Defining moments on the opening day of the Ashes of 2010-11? Three Vicious ones all in a row.
There was a false dawn when Andrew Strauss' cameo appearance ended three balls after he won the toss and chose to bat first. Nicked to Hussey off Hilfy midway through the first over for nought.
It's called the ultimate challenge in world cricket. Not the ultimate fighting challenge, but the ultimate challenge nonetheless. Australia playing England in a five-game series of cricket matches that last a maximum of five days each. The trophy, a fragile and minute 125 year-old artifact - The Ashes - securely and permanently stored and displayed in London.
Kenya's upset of the West Indies. Ireland's giant-killing of Pakistan. Moments in the sun for Canada, Bermuda, the Netherlands and others. Sri Lanka's rise from minnows to champions. Even Afghanistan's near-miss at joining the club. All these things could be consigned to the trashcan of history with the ICC approving a recommendation to downsize the Cricket World Cup.
Pakistan's tour of England is set to stagger across the line to complete everyone's contractual obligations this week. Though it is, inside a further realm of contractual fantasy, actually England's tour of Pakistan being staged in England.
The tour has been damaged by allegations of spot-fixing in the form of deliberate front-foot no-balls intended to defraud bookmakers engaging in the astonishingly greedy practice of spot-betting. For the first time ever, the ICC's Anti-Corruption Unit has laid charges against a number of Pakistani international players.
It's taken over a year for us to know this, but The Oval Test of the 2009 Ashes was Andrew Flintoff's last game of competitive cricket. The losing battle with injury was finally conceded on the last day of a, for him, empty 2010 English season.
John Howard was always going to be a bad choice for the ICC presidency. But with his nomination collapsing at the first hurdle, no one could have understood how bad it would get.
"John Howard for President". It makes about as much sense as "Joh For PM" and now looks just as doomed. The supposedly-innocuous bid to parachute Howard into the vice-presidency of the International Cricket Council from July this year, and by virtue of succession, its presidency from July 2012, appears dead in the water.
The Times Online's cricket blogger, Patrick Kidd, posted on Monday a list of his Top 50 cricket websites. I didn't make the list - no surprises and no complaints there when I can go up to two months without writing a new blog entry about cricket.
After the Indian Premier League, the ICC World Twenty20 has been like a breath of fresh air. Sort of like escaping from Dante's Inferno (think Eyjafjallajökull with cheerleaders and DLF Maximums) and entering the Garden of Eden (with its Guyana wing being a rainforest).
