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?