just about every state has gone for Sri Lankan players. Ajantha Mendis for South Australia, Lasith Malinga for Tasmania and there's talk of Kumar Sangakkara playing for New South Wales and most exciting is the possiblity of Muttiah Muralithuran playing for Victoria. In fact, the only other international stars announced so far appear to be West Indian, with Chris Gayle for Western Australia and Dwayne Bravo for Victoria. Chances are they are the only nations who don't have conflicting tours during the time of the competition mind you there's also word that former Queenslander Brendon Nash is on a bit of recruiting drive for his former state in attempts to lure some of his West Indian tour mates to play for the Bulls, but it will be interesting to see what other players are announced in the coming weeks. A question I have, does Queensland want Brendon Nash? And if they do, does he count as an international player these days? And if they don't want him - isn't that a bit of an awkward situation?

I can just imagine the conversation between the Queensland Bulls rep and Brendon Nash:

BULLS: Hi Brendon, we're looking to recruit some players for the Big Bash tournament this summer.

NASH: Oh sure, I'd be happy to come back and play for you guys!

BULLS: Uh, yeah, um, that's great that you're keen, but, uh, we were kind of wondering if you could have a chat with some of your team mates.

NASH: Oh. Okay then.

Burn.

Ranking Cricketers

Cricket is one of the world's most statistical sports, and mathematicians in cricket-loving nations love nothing more than delving into the minutiae of the numbers and diving into averages, strike-rates and custom-made measures of batting and bowling effectiveness.

For many people, including me, cricket isn't just a sport, it is a way of life.

These words could easily have come from me, but are actually the words of Rob Eastaway, a cricket-loving mathematician from the UK, and originator of the official International Cricket Council cricket-ratings which rank not only teams, but players within each team. Over at The Mr Science Show podcast, I chat to Rob about how you mathematically rank cricketers.

Listen to this podcast here - note a few audio issues, see below:

Ranking individual batsmen and bowlers is no small task. A common method of comparing batsmen is their average, which is the average score the batsman compiles each time he comes in to bat. This method, however, has a number of issues as it does not take into consideration the opposition, playing conditions and how recently the runs were scored. How can you compare a score of 60 against a world-class opponent on a dodgy pitch with a score of 150 against a lowly rated team in easy batting conditions? This is what Eastaway's ranking system attempts to do - and the maths is quite difficult (far more difficult, in Rob's words, than the Duckworth-Lewis method of determining the winner in a rain-effected game!) As well as taking into consideration the strength of the opposition and playing conditions, the ranking system places a greater emphasis on recent performances. The overall system has a number of feed-back loops - the individual player ratings contribute to a team's rating, which effects how many rating points an opposition player can earn against that team - remember, a score of 50 against tough opposition will be worth more than 50 against low-class opponents. Similarly, how each player in a match performs influences how many points are on offer. For example, a score of 45 out of an overall team score of 100 will be more highly valued than a score of 45 out of 450. As such, large amounts of historical data are used to come up with the final numbers. Limited overs cricket has the additional dimension of strike-rate - a batsman who scores his runs quickly will be rated more highly than a slow scorer.

The system was first developed in 1987 by Eastaway with former English cricketer Ted Dexter and colleague Gordon Vince, and at first the system was greeted with scepticism by many cricket lovers. Nowadays, however, it has gained credibility and has even been used by international cricketers to help negotiate their contracts - for example, Michael Bevan was for a long time rated number one in the One Day International version of the rankings and used this in contract negotiations, however he could not secure a Test spot. Known originally as the Deloittes Ratings and in later years the PwC Ratings, the system was officially adopted by the International Cricket Council in January 2005.

With a background in Operations Research and a love of cricket, Eastaway is essentially my idol! You can read more about the maths of his system in his article Howzat in Plus Magazine.

As many of the equations used in this system are now copyrighted, you can't find the exact algorithms published anywhere. However, if you are a big nerd like me, you might like the book Deloitte Ratings: The Complete Guide to Test Cricket in the Eighties by Marcus Berkmann. The book details the ratings changes after each Test series in the 80s, and the appendix contains many of the equations which underpin the system. I was given this book when I was 10 and didn't much understand it back then, but I was very happy to find it in storage when I returned from the UK, and I now find it a maths-cricket-nerd's delight!

I'm fascinated to know if they come up with something for Twenty 20. The ultra-shortened form of the game brings in loads more complexities, not least of which is that unless you are an opening batsman, you may not even get a bat! Here's hoping Australia can win the World Twenty20 - oh and The Ashes! If only I was in the UK this summer!

I hope you enjoy this podcast - however, please note there are some audio issues. I had a great chat with Rob in a cafe in London, however my recording equipment was set on the wrong setting and so captured a lot more background noise than I had hoped! So please hang in there - this was one of my very favourite interviews. Rob is a fascinating person and had some really interesting observations on maths and sport. I really shouldn't have gone to The Chemical Brothers the night before, I probably would have had the microphone on the right setting!

Listen to this podcast here:

Richie Retires

The recent news that Richie Benaud is set to retire saddens me, not so much because Ritchie is retiring, but because of the bunch of commentators he’s leaving behind. I liken Richie to Bert Newton - they both look a bit like frogs, they’re old blokes in the TV industry and I don’t completely understand their appeal, but they’re pretty good at what they do. I like Richie as he doesn’t over-commentate like so many of his colleagues - he doesn’t pretend to know why the ball deviated at 11.3 degrees off a crack, as opposed to some others like Ian Chappell or Mark Nicholas who try to wow us with their knowledge. I love the non-stop natter of cricket radio commentary, but on TV, I love the sound of the crowd, the leather on willow, the Channel 9 cricket theme song - not the commentators! Ritchie never said more than he needed to, and when he did say something, it contributed.

And another thing, whilst we’re ranting, why is it that the commentators throughout the Twenty20 commentary have to continually tell us how good it is, how it’s such a different game, how kids bring their parents along yadda yadda yadda. We know! That’s why we’re watching it!

I’d like to see James Brayshaw do more cricket - he’s big in Victoria, has some insight and is interesting to listen to. But for some reason he’s hosting the new Channel 9 show “WipeOut” - it beats me how a modern-day version of “It’s a knock-out” got through a programmers’ meeting, but anyway… Brayshaw would be much better than some of the others - you can pretty much bet against anything Healy says. If he says in his monotone that Bracken is going to try and bowl a yorker, Bracken will bowl a bouncer. If he says Ponting is due for a big score, call up John the bookie and put $10 on him for under 10 runs. As for Mark Nicholas, well, he’s OK, but if I'm allowed a moment of patriotism, does Channel 9 really need to pay Nicholas to come out to Australia for 6 months of each year chasing the summer, simply to hear his Westminster accent? Not that he’s bad, he’s quite good, but there are certainly better commentators in Australia. As for Michael Slater - as a batsman, he was great - fearless and exciting. Nowadays he’s clearly been through a few too many media-training courses for Sunday morning TV.

I’ll miss Ritchie and I think we’ll feel his void when he’s gone.

Cricket on Wii

Finally it looks like cricket is coming to the Wii!

Cricket is one sport tailor made for Wii, and there has been much speculation for a long time about if and when cricket will debut on Wii. There is this youtube group and the very popular Wii want cricket campaign.

EA Sports has called the game 'Cricket 9' and it is accredited to Electronic Arts in Canada, which was responsible for the 2008 NHL and FIFA games.

However a platform for the title isn't specified . I hope it comes to X-box too.

The Children Are Our Future

Having gotten used to Australian dominance for the last decade or so, our recent slump in form has me kind of worried about the state of Australian cricket. The selectors, who are not the most popular of people here at HTB, have decided that it is time to blood some young talent in an effort I suppose of starting afresh and rebuilding the side and restoring our glory.

This was evidenced initially by the selection of Dave Warner into the shorter form games, with debatable success. 

I think the gutsiest call though has come with the selection of Phil Hughes as the replacement for Matthew Hayden on the South African tour. I think it's particularly gutsy because of the elevated importance of tests over one dayers and Twenty20 matches. Where a throwaway selection happens all the time in one dayers, and Twenty20's test match selection, particular a tour squad selection is a much more considered thing, due to the importance of the matches themselves over one dayers. Sure you have the odd injury related call up to anyone of citizenship who is playing in the local competition, but when you're named in the touring squad and it's clear you're the only option they're selected, this is a deliberate thing.

Phil Hughes is a starter for Australia, and he will be the youngest player since Craig McDermott to debut for Australia. His form has been sparkling, and he totally deserves his spot. He's a young and exciting player, and I praise the selectors for taking a punt on what could be great investment for the future.

The Prime Minister's XI Uniform

I know this must seem like such a trivial issue, but why have people gone into the effort to produce a specific uniform for the Prime Minister's XI and then have the players wear white pads? It just looks stupid. How hard is it to get some blue pads for the players? You went this far to have a uniform (which I think is great), why not complete the set?

I'm in two minds about this Chappell-Hadlee series. I feel like Australia needs to lift its game, and I always like to see us win. It's looking like with the Black Caps weakened line up we'll get the wins no worries, but will it be a useful challenge for us in the lead up to the South African tour? Oh well, I suppose at the very least it'll be a good punching bag for us to vent some frustration.

Sorry, lump of cow dirt...

Being in New Zealand, I was interested to see how New Zealander's reacted to the news of Brendon McCullum playing for NSW, forgoing his own domestic duties with Otago on the promise of guaranteed Champions League opportunity later in the year. That issue became all but moot after Andrew Symonds piped up with some poorly chosen words, which to be honest, I'm still not sure I completely understand why he said it, given the point I believe he was trying to make.

First of all, in New Zealand - no one was really bothered with McCullum's action; Otago had already qualified for the semi-finals and because of the Chappell-Hadlee he wasn't going to be able to play in the semi or the final (should they win) anyway. Otago saw it as an important opportunity to firm up the squad for their finals campaign, and so with their blessing and that of New Zealand Cricket he went. As it turns out he was only being paid $6,000 for the match, and he donated that money to Otago Youth Cricket, so as far as McCullum was concerned, he was squeaky clean.

From New South Wales perspective, they were going to be short many of their star players, not least of which bright star Dave Warner who played a large part in getting the Blues into the finals. With the amount of players absent due to international duties there were no players who realistically were serious contributors to NSW's success that would miss out - in fact, they were going to be short of quality players. Enter McCullum to solve that problem. As a New South Welshman, I was all for the idea. On a good day, McCullum is an amazing player to watch, and he holds the record for the highest Twenty20 score, playing for the Knight Riders.

Finally, for McCullum - the Champions League is worth millions. As great a lineup as the Knight Riders are on paper, their first year in the IPL was somewhat lacklustre, so their chances of qualifying this time around is no certainty, playing this one game for NSW guarantees him a place in a team that is going. If they go all the way, he will cash in. And more importantly if they do win, he will have been a part of their success - presumably having made quite significant contributions in the process.

So, it all makes sense to me really. I think Symonds had probably had a few drinks before doing the interview. Perhaps it's time for Cricket Australia to stop their players from speaking to Roy & HG. First we get "obnoxious weed(s)", now we get "lump(s) of cow dirt".

So, from the New Zealander perspective, McCullum was fine, this was all a non-issue, and then Symonds had to open his drunken mouth.

The Aussie Summer is here

I have missed the Aussie cricket season over the last few years. Just the other day I bought my tickets to the first day of the SCG test vs. South Africa and am looking forward to that feeling of mild-drunkenness, the smell of sun-screen mixed with sweat and the debilitation effects of sunstroke that you only get from a day in the Doug Walters stand.

I have high hopes for a top-quality series. I am very disappointed to see that Stuart Clark is out because I believe he is one of the main reasons that we have remained pretty close to top of the Test heap over the last few years - him, Hussey and Ponting. I am not convinced about Peter Siddle yet - and I'm not sure what Bracken and Hilfenhaus did wrong. Please, please let them pick Krezja...

And it's good to see that Graham Smith has come over with his mouth shut. He was put firmly in his place last time SA toured after he came out sledging and talking-the-talk. He seems to be a much wiser cricketer now. Given Australia's current fortunes, Ponting could learn from him.

And finally, this may be sacrilegious, but I was very disappointed England did not beat India in the first test. But at least it took a record chase for India to win. After all the drama surrounding this tour, I would be surprised if England could put up such a fight in the next Test.

What's wrong with this statement?

From Andrew Hilditch, Aussie chairman of selectors:


"For us, the simple formula is to pick our best six batters and our best four bowlers."

When in recent memory have the selectors actually stuck by this simple formula? Cameron White one of our best 4 bowlers? Shane Watson one of our best 6 bats?

Let's lay off Ponting...

Poor old Ponting. He lets the over-rate slip, we get stuck into him. He tries to get it back on track, we get stuck in. He can't win.

Now, there is no doubt he is not our best ever captain (I like Tubby Taylor). But he's not too bad. His own batting has certainly picked up since becoming captain - he averages 59.78 as captain vs. 55.97 when not.

If Ponting lost the Test, he lost it at the toss. And let's remember that even if he had bowled his good bowlers instead of the part-timers, he would have bowled a completely out-of-form Brett Lee and the over-rated Shane Watson. It's not like he spurned McGrath and Warne. And he was bowling Jason Krezja, the bloke who took all the wickets anyway, from the other end. Also, in theory, he brought on our number one spinner in Cameron White.

Where Ponting did fail was letting us get behind in the over-rate in the first place. Dhoni did it, but they won so it didn't matter. Ponting may have to get used to not winning and work out a way to get the overs in - stop changing fields every 3 balls would probably be a good start.

Ponting was just doing what he had to - especially in these troubled times of neurotic worry about Twenty20. Gideon Haigh has a good take on this. I also suspect that this was a team decision - it certainly wasn't simply down to Ponting.

My questions are, why didn't he bowl Katich? And why haven't we sacked the selectors yet?

The [Insert Location Here] Royals

In an interesting development in the continued commercialisation of cricket, the reigning IPL Champions, the Rajasthan Royals are looking to "globalise" their franchise. They've stated their intent to sell shares in the franchise in an effort to raise some cash to take the Royals worldwide, and their focus appears to be on South Africa and Australia, presumably to get a piece of the Southern Hemisphere Twenty20 competition action.

Sounds like a reasonable idea to me, cricket is big money business these days, and as far as cricketing businesses go, the Royals have made a pretty good fist of it, they made a profit in their first year in the IPL, the only team outside of the insanely marketed Kolkata Knight Riders whose Bollywood star owner Shahruhk Khan pretty much whored himself out day and night to promote his team, and they were smart enough to get an IPL franchise at a bargain.

So, are we going to see the Royals setup shop in the Southern Hemisphere Comp? Will they setup Warnie with his own team, the Victorian Royals and just extend the contracts of his players to cover this comp - will we effectively see stars like Warne tour the world playing in all the lucrative Twenty20 comps under the Royals brand? I could see that working, and working well.

Of course, there would be all sorts of confusion when it comes time for the Champions League. What happens when the semi finals consist of the Rajasthan Royals versus Victorian Royals on one side, and the Middlesex Royals are taking on the KwaZulu-Natal Royals in the other? Could get awkward!

Finally, I wonder what other worldwide global franchise would like to diversify into cricket and cash in on this booming sporting frontier? Will we see the Sydney Galaxy or perhaps the Auckland Yankees in the near future?

Absolutely Krazy

I am still in shock after day 2 of the fourth test. When I discovered that Jason Krejza was in the Australian side at the expense of Stuart Clark while Cameron White gets to fill space once more, I was pretty confident I knew how things would turn out.

India would score 400+ runs, and Krejza would conceed at least 200 runs in the process. I was spot on.

What left my jaw hanging on the floor was the fact that he took 8 wickets! In a performance that could be described as the best and worst debut ever, he's gone ahead and equalled the record for most wickets taken in a debut innings, and broken the record for the most runs ever conceded in a debut innings.

Krazy is the word. So my question is - does a massive amount of wickets make up for conceding a massive amount of runs?

What does the I in ICC actually stand for?

India seem pretty intent on being a big bully when it comes to world cricket. It feels like they're trying to project themselves as bigger than the game with their refusal to accept Gambhir's one match ban for elbowing Shane Watson. The situation seems pretty clear, under ICC regulations, the appeal verdict is final and cannot be questioned by a player or his board. Yet the BCCI has gone ahead and drafted a "strongly worded letter" protesting the verdict.  

Well boo-hoo India. I haven't seen the incident, so I'm not in a good position to comment. I must admit the notion of someone elbowing another player sounds like reasonable grounds for a ban, but that completely aside, an appeal process has been conducted and the verdict upheld - is this not end of story?

I wonder if India's credibility to appeal is all that strong, they come across oftentimes as being a powerful cricketing board that accepts nothing less than getting their way. It smacks of audacity for them to even take this step of publicly and officially rejecting an ICC decision, and it concerns me that a board that is as powerful as it is, and commands so much commercial strength should take this aggressive stance rather than be a stalwart for the game.

It seems clear that BCCI's interests are purely their own, and more specifically that of making money, and not for the good of cricket. International cricket is worse off for having them with that attitude.

Scarily enough, this is not the first time that the BCCI have been so belligerent that they would reject the banning of a player - back in 2001 the 3rd test against South Africa was declared unofficial after the Indian's "rejected" the ban imposed on Virender Sehwag for excessive appealing.

India need to learn to cop it sweet. When it comes to cricket, the only time they should have a cry is it they get slapped in the face - and even then they should learn to grow some balls.

Champion$ League

I guess it comes as no surprise really, but I was feeling a bit ambivalent about Michael Hussey deciding to play for Chennai rather than WA in the Champions League . To be fair I'm not sure how many games he actually played for either side on their way to qualifying for the tournament, but I feel it's a bit of a shame that he's siding with the money rather than his state. Seems a bit old fashion to think that state loyalties should supersede financial interests I suppose. It would be different matter if he ever chose IPL over playing for Australia, but I suppose when it comes to state cricket, who can blame him?

It could be an interesting situation when the Southern Hemisphere competition kicks off and a conflict like this arises? Will it turn into a bidding war at that point? How will the contracts be written up for the use of players at that point?

Do India have the balls to beat Australia?

To me, Australia's 2005 Ashes loss was an aberration. It should not have happened. A lot has been said about the reasons why, and I think a lot of it came down to "reverse swing bowling" to over simplify the issue. There has been quite a bit of talk about how it was that the English were able to engineer such reverse swing, with speculation ranging from a specific type of breath mints, to the English pitches, to the type of cricket balls used.

Whatever it was, it was something that wasn't present when the English visited Australia in late 2006.

Anyway, it seems like the Indians are using the same balls that the English used and there is speculation that this is what has given them the winning edge.

Personally I think it's no excuse for Australia not to be able to play reverse swing, they should be able to use tennis balls with duct tape on one side for all I care, I don't see how a powerful cricket nation like Australia can't deal with reverse swing.

From my point of view, the only way a specific cricket ball was a factor in our Ashes loss was when Glenn McGrath stepped on one during training before the second test and injured himself.

That's what lost us the Ashes.

The only way a specific cricket ball will lose us the series in India this time around, is if they put one in the hands of Jason Krejza.

Thankfully, we've dodged that bullet - for now.