Steven Finn - The New McGrath?

Looks like the Poms are worried about coming to Australia, pulling such a comparison out and hanging it like a lead weight around this newby's neck!

Pretty easy to be a star in their current series. Bit like Ricky and the boys coming for a game of backyard stuff against the boys and I ... of course, if we had Wally and Davo ...

Cricket Culture In Pakistan

http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/460463.html
This article, by Cricinfo's Pakistan editor Osman Samiuddin, may not be just throwing a light on the current crop of players wearing the Green Star. Like the West Indies, Pakistani teams have always been hard to captain because of way in which players can be so keen to feather their nest and take advantage, particularly on a lucrative tour like Australia, which offers so many distractions. Pakistan have only ever been at their best when their skipper was strong - Imran is the obvious example.

Make no mistake, these current problems where any Pakistani captain must have eyes that armour his back, began to fester under Inzamman, whose captaincy was complacent and arrogant and more than adequately summed by leading his team into cricket history's most shameful defeat, the 2006 forfeit against England. Who paid the price for that inaction? Certainly not petulant Inzammam, whose fines and suspension were lifted almost as quickly as they were applied by a spineless Pakistani Board. Instead, Darrell Hair was attacked and sanctioned for doing no more than his job. One day he will get justice when he writes a book about his life as a fair, reasonable and just cricket umpire applying the rules handed down to him by an international authority whose suits, now made by Indian tailors, should all include a wide yellow streak from nape to tail bone.

If the Pakistani players are self-centred and captains weak, then the remaining bulk of the problem sits squarely on the shoulders of a gutless and dare I suggest corrupt controlling authority in Pakistan. If you need a definition of rotten to the core, may I suggest you seek and audience with Izaj, the Butt of all or at least many of the problems. As with the West Indies, Pakistan is a pinnacle of maladministration, created by lesser men with greater greed and a sickness for power that taints their responsibility and has them focused only on the NEXT game rather than THE game.

Which naturally brings us to John Howard ... but that's another story!

The Sydney Miracle - Did We Win Or Was We Pushed?

Granted, miracles do happen but as the current Aussie side are almost certainly all card-carrying heathens and most of the other mob think Jesus was a minor prophet, its hard to imagine such things. The odds lengthen even more when you consider the game was a scarey replica of the Max Walker Test in 1973.

Did Kamran Akmal and others conjure a loss on the last day. What are the odds? For background reading, now that the ICC have handed the match to their anti-corruption committee, try these
http://www.cricinfo.com/pakistan/content/story/460381.html
http://www.cricinfo.com/pakistan/content/story/460390.html
http://www.cricinfo.com/pakistan/content/story/460438.html
http://www.cricinfo.com/pakistan/content/story/460441.html

Did Pakistani cricketers "throw" the Sydney Test last January? Discuss

Click on "Comments" below and have your say or see what others have said.

Ponting (C), Better Than Waugh, See

Chappelli's at it again.
http://www.cricinfo.com/australia/content/story/459502.html#cmnt

Ponting a better captain than Steve Waugh?

Discuss.