Putting Mr Creosote on a Diet

This weekend sees the start of that period in the cricketing year when the ICC seem to think that taking a tired and disillusioned format that has been superseded in the entertainment stakes by the upstart younger brother (Twenty20) and that has never had the prestige of the grandaddy of the game (Test) and producing a staggeringly bloated tournament out of it is the way to have the fans flocking in their droves to cricket grounds and tv screens. Even the England captain has stuck his oar in -- when you're responsible for a feat of anti-organisation so extreme it gets Straussy criticising you, you know you're in trouble.

Once the thing has got underway fully, I'll no doubt weigh in with an opinion or two on the games themselves. (And no, I don't mean I'm just waiting for England to play, because 'only then does the tournament start properly'; I just think that a weekend of minnow-crushing doesn't give many pointers as to the form of the teams involved. Did we really doubt that Kenya and Canada would be humbled? [Although, actually, didn't England only just scrape past Canada? Maybe England should be classed as minnows, too. To be honest, that's probably not a bad idea: then at least we wouldn't go into the match against the Netherlands as firm favourites; we all know how that's turned out in the past...])

For the moment, here are some suggestions for the ICC of ways to ensure future World Cups aren't overshadowed in the excitement stakes by their own adverts.

• drastically limit the number of teams involved: I know, I know, allowing Canada/Netherlands/etc. to take part encourages interest in those countries, increasing revenue, and thereby aiding development -- honestly, though, when Kenya get destroyed by 10 wickets, how much good is that doing...well, anyone?
• shorten the tournament: a by-product of the first point, but the length of time covered by the WC needs to be analysed. Cutting out the second group stage (Super Sixes) is a good start.
• play Twenty20 instead: ok, not an entirely serious point, but do we really need a WC as well as a World T20?

I could go on, but it's time to go and watch the highlights: having cricket on terrestrial tv is a wonderful thing. Also, it's Sri Lanka, for whom I do have a bit of a soft spot -- I'd love another 'home' win for them, 15 years after their first...

Why I Want Ricky Ponting to Win the Ashes...Maybe

Don't get me wrong.

Come midnight tonight -- well, that's if I can be bothered to stay up into the night for a contest between the teams world-ranked, as Andy Zaltzman puts it, fourth [and] fifth. Out of, basically, 8 -- I'll be cheering Strauss & Co. on like your next cricket-obsessed English loon. (Incidentally, doesn't 'Strauss & Co.' sound like a gentlemen's outfitters from the late 19th century?)

And if there's one figure in world cricket I truly despise, it is Ricky 'sour grapes' Ponting, with his face like a constipated bulldog chewing a wasp wrapped in a cow-pat. (Actually, maybe that's what he has been chewing, all these years. Would explain a lot.)

The fact is, though, that Ricky Ponting, loath him or dislike him, is one of the greatest cricketers to walk the face of the earth. Yes, he whinges a fair bit, but he's second only to The Don in the batting rankings of a country that has produced a fair few good cricketers; ok, so he has a slight weakness on the legside, now that his flexibility and footwork aren't what they used to be, but he scored so many runs at under-13 level club cricket (507 in 7 innings, with an average of 507) that they had to change the rules governing when a batter should retire.* And he may not appear to be the most dazzling of Ozzie captains -- his propensity to bat when winning the toss is reaching near-pathological levels -- he is still, as David Boots argues, one of the most successful skippers ever.

I don't particularly want to see such greatness -- the word is overused, but not, I believe, in this case -- trashed because Punter happens to be only the third Australian captain in history to lose 3 Ashes series. Firstly, given the current ICC standings, does The Ashes really matter all that much? And secondly, it's not like Australia were trounced in either of the other two: in 2005, England were handed a giant stroke of luck when a cricket ball, for once, didn't do what Glenn McGrath wanted it to; in 2009, Australia were not so much beaten into submission as bored into it by a dogged 10/11 partnership.

So it is with mixed emotions that I predict an England series win this time around.** It will be great if we do inflict another defeat on a faltering long-term adversary; I just wish the losing captain had scored a few fewer than 12,250 Test runs.





*Sorry, you're relying on my memory for this, as I can't find a link to the article -- it was in one of the UK national broadsheets at the weekend, though.

**Given the success of my last prediction, in which I failed to even predict the number of players England would take on tour, let alone their names, I'd take this with a huge lump of salt.

On the Kelvin Scale

Graeme Swann's drink-driving charges this week might have been seen as a distraction from the task in hand, as the no. 3 in the World Test bowling rankings was forced to miss training a mere 48 hours before the third Test against Pakistan. What caught the eye in the Cricinfo report on Swann's absence on Monday, however, was the input from the no. 3 in the England T20 batting lineup, one 'Kelvin' Pietersen.

The form of Kaypee, former captain and once the first name on [insert England coach here]'s team-sheet, has been a worry of late. Stephen Brenkley has written about the dipping Test average that will soon plumb depths from which even a Man of the Series Twenty20 performance won't be able to drag him. What this story about Swann shows, however, to the English media and -- equally importantly -- the Australian dressing-room alike, is that here is a cricketer who remains at the heart of (*yuk*) 'Team England': it is KP's twitted comments on Swannee's predicament that make the headlines, ahead of the more professional summary of the team captain.

And it reveals something about Swann, too: even within the England team there are grumblings about the South-African-born contingent. I wonder how Andrew Strauss feels about that?