The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians will be recording January 10's ICC World XI v ACC XI match in Melbourne, and the yet-to-be-rescheduled rematch, as official one-day internationals in accordance with the ICC's wishes. The ACS committee discussed the matter at their latest meeting on Saturday, and their ruling was emailed to association members (including myself) yesterday.

The decision, forwarded to members in the name of ACS treasurer Jerry Lodge, reads as follows:

"At the ACS Committee Meeting on Saturday 29 January 2005 the Committee unanimously agreed the following action.

1. To accept the ICC ruling that the two tsunami matches be classified as official ODI matches. Therefore all performances in these matches will be included in the statistics prepared and circulated by the Association.

2. To write to the ICC expressing regret that a situation has been allowed to develop whereby statisticians are threatening to go in different directions and that this may lead to different sets of figures being promulgated.

3. To request the opportunity of being consulted in future by the ICC on any matter likely to affect cricket statistics, although we would not seek to reverse any decision by the ICC as this could be seen as being counterproductive."

Please see my earlier entry on this topic. My first reaction is that the committee has surrendered to an Orwellian situation and is putting to the ICC a response which is disturbingly soft and apologetic in tone. My second reaction is to reconsider my membership of the Association.

I'll give my third reaction a few more hours.

For all the devastation that occurred across South-East Asia, particularly in Aceh and Sri Lanka, as a result of the December 26 tsunami, we must remember that it's not just an Asian disaster. Somalia was hit hard. This report from IRIN:

Tsunami survivors need help to overcome the trauma

The Discovery Channel in the US is conducting a poll to determine the Greatest American of all time. (Update: Nominations are now closed and the Top 100 countdown begins on April 18.)

About 7000 Iraqi citizens live in New Zealand but they will not be voting in this weekend's elections as the nearest polling booth is in Sydney and most of them cannot afford the airfare to exercise their democratic right.

The New Zealand Press Association picks up the story, while the Sydney Morning Herald reports on election day in Coalition Of The Willing Country.

I'm a big fan of those news sites that enable complete articles to be emailed for personal use. Two of my favourite on-line newspapers, the Guardian and the New York Times, are among those that have offered this facility. I think it is quite useful to be able to read an article off-line without having to continually retrieve it from the web. However, this week the NYT abandoned the idea.

At least four members of the cricketing community have been awarded medals in the 2005 Australia Day Honours List.

Keith Miller has posthumously been awarded an AM (Member of the Order of Australia) "For service to sport, particularly to cricket as a player, journalist and commentator." He had previously been named an MBE before British awards ceased to be given to Australians in the 1970s.

Mark Waugh has also been named an AM "For service to cricket as a player and to the community."

Tonight the 2005 Australian of the Year will be announced. It seems to be a shoe-in for Nicole Kidman.

Each state and mainland territory puts forward a nomination for the award, and Kidman is the New South Wales nomination. Her charity work is cited as much as her movie career.

Our favourite baseball team in the Mexican Winter League, the Tomato-growers of Culiacan, are finished for 2004-05. They lost their semi-final series in the seventh game on Thursday to the Venados of Mazatlan 8-2.

The Venados are taking on the Aguilas of Mexicali in the final series. Mexicali won game one on Saturday 7-3. Game two at Mexicali Sunday night.

An estimated 40 million USD has been spent on parties to commemorate the re-coronation of King George II and Queen Laura. Not one cent of this was given up to assist victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Everyone involved in the organisation of January 10's game at the MCG between an ICC World XI and an Asian Cricket Council XI should be commended for their efforts in putting the event together at short notice following the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami of December 26. More than 14 million dollars Australian was raised for the World Vision Tsunami Appeal that day in front of a packed house and many millions of television viewers.