And yet another World XI

And another All-time World XI, which would do pretty well against that one I listed in the last post. I'm going to stop, as this is getting silly.

Gordon Greenidge
Virender Sehwag
Brian Lara
Sachin Tendulkar
Javed Miandad
Allan Border
Ian Botham
Allan Knott
Waqar Younis
Michael Holding
Muttiah Muralitharan
Glenn McGrath

My alltime World-XI

Personally, I think all-time World XIs are silly. I prefer picking World XIs according to eras. Having said that, I couldn't resist making one when Cricinfo suggested it.

Here is mine. I'm pretty sure I could make another one just as good on an all-time basis.

Len Hutton
Sunil Gavaskar
Viv Richards
Don Bradman
Greg Chappell
Gary Sobers
Adam Gilchrist
Wasim Akram
Shane Warne
Malcolm Marshall
Dennis Lillee

The summer that went bad

A new post on Pakistan's tour of England is up at Different Strokes

Let the games begin (or so said Ijaz Butt)

Cricket doesn't seem to do much entertainment by way of actual sporting action these days. Rather, we get soap-operas. Here is the latest, for Pakistani cricket, is as usual, convinced of conspiracies. Ijaz Butt has started the fun and games. I'd advise everyone to settle down with the popcorn and peanuts, and enjoy the spectacle.

Cricket without balls: Tariq Ali on Pakistani cricket

Tariq Ali is always an entertaining read (especially when he is writing about the Bhutto family). Here he turns his attention to Pakistani cricket.

Spot-fixing and the slippery slope

Responding to my post on spot-fixing at Different Strokes, my friend David Coady (at the University of Tasmania) pointed out a little side-effect I hadn't thought about:

Seems to me the problem with spot-fixing is that once you've done it once, [you are in] the book-maker's power and have to go along with whatever he proposes, since he's in a position to blackmail you. Police get into a similar position when they accept small gifts from 'grateful' citizens.