So South Africa won the Australian one-day triseries for 2001-02. They defeated New Zealand 2-0 in the best-of-three final, and congratulations to them. We should be thankful to them, too, for sparing us from an episode that would have shown us just a little more evidence that cricket is nothing but a commodity for television.
If there was ever any evidence that the Winter Olympics are a television commodity, even more so than their summer counterparts, look no further than channel 7's treatment of the Opening Ceremony. Despite being on during Saturday afternoon in eastern Australia - midday in fact - 7, who have the television rights in Australia to all Olympics until Beijing 2008, are delaying their telecast of the Opening Ceremony until 8.30pm tonight.
10. He played for Young England in 1989.
9. His nicknames (according to "The Cricketers' Who's Who") are Benny and Barfo.
8. He is Gloucestershire's only player on the Test leg of the Indian tour.
7. It took eight years at Gloucestershire before Ball was awarded his county cap.
6. The reason the England selectors selected him yesterday for the tour of India is that they wanted to replace Robert Croft with a "like-for-like replacement". Yes, they wanted a bowler just like Robert Croft...