And another dodgy world record to Shane Warne

The ICC's appalling and arbitrary decision to designate October's "supertest" at the SCG an official Test match has led, today, to another premature "breaking" of a world record.

When Shane Warne dismissed Ashwell Prince today in South Africa's first innings at the WACA, it was celebrated as being his 86th Test wicket of the calendar year, one more than Dennis Lillee's world record of 85 set in 1981. That total, however, included six wickets from that noble and proud Test nation, the ICC World XI, claimed in that stuportest.

A CricInfo Statsguru query of Warne's Test bowling since 1 January 2005, excluding "ICC World XI" from the list of opponents, appears here. After South Africa's first innings, in which he took 3/92, he now has 81 wickets in Test matches against other ICC full member entities. He has a maximum of three innings to go in 2005, including the Boxing Day Test at the McG, and it's hard to imagine that he won't break the record for real by year's end.

Warnie has had, even by his standards, a quite astonishing year in 2005. As in the case of Brian Lara three weeks ago, a pox on the ICC for cheapening his honour, distorting history in the name of commercial expedience.