Australia: Anatomy of a Disaster

George Bailey has his critics, but on Monday he achieved the impossible by making poor Michael Clarke grimace at something other than his cursed vertebrae. It was a slovenly piece of running from the affable Australian stand in captain ambling towards what he thought was the non-danger end - he clearly hadn't studied Sri Lanka's previous in this tournament - and up on the balcony the official skipper covered his face in his palm as his replacement was caught a long way short of his ground. 

Bailey, as is often stated, is easy to warm to. With his midwest American farm boy smile ever present despite constantly being caught in the eye of whatever cyclone Australian cricket is most recently swept up in, he resembles a poor man's Kim Hughes on Valium - a decent, twinkle-eye chap under immense pressure in the midst of a failing national side but who, rather than exiting in an explicable flood of tears, remains charmingly oblivious to it all and is happy to take the positives, moving forwards and so on. The only time there has been any genuine ill-feeling on record towards the Tasmanian was when an executive of Channel Nine claimed Bailey would be "flipping burgers" if it wasn't for the money the station invested into cricket, which, given the paucity of that network's coverage is rather like President Assad claiming Syrian rebels would be fecklessly unemployed if it wasn't for him.

Clarke, though, was justified in his frustration towards the dozing Bailey on this occasion, but the stand in captain's lot is not an easy one. In 2010 he himself replaced Ricky Ponting - absent due to the death of his grandmother - as Australia took on Sri Lanka at the MCG in 2010. Despite having the visitors staring into the barrel at 8 for 107 chasing 240, somehow Pup allowed the match to fatally drift as Mathews (with the sort of swashbuckling knock he used to play), Malinga and Murali stole one of the most unlikely ODI victories in history. Today it seemed as if Australia's last wicket pair might do something similar to Angelo's side, and thus allow New Zealand to proceed instead, which would have been an ironic, arsenic-laden cherry on top of the rotten form the Sri Lanka skipper has taken into and maintained throughout his time at the helm. It didn't happen, however, and Bailey was again left to front up to the cameras with not even a consolation win to lend authenticity to his impervious grin. 

James Sutherland, Cricket Australia's CEO, labelled David Warner's punchy exploits in a Birmingham Walkabout "despicable", and he's entitled to lay it on thick when a member of his staff transgresses to the embarrassment of the firm. CA's culture of high morality and homework clearly isn't working, however, and the national side is now left with a state of affairs where David Gower's recent claim that Australian cricketers can turn "feral" now looks ludicrous as well as slightly nationalistic. Sutherland and Arthur, with their self-assessment forms and condemnation, are turning Australia into the anti-feral - a toothless beast, albeit with nice cheekbones and good manners - which comes across well in defeat, a scenario happening increasingly often. This isn't about meterosexuality, peroxide or underwear shoots - the easy targets often used as an generational excuse for the side's failings - but more an attitudinal shift to a scenario where maintaining outward decency seems of greater importance than the side's recent indecent results. 

Ironically it was actually Bailey who broke with establishment protocol when he labelled Warner's behaviour a "minor incident", an admission which brought him admonishment from those who've bought into the new Australian cricketing culture of sweetness and apple pie. Perhaps they are correct, and Bailey was wrong to term an apparent physical assault as such, but as his nation lurches onward directionless, Warner's fist and even Clarke's spine seem ever more irrelevant compared to the more general weaknesses afflicting the body cricket in Australia. 

Ashraful and the Collective Cybershrug.

When Mohammad Ashraful on Tuesday apologised for his involvement in what he termed "wrong-doings" you could have been forgiven for thinking he had merely owned up to not walking a couple of times after getting a thin nick. For all the recent IPL rage and bluster at players' crookedness and greed, when the once - well many times - next big thing in Bangladesh cricket announced he had confessed to the authorities about his involvement in match-fixing, the response seemed rather muted, as an almost collective cybershrug of the shoulders went across Twitter and the world's media. Even Cricinfo, which has rightly blazoned the scandal engulfing Indian cricket across the top of its front page since it broke, furtively tucked the story away quickly as if Ashraful were a troublesome nephew caught smoking pot, a minor inconvenience to his uncle's aspirations to be voted onto his village council rather than a major scandal to be appalled about.

It seemed an odd riposte to the former captain of a Test side admitting his involvement in corruption. Perhaps there is such a thing as corruption fatigue, where people merely become  immune to the weaknesses of others and accept them as human foibles rather than criminality? Perhaps such a turn of events was expected from someone as wasteful of talent as Ashraful? Not that Sreesanth could even be considered the last bastion of human morality, but perhaps after the IPL spot-fixing scandal - an appendix to Butt and Amir - we just expect it of any cricketer? Perhaps no fan really gives a hoot as long as another cricket match rolls round again in a couple of hours even as they may ever increasingly doubt its veracity? 

This must be a massive kick in the balls for the ICC's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit, who initiated and secured Ashraful's confession. So often media stings capture players and the impotence of the ACSU for not being a cricketing version of Mission Impossible is bemoaned, yet here was a clear example of where they had softly, softly acquired irrefutable evidence and then put it to the player concerned, who duly buckled under its weight and went live on his nation's TV to ask forgiveness. The ACSU has possibly become justifiably accustomed to working under the principle that whatever they don't do will be maligned and whatever they do will be ignored, but it still seemed a bit unfair on their efforts in this instance. 

Ashraful's teary mea culpa happened on the same day Tim May resigned as president of FICA, the players association, with an emotional broadside in which he said, "... cricket increasingly seems to be pushing aside the principles of transparency, accountability, independence, and upholding the best interests of the global game, in favour of a system that appears to operate through threats, intimidation and backroom deals." May has been cast as both a heroic bulwark to those perceived evil Indians at the BCCI and a Luddite irritant sent to maintain colonialism, but both are nonsense. He was a pain in the ass to any board, as well as the ICC, whenever he felt players of any continent were being taken advantage of and, as May's controversial replacement at the world game's top table, L Sivaramakrishnan will possibly have to show considerably more passion and insight than he does in his commentary to match his predecessor's efforts as players' representative.

Cricket awaits exactly what the wrong-doings are that Ashraful has confessed to, but it's unclear whether even full disclosure will increase the fervour of the condemnation. A match gone in the BPL here, an over spot-fixed in the IPL there. How much do supporters really mind any more? If we all keep on watching with the acceptance that what we're watching might be a bit dodgy but just think, well, such is life, then we can all carry on oblivious. It probably is life. It probably is cricket and always has been since the 17th century when the 1664 Gaming Act was passed to limit the stake permitted to be waged on matches to a hundred pounds in the face of rampant gambling on the burgeoning sport. The subdued reaction to Ashraful's confession could, then, be taken as just another example of cricket's resilience in the face of corruption, but it still felt as if a threshold had been crossed as the game just shrugged its shoulders and tutted rather than shook its fists at the sky. 

Forget Dravid. Srinivasan is India's new wall.

N Srinivasan's performance at his press conference on Sunday teetered on the fault line between inspiration and delusion. There sat the President of the BCCI, plonked down like a giant slab of omnipotence, as he remained utterly unrepentant for and oblivious to what had happened in two of his fiefdoms, the IPL and Chennai Super Kings. As far as crisis management media appearances go, he was fairly impressive, displaying a mixture of relentless authority in the face of his accusers and well-maintained incredulity at any suggestion he himself could be held in any way responsible for a member of his family being arresting on suspicion of betting on matches involving a franchise he owns. The very thought of it was alien to a man of his standing's moral framework, as he set about making plain to all who were compelled to listen.

There were kidney-punch questions, criticisms, seemingly irrefutable pieces of evidence chucked his way by the assembled journalists, but they all bounced off him, or at least he seemed to truly believe they did. Even when faced with the apparently cast-iron proof that his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan was officially involved in several capacities at CSK he managed to bluster some defence about him just being a "young enthusiast", a mere overexcited fan, though clearly one now highly unlikely to be designated as super by Vodafone. Srinivasan played out the whole episode like a deaf, Teflon wall in the face of logic and culpability, an administrative Berlin to Dravid's cricketing Jericho. 

Later in the day, however, this facade cracked very slightly as he looked genuinely worn and hurt after being booed following the conclusion of the IPL final by the 60,000 crowd at Eden Gardens. It was hard not to refer back to what he'd said in his press conference about India Cements' long-standing and ostensibly above board financial support of cricket and cricketers and wonder whether Srini was musing on all the years he's put into life, industry and the game, and yet how unjustifiably unappreciated he'd become in the face of such a trivial little corruption scandal. "The people have spoken, the bastards," he was possibly thinking, echoing the words spoken by a former Democrat political strategist of the seventies even as his reputation became more Nixonite by the hour. No one felt sorry for him, but it wasn't inconceivable somebody could have done. 

Indeed, it's the politics which give such little hope for cleansing at the BCCI and, by proxy, world cricket. Srinivasan has never held public office in India, other than being the Sheriff of Madras for two years between 1989 and 1991, but the various vested political interests involved in both his retention and any, albeit currently unlikely, potential successor must again raise questions over governmental interference in cricket, a notion which has been dismissed as quaint and quietly put on the back-burner by the ICC in the last couple of years after some gung-ho proposals put forward a while back. 

In June 2011, the ICC Annual Conference called for a separation of powers between cricket boards and governments, giving national bodies a deadline of two years to have a clear out of politicians or face severe financial penalties. This recommendation was subsequently watered down a little in the Woolf Report which, although presented as broadly supporting separation, offered plenty of wriggle room, and stated that, "governments taking an interest in the development of cricket and providing support and patronage to Member Boards may be acceptable or even desirable. It is a matter of achieving an appropriate balance between support and interference. It is important for the credibility of such safeguards that once defined, they are enforced rigorously and consistently."  Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were surely to the fore of Lord Woolf's thinking here, and the new ICC President, Alan Isaac later picked up this baton of equivocation late last year when he said that there would now be a "period of reflection" on those initial measures, which he went as far as to term "draconian." 

Despite this, the PCB recently went to great pains to point out - not wholly convincingly - that the appointment of Zaka Ashraf as its chairman earlier this year conformed to those 2011 standards so it appears that they do have some standing, if only as a PR gimmick for national boards. The ICC's position is therefore a little unclear. Are the 2011 proposals still valid or is the Woolf Report's call for balance now the standard? Perhaps, in spite of the PCB's apparent desire to acquiesce, it is the period of reflection that holds sway? Some clarity on this would be welcome, but, as with it's anti-corruption unit, the ICC can only ever be a water pistol trying to put out a forest fire. However, by accepting the status quo of government interference in the name of realpolitiking, it has only enhanced the power of men such as Srinivasan, whose connections allow him to remain upright and in place even as the dogs of logic and sense increasingly cock their legs at his fading brickwork. For the time-being he remains steadfast and immovable, India's new cricketing wall who, in his own and depressingly probably quite accurate words, simply will "not be bulldozed." 

Sivaramakrishnan "thrilled" to be named new United manager

After intense lobbying from the BCCI, Sir Alex Ferguson today stood down as manager of Manchester United to be replaced by former Indian leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan. Ferguson, who is the most successful manager in the club's history, said he would have liked to have stayed on in the role but that the "intolerable pressure from Chennai" made his position untenable. Sivaramakrishnan himself said he had "a lot to offer British football" and was "thrilled, but not surprised" to be given the chance. 

Sivaramakrishnan: "Hugely excited" to be working with Phil Jones

New boss Sivaramakrishnan, or Siva as he's gratefully known to white people, will take over with immediate effect despite many in the game voicing concern over whether a cricket commentator with no previous experience of football at any level was an appropriate choice to take on Sir Alex's legacy. However, a spokesman for the club made clear that he was definitely the right man:

"There's a lot of nonsense suggesting that Sir Alex was forced out because India Cements threatened to come to Old Trafford and concrete over the pitch unless we appointed Siva - or "Sivs" as the players already like to call him - but this is just not true. The simple fact is that although Sir Alex has won 13 league titles, two Champions League crowns, five FA Cups and four League Cups, we felt that Siva's ability to explain the googly to the players in a slightly geeky manner would be far more likely to bring further success." 

The news has stunned the sporting world and divided opinion. Whilst many see the move as just another example of the BCCI's ever-increasing dominance, once impartial observer, a Harsha from Hyderabad, told a perplexed BBC reporter that this was a "wise and sensible decision in keeping with how lovely Mr Srinivasan's hair looks in moonlight". His comments led  to a fierce on-air row with a José from Madrid who kept stroking his chin and repeatedly telling confused viewers that, "Tim May is the Special One".

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Butt and Amir Appeal: Exclusive Court Transcripts Released

Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS), Lausanne, 17th April 2013

Clerk of the Court: "All rise. Court is in session. Lord Chief Justice Sorbet will reside."

Lord Sorbet: "Mr Butt. Mr Amir. You are here to request your bans imposed by the ICC for spot-fixing be overturned."

Mr Butt: "That's correct, Your Honour."

Lord Sorbet: "And you, Mr Amir?"

Mr Amir: "Er, I don't know why I'm here. Salman made me come."

Lord Sorbet: "I see. But you would like to have your ban quashed, wouldn't you?"

Mr Amir: "I am from a small village."

Lord Sorbet: "Right, ok. Well, we'd better crack on. So what new evidence do you have to persuade me to strike out this ban?"

Mr Butt: "Just bear with me, Your Honour. I'm going to show you a video."

Lord Sorbet: "Very good, Mr Butt."

Mr Butt plays VT of Chennai versus Bangalore.



Butt points at the screen: "Look at that, it's massive! Look at the size of it!"

Lord Sorbet looks confused.

Mr Amir: "Dear, oh dear. Amateur hour. Not in the least bit subtle."

VT ends.

Lord Sorbet: "Right, Mr Butt. So your defence rests on pointing at RP Singh's front foot and saying, 'Look at that, it's massive!'"

Mr Butt: "Er, yes, Your Honour. It happens all the time. No ball, schmo-ball. Come on, have a heart!"

Lord Sorbet: "And this proves your innocence how exactly?"

Mr Butt: "Well, you know, Your Honour. Shit happens."

Lord Sorbet: "Indeed it does, Mr Butt, but I cannot permit this appeal. You are required to submit relevant new material evidence and everyone knows that there's nothing dodgy about matches in the IPL."

Loud guffaws are heard all round.

Lord Sorbet: "Silence in court! Mr Butt! Will you please control your party in the public gallery?"

Mr Butt: "Yes, I'm sorry, Your Honour." [Now shouting] "Mazhar, stop sniggering. And put that ice-cream down."

Lord Sorbet: "I'm afraid I have no option but to reject this appeal. Have you anything to say?"

Mr Butt: "Yes, Your Honour. Why does the CAS sit in Switzerland? It's bloody freezing."

Lord Sorbet: "Oh don't make a fuss, Mr Butt. Haven't you got a jacket you can borrow?"

Mr Butt: "Er, I don't think Wahab's here today, Your Honour."

Lord Sorbet: "Oh, for heaven's sake! And you, Mr Amir?"

Mr Amir: "I am from a small village."

Lord Sorbet: "Lord above, give me strength. Case dismissed!"

All exit to conduct soul-searching interviews with Michael Atherton. 

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Pies and Pressure: The IPL is no place for the weak-minded

Compared to a few other members of the Test Match Special commentary team, Geoffrey Boycott is a renaissance man when it comes to knowledge of world cricket. Listening, as is strongly recommended, to his regular ESPN podcast Bowl at Boycs, he exhibits an appreciation of the global game and its foibles which goes well beyond the often somewhat parochial confines of TMS and, at times, Sky broadcasts. When live on air, it's pretty unlikely you'll ever hear him say, "Not seen this lad before. Turns it," which is often David Lloyd's stock delivery for any young spinner from beyond the shores of Britain, and Boycott's willingness to interpret disputes such as player versus country versus franchise in considered shades of grey flies in the face of his bluff reputation. 

In the latest episode, he gave this analysis of IPL: "Twenty-over cricket, we keep telling people, they can't give you situations where character and mental toughness comes in. Yes, there is lots of interest, lots of inventive shots, and there's quite a lot of skill. But the character and mental toughness that is needed for Test cricket is not there.....I enjoy watching it a bit, but I can't honestly say I want to watch every game because there is a lot of it, every day. And, you know, after a month or so of that, it's like my mum. When she was alive, she was a lovely cook. She used to cook me steak and kidney pie, I loved it. But if I had it on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, by Friday I was fit to throw it at her. I wanted something different.." Some reasoned pros and cons about the tournament there, and who doesn't enjoy a Boycott analogy involving both his mother and her cooking, but surely he's not right to assert there's no mental toughness required in T20? 

The stakes may not be so high in an IPL group match as a gala Test, but they can sharpen far, far quicker. Boycott is beloved of seeing dot balls in Test cricket in order to build pressure and "make something happen" and the IPL serves up his theory in microcosm time and time again as teams in comfortable positions lose what should rationally be an irrelevant wicket, but then allow the few inevitable dot balls which accompany a rebuilding to flare up into the cricketing equivalent of a boil. The need to then lance it all too quickly often involves wild flailing as seen by KKR's Manoj Tiwary and Yusuf Pathan, the latter of whose once destructive batting has sadly come to resemble a bear with a gun wound playing golf. His side lost their nerve and the match, a scenario very nearly replicated by RCB after losing the wicket of AB de Villiers when well positioned. In T20 two or three dot balls towards the end of an chase wreak mental havoc. Established Test players feel it as well as young rookies, Kohli's involvement in a farcical run out closely followed by his own slap to cover dismissal being a case in point.

On his Test debut in 1999, Michael Vaghan walked out to face Donald and Pollock at the Wanderers with the score on 2 for 2, a situation which soon came to look quite rosy as England lost another two wickets without scoring a run. The two-hour 33 Vaughan went on to make in that innings would have been impossible without mental fortitude - for anyone let alone a debutant - but it was still paltry in terms of time compared to Atherton's ten and three-quarter hour 185 not out at the same ground four years earlier. Atherton said that the length he was at the crease actually enabled him to go into what he, somewhat sheepishly, called "the zone" where he just knew he wasn't going to get out. It's unlikely Vaughan ever felt like that during his frenzied 119 minutes in the middle. This isn't to suggest an equivalence between the two innings, merely to propose that time can eventually cut both ways when it comes to pressure. 

A test of character can be equally challenging whether short and sharp or prolonged and subtle. In Test cricket pressure is like water torture, the slow build-up of drips nibbling away at a tiring brain. In T20, it's more like water-boarding - sudden, shocking and arguably completely unjustified. There's no time to stop and assess situations and, consequently, players react in accordance to their perception of what the pressure is rather than the reality. The result is inevitably errors and more pressure, now increasingly justified. The IPL clearly does not provide the elongated examinations of a player's mentality that Atherton or even Vaughan were subjected to, but anyone suggesting it doesn't provide situations which test character is plainly, as Boycott himself might say, "not right in the head". 

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Sri Lankan President named ODI captain; denies political influence a factor

Sri Lanka's President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, today said he was "humbled and, of course, very surprised" at being made the country's new ODI captain. Rajapaksa, who once made a breezy 12 not out for his school side fifty years ago before going on to lead his nation, claimed he had been picked on merit and was already planning who to open the bowling with at the Champions Trophy in June. He went on to dismiss further rumours he would have had his party MP and Sri Lankan chairman of selectors, Sanath Jayasuriya, deported if he hadn't named him skpper as "not entirely true." 

President Rajapaksa pushes back the field following the end of the bowling powerplay

Explaining his longstanding love of the game and the strategic planning he believes will make him the "Sinhalese Brearley", Rajapaksa told a packed press conference:  "There's a lot of nonsense talked about whether I'm the best man to put a smile on the face of Sri Lankan cricket fans. Just because I built a new stadium in Hambantota where you need a plane to get to the nearest hotel doesn't mean I don't think about the little people. The fact I named it after myself doesn't mean I'm a megalomaniac either. People jump to conclusions. Why doesn't that Vivian Richards get such criticism because of his stadium in Antigua? These double standards sicken me, to be honest." 

Jayasuriya himself, who has earned praise for his fierce independence from politics in his new selection role, also leapt to his party leader's defence:  "Look, everyone knows that I'm an MP for Mr President's party but that had no bearing on me choosing him as ODI captain. People say I'm a terrible sycophant, but they don't realise his off drive is as beautiful as his moustache and exquisite bone structure. While I'm at it, this other allegation is bugging me, too. Aparently, I'm now also a sycophant because I picked the son of one of my government's ministers whose cricket experience is limited mainly to him mistakenly putting on a pair of white trousers some years back. Well let me tell you, his father told me he looked damn good in those trousers!! And, in my defence, his T20 bowling stats are half-decent. I hope that stops the cynics' tongues wagging." 

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Cricket secretary, Nishantha Ranatunga, who this week allowed his players to continue in the IPL despite the ban on them turning out in Chennai, said he was loking forward to working hard with the board's new President-elect Jayantha Dharmadasa to clean up the game's tainted image on the island nation. His only disappointment, he added, was that his brother, Arjuna, had eventually decided not to stand for the role: "Nothing would have sent a stronger message against nepotism and political interference in our cricket than two brothers and an MP running the whole thing," he said. "Well, technically two MPs if you count my bro', but he's in the opposite party to Sanath so it would all have evened itself out. Could I just add that I also think Mr President has a lovely moustache."

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Matt Prior: The best Wicketkeeper-Batsman-Diplomat in the World

For some, Matt Prior used to be harder to warm to than an iceberg in the shape of Jimmy Savile. Perceived as brash and mouthy, the once fumbling keeper came close to being regarded as almost a proxy Pietersen, a South African import whose mucky aggression simply wasn't on within the gentler confines of the English game. His constant twangy chuntering behind the stumps grated and, when his pregnant wife Emily was caught on the big screen bouncing on the knee of Allen Stanford during the Super Sixes in 2008, the sight was greeted with sniggering delight in many quarters, a sort of deserved comeuppance for her husband's too sparky and unjustified on field confidence. 

This was always a jaundiced, uncharitable view of England's Third Test saviour, but  regardless, Prior has now undoubtedly emerged as not only an exceptional wicketkeeper-batsman, but an outstanding individual within the England side. Other players split into factions during the KP text scandal faster than Indian fans discussing Sachin's retirement, but Prior instead acted as intermediary, picking up his own phone and calling Pietersen to find out the root of the discontent. His attempts at diplomacy were as commendable yet futile as his brilliant second innings 73 in the subsequent match at Lord's, but amid all the media leaks and parody accounts, it was a simple and impressive gesture that offered a previously not fully appreciated side to his character.

Matt Prior this winter against India and NZ: 7 matches, 569 runs at 71, 16 catches. Exceptional stuff. #NZvEng
— Pavilion Opinions (@pavilionopinion) March 26, 2013

When further IPL grumbles bubbled up earlier this year Angus Porter, the chief executive of the Professional Cricketers Association, attracted much derision by claiming England players were "substantially underpaid" given their restricted participation in franchise T20 tournaments. Against a backdrop of press and fan cynicism, Prior, now in the guise of trade union rep rather than diplomat, was the one who fronted up for interview, speaking of the "frustration" in the side and making the oft-heard  but valid point that the IPL and its derivatives are not going away and that England had players who wanted to play in them (though ironically he went unsold at the latest auction). Despite hinting heavily that the ECB should consider rescheduling the early season Tests which clash with the IPL, he sounded reasoned rather than money-grubbing or shifty, something those defending a desire to shack up with a franchise haven't always managed. Whether or not people agreed with him, he had again popped his head above the parapet in the interests of more than a few of his team mates, who clearly shared his sentiments but not his willingness to speak up. 

Even after his astonishingly breezy 110 not out to save the Auckland Test, Prior was keen to praise others' efforts over his own, singling out Panesar and, in particular, Broad's innings and noting the work his much maligned team mate had done in the nets which had enabled him to bat for 137 minutes to make a 77-ball six. Prior has little to be modest about, however, in light of his own record. In twenty series for England he has averaged below 30 on just four occasions and his relentless dedication to improving his keeping has been rewarded with comparisons to Alan Knott, a rare achievement for any glovesman. He actually rates his favourite catch as one which wasn't - a leg side diving take of Shane Watson not given during the 2010/11 Ashes - because it was a technique he'd practised thousands of times with coach Bruce French in the hope of making it count once in a match. For all his genius qualities, it's difficult to imagine Dhoni undertaking such a  regime. 

Twitter has been engaging in a game of Prior versus AB de Villiers top trumps. Choosing a winner is probably neither necessary or possible, suffice to say that the Sussex stopper has performed consistently well over 65 matches as a Test keeper compared to the fourteen in which de Villiers has had the gloves (albeit, in which, he has been outstanding). Prior himself has been tweeting about his run of poor form when playing credit card roulette to see who pays for dinner on tour, not a way of footing a bill perhaps the average fan can empathise with but harmless enough fun for the professional sportsman. He's lost nine out of the last ten, which one imagines has put a substantial dent in his IPL wages lacking wallet, but he shouldn't be too worried. After his efforts at Eden Park - the culmination of an astounding winter -  Matt Prior should really never have to buy a drink for himself again.

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The Art of Homework

Sun Tzu is the Chinese overlord who most readily gets dredged up when it comes to questions of Australian leadership in cricket. The vaunted 6th century BC general's treatise on battle strategy was apparently much beloved by former coach John Buchanan and, perfectly and trend-settingly, slipped under the hotel room door of each member of his 2001 Ashes squad. Absurd as it may have been to equate warfare with cricket, even that tinged with his captain Steve Waugh's love of provoking "mental disintegration" among the opposition, the sentiments rested easily with Australia's 1989-2005 dominance of the then vanquished and pitiful English.  

Mickey Arthur, Australia's present coach, has perhaps instead been studying the tactics of another Chinese general, Tan Daoji, who formulated thirty-six stratagems for war. They encompass numerous scenarios of battle but possibly the one held most dear by the former South Africa manager would be the maxim to "Sacrifice the plum tree to preserve the peach tree," or in layman's - that is, Wikipedia's - terms, to accept that, "there are circumstances in which you must sacrifice short-term objectives in order to gain the long-term goal. This is the scapegoat strategy whereby someone else suffers the consequences so that the rest do not." A further illustration is given of this methodology:

"Cao Cao [another esteemed warlord] demonstrated this strategy. During a siege, Cao's supplies ran low so he called in the supply captain and told him to dilute the rice with water to save grains. When the soldiers started to complain, Cao ordered for the captain to be killed. He would explain to his troops that the captain had been selling supplies to the enemy. This raised the army's morale and they were victorious in a few more days." 

Referring to the original fruity analogy, Shane Watson - and to a lesser extent Mitchell Johnson, James Pattinson, and Usman Khawaja - are the plum trees in this particular device, but with regard to the example one might suggest Kevin Pietersen feeding the South African enemy in summer 2012 would be the most obvious modern symbol. You have to replace rice with texts to get the feel, but the spectre of Pietersen's misdemeanours undeniably hovers large over the Australian farce. Last summer as now a man who perceives himself bigger than the team ethos is given a slap down, had his plum tree uprooted and burnt on the barbecue of unity. Then, as now, conventional wisdom started to harden in support of the management establishment of the respective side, with a rallying round of support for the bravery of the leader whose peach tree will surely bear fruit in the future. For Giles Clarke it did, but it's a moot point whether it was incompetence or reintegration that brought that about.  

Great stock has been placed in the fact this was not an difficult task to undertake for the Australian four: Provide three suggestions on how to improve both your own and the team 's performance - if you can't be bothered to do that then you don't deserve to be playing for your country? This is fanciful. Across the planet talented people, skilled in their field, are asked to submit to the whims of of their managers' ad hoc notions of advancement. Show me an NHS surgeon who believes completing self-assessment forms improves the way they wield a scalpel and I'll show you an empathetic article on race relations by Dean Jones. The gravitas "The Task" has assumed is in inverse proportion to the details of its stipulations, hotel doors, texts and so forth. As any teacher knows, you don't set the most important task for your students to do as homework because some of them, however talented, just simply won't complete it. If something is of great consequence you make them work on it in class - or team meeting - where you can observe them hunched over in quiet concentration. Whether teenagers or cricketers, and there's admittedly a fair mingling of both mindsets in this scenario, if you don't then they'll wander off to do something more interesting - apparently golf in this instance - oblivious of how much it may be to their future detriment. Tut all you want, but this is what students do. Putting them in detention isn't always the best way to then help them pass their exams.

Mickey Arthur has a record of success which doesn't need any patronising, but he's called this one wrong. When Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were arrested and imprisoned for alleged possession of cannabis in 1967, the editor of The Times, William Rees-Mogg - not a man known for his rampant liberalism - quoted Alexander Pope by asking the simple question, "Why break a butterfly upon the wheel?". It was a plea for proportionality in punishment. That Australian four are as unlikely to produce a Pietersen 186 in India as they are to write an better song than Dead Flowers but we'll only know in the next twelve months, as Arthur's own version of England's misguided adherence to team unity plays out, what results his militaristic discipline will bring. Arthur's laudible theory may well be deserving of another Australian dynasty of success, but, in practice, it seems more like he'll be presiding over a field of withered and unpalatable Ashes peaches. 

Warne calls for bigger bats for Australians

After another humiliating display from Australia in India, fresh-faced cadaver Shane Warne has said his nation's batsmen should be given bigger bats when touring the subcontinent. Following hot on the heels of Monday's Part IV of the Warnifesto, where the leg-spinning legend demanded larger stumps with Advanced Hair Studio toupees for bails, his latest installment calls for Phil Hughes and Glenn Maxwell to use "a willow the size of Liz's sex drive so they can deal with balls the way she does!!! LOLZ! #loveLiz."

Waxing lyrical: Warne admits to "losing his wick" with Cricket Australia 

"Here is a suggestion from left field that will help our guys," he wrote. "Why not give them bigger bats whenever they face slow bowlers in India? At present the game is so unfairly weighted towards their spinners because they're allowed to bowl at our batsmen that it's just not a good contest for spectators. Failing that, we could just build a shed around Phil Hughes when he walks to the wicket. I'd like to see Ashwin get past that!! LOLZ! #lovesheds." 

Warne also criticised captain Michael Clarke's controversial decision to declare on Xavier Doherty in the first innings, blaming it for the left-armer's poor display during India's turn in the middle: ""Nothing beats knowing the captain has faith in you and will back you, as Allan Border did with me when I started. It means a lot, eases your mindset and boosts your confidence. I like Pup, but leaving Xavier stranded just a hundred short of his maiden Test ton was bloody stupid!! LOLZ! #lovePuptho." 

Despite a mixed reaction to Warne's latest plan of action, one Australian cricket observer begrudgingly admitted it was "still ten times more sensible than anything John Inverarity's said in the last six months," although Australia's chairman of selectors himself was unavailable for comment as he was too busy scowling at the air and rotating his excuses or, as he put it, displaying "Informed Shambles Management."