Late Cut

Reading an interesting article by News Limited's Senior Cricket Correspondent, Malcolm Conn in the Sydney Daily Telegraph of Sat, 6-Aug-11, just confirmed a few things I already know. Since this article is unavailable on-line, it is given below verbatim, in full, including two pictures. _________________________________________________________________________  Why India doesn't want to know about the technology that Australia can bring to Umpiring decisions: Malcolm Conn These photos prove why India has been using third rate technology as an excuse to stop video umpires ruling on the leg before wicket decisions. The photos (left) with the spars red dots highlights the cheap and inaccurate system the International Cricket Council used during the recent World cup, which raised India's ire. The tightly packed white dots in the photo (right) shows the space age technology Channel Nine began using last season and will use again for the New Zealand and India series this s...

Sorry, have been flying around, so no contact. Heard this when I was a fly on the wall somewhere.. Small Boss (b) : Sir, this is brewing into a big problem. Big Boss (B) : (snaps out of his snooze with a Homer Simpson drawl) Brew, ahhaaaa....I love my brew. How can brewing be a problem? b : Sir, I mean the cricket scandal; this spot-fixing by cricketers may fix us. B : (suddenly sits up) How? b : Well Sir, obviously everyone will think if cricketers are so corrupt what about the cricket board? B : How can people connect cricketers to the Board? We said and did nothing when IPL kicked out cricketers, did we? b : Errrr..well, (coughs), sir, we sort of managed it...newspapers did report Sports minister's complain to his counterpart about being snubbed and a national insult and all the patriotic emotional..... B : (cuts him off) Well, that is just standard political rhetoric. Does not prove our connection to the players. If anything, it will prove to the world that the governm...

So John Howard, ex-PM of Australia has failed another "election". In some ways you can say that he lost a winnable one this time unlike the one he lost to Kevin Rudd in Nov 2007. I honestly thought he would have got used to loosing by now! Apparently, you can neither take out the politics from the politician nor a politician from politics!! Most Pollies in all countries have a very sharp sense of smell; they will smell-out power even from a chook-raffle! Top level sports administration, obviously represents a pot of honey to a bear; especially to those who are missing their power-fix. And when a sport interests lots of people and spins a few bobs, it is certainly like a full syringe to a junkie. But you can fool some people sometimes. Little Johhny is now facing the barbs from the thorns he nurtured during his tenure. While he did some excellent work to turn Australian economy around, his ultra-conservative beliefs could not adept to the fast changing canvas of this small b...

It was not surprising that Aussies and Ricky Ponting have started their preparation for the upcoming series against Pakistan. If you are looking for details on a cricket camp you sadly underrate Aussies. Their preparation begins by hurling a few testing verbal bouncers at their opponents. Ponting decided to "compliment" the new Pakistani test captain Shahid Afridi (any one remembers how many have come and gone?). Nothing new there. Aussies believe in softening the opponent captain first. However the quantum of statements about Afridi ("He hasn't played much Test cricket of late, has he?" OR "he's....not necessarily one of their best Test players" etc), especially after winning the last series, tells me that he may be a tad worried about Pakistan team getting together under this new captain. Read his last sentence..."...we just have to make sure we're focusing on our little things to be the best team we can be when we play them." Love...

If you were frozen in early 70s and thawed today, you won’t be blamed for being surprised at not recognizing the game of cricket. Night cricket, coloured clothing, bright lights, skimpily dressed cheers leaders, loud music and an almost universal par run rate of 6-8 runs per over, would certainly confuse you as to the identity of this vaguely familiar beast. And if you were unfortunate enough to see or follow “Player Auction” you would have required medical attention! Historians and anthropologists tell us that evolution is an extremely slow process. Hence I consider cricket fans of my generation, extremely lucky. We can claim to have seen evolution of a game that hardly changed for over a century, from its “ Lagaan ” days. No one, including the protagonists knew that Kerry Packer’s fight with the Australian cricket board to get Australian TV broadcast rights would turn out to be lot more than merely a clash of egos. When the push came to the shove, Packer’s so-called circus ended up...

Australia and New Zealand have nominated ex-Australian Prime Minister John Howard as their candidate for the post of ICC president. It is amazing how New Zealand will always remain a small brother. Long term and proven cricket administrator from New Zealand Sir John Anderson was hoping to be nominated but was left holding the wooden base while the trophy was “stolen” by self-proclaimed cricket tragic, John Howard. I reckon poor Anderson has been hit for a “sux” (“six” for those uninitiated in Kiwi accent). There are even accusations of bullying  tactics by Aussies. Read this interesting bleat from NZ Herald . I believe the kiwis need not try anything in future, just give in to the elder brother..after all, sheep-power, doesn’t account for much, does it? John Howard was a Prime Minister of Australia for almost 12 years and his reign coincided with good economic reforms and sound fiscal condition. I am not sure though, how much was his contribution to that. He was a smart politici...

Had India failed to win today's test, there could have been numerous Indian journos asking why BCCI refuses to play test cricket under flood-lights. Well, there is some merit in that argument; Indians lost close to 55 overs yesterday due to bad light/rain and if flood lights were permitted, they could have put in some overs out of that. They came close to loosing an opportunity to square the series and stay on top of the ICC ranking. For now, at least, calls for BCCI to join in an attempt to search for flood-light solution to test cricket may not rise. Of all boards, BCCI has been talked about as an autocratic board which does not hesitate to milk Indian cricketers as cash-cows. But they some how are not falling in with other cricket boards on this issue. Call BCCI traditionalist or just bullish for not joining other cricket boards, especially two powerful lobbies in world cricket namely Cricket Australia and ECB who are very keen to play test cricket under flood-lights as early as...