AGB Cricket

AND THEN SUM

Greg Baum takes a lash a sporting spruikers, opening with this little exaggeration:

Minds over matter

SEEMINGLY, Brendon McCullum is an even better cricketer than meets the eye. According to a recent release from Queensland Cricket, in 42 Twenty20 internationals, the New Zealander has made 1245 runs, including 316 fours and 144 sixes. You don't have to be a student of VCE mathematics to work out that McCullum supposedly has hit 883 more in boundaries than he has made runs in total.

Reminds me of a Pulse Piece.

RANK OUTSIDERS

Is it a coincidence - is it even a surprise, as Malcolm Conn suggests? - that Australia is lowly ranked in T20 and that most of Australia's highest ranked T20 players come from outside the Test Group, supposedly the best players?

Aussies pretty rank at Twenty20 cricket

NEW rankings for Twenty20 cricket confirm one unpalatable truth - Australia is not very good at the shortest form of the game.

Most embarrassing for Australia is that of the three bowlers ranked amongst the top 20, two no longer play in the national team.

Anyway, T20, yawn, the rest of Malcolm's article is a pisser:

The other big surprise is that England, such a dud at one-day cricket, has such a competitive T20 side.

Currently being flogged in a one-day series in India, England has never won the 50-over World Cup, which began in 1975.

The first piece of truly international silverware England won was the T20 World Cup in the West Indies last year.

This has not stopped England's T20 captain Stuart Broad crowing about being the leading side.

England's Irishman, Eoin Morgan, is the highest-ranked batsman after scoring 569 runs at an average of 47.41 in 18 T20s.

Fittingly, the only other England batsman in the top 20 is one of their South Africans, Kevin Pietersen, who is ranked No.3.

Malcolm rarely lets an opportunity slip to slate the Englands for their reliance on colonials.

FIVE TO WARNE

Tomorrow the Age will reveal the last five of Australia's 25 best cricketers:

The greatest of all time? Our cricketers decide

The ''Five Greatest Australian Cricketers'' is billed as a once-in-a-lifetime poll, and its voters demand respect.

The Top 5 picks itself, but the order? Here's mine:

1. Warne
2. Bradman
3. Lillee
4. Gilchrist
5. Miller

5PANKY

Roebuck is your fundamentalist preacher railing against the evils of casual sex, who then gets seduced by the hot vamp:

ODIous: One-day cricket stinks

A RADICAL proposal to revamp 50-over cricket is under consideration and has already secured support from some of the game's most influential voices.

The radical new format, known as 5ives cricket, has a simple structure. Team A bats for five overs whereupon Team B bats for 10 overs, completing the first cycle with a bonus point at stake and throwing down the gauntlet for the next five-over cycle.

At least Spanky has not lost the knack for a one-liner:

Cricket Australia liked it, as does Sunil Gavaskar.

Assuming, of course, his tongue is stuck right up his cheek.

CHAIN OF FOOL

Talk about putting in the hard metres:

Groundsman incorrectly marked overlong cricket pitch in Brisbane grade match

In comical scenes that could have been from a Fawlty Towers script, Ryan Harris had his bowling radar scrambled in his comeback from a hamstring injury in Brisbane grade cricket last weekend.

The Australian quick was having to strain twice as hard as usual just to get the ball up the pitch, and two edges from batsmen fell well short of the slips.

After another baffling over from fellow fast bowler Preston White, the rookie Toombul groundsman was called on to the pitch and sheepishly discovered the problem.

"He had mucked up his tape measure and the pitch was 22 metres long rather than the normal 22 yards long,'' Harris laughed.

PAT FOR PATTO

Cummins caps rapid rise with Test call up

Teenager Pat Cummins's meteoric rise to stardom has continued after winning a shock call-up to the Test squad for the tour of South Africa.

Cummins replaces fellow youngster, Victorian James Pattinson, from the squad which toured Sri Lanka in August and September.

Test squad: Michael Clarke (c), Shane Watson (vc), Michael Beer, Trent Copeland, Patrick Cummins, Brad Haddin, Ryan Harris, Phil Hughes, Mike Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Ricky Ponting, Peter Siddle

T20 & F50

Apparently we won a cricket match last night.

GOODNESS GRACIOUS HIM

Patrick Smith dances around accusations of racism:

Quick-fire ridicule just does not cut it

THIS was so predictable. So patronising. So xenophobic.

The people involved would say it was not racist, but goodness gracious, it danced all around it.

Australia is right to be confident that its players are not involved in fixing. But that confidence should be exemplified not in quick-fire ridicule with its unintended undercurrent of racism - well, Asians would, wouldn't they - but a rigorous and unrelenting determination to prove the slightest suggestion of corruption to be wrong.

Patrick was probably disappointed to read:

The ICC corruption investigator has said there is no evidence Australian cricketers are leaders at match fixing

A SENIOR corruption investigator for the International Cricket Council has told a London criminal trial that there is no evidence to back claims aired this week that the Australian cricket team were the world's leaders at rigging cricket matches.

But who needs the word of a mere senior corruption investigator for the International Cricket Council, when you've got whispers:

Allegations need to be treated with care

Doubtless, Australian cricket enthusiasts were alarmed to hear that their champions allegedly count among the biggest gamblers and fixers in the game. Bear in mind that these are the words of a braggart immersed in dubious activities. It is not much to set against the reputation of long-standing and hitherto unblemished cricketers (give or take the odd burst on the field and youthful excess). At such times all a reporter can contribute is to confirm that no whisper of any current Australian involvement in anything untoward has been heard.

BRACKET CREEP

Yes, there should be a rigorous investigation. And yes, Shane Warne and Mark Waugh took bungs from Joe the Bookieman. But does anyone really believe Australian players are the "biggest" fixers?

Australians were "biggest" fixers: agent

A cricket agent accused of taking bribes to fix matches claimed that Australian players were "the biggest" when it came to rigging games, a London court heard on Monday.

Majeed alleged that Australian players would fix "brackets", a set period of a match on which punters bet, for example, how many runs will be scored.

"The Australians, they are the biggest. They have 10 brackets a game," he said in the tape played to the court.

Sounds more like Mazhar Majeed was on the sell, spruiking to a potential, ahem, stakeholder that he could get any player:

The jury was played covert recordings of meetings between the London-based agent and former News of the World journalist Mazher Mahmood, who was posing as a rich Indian businessman seeking major international players for the tournament.

Apropos:

Majeed boasted that he knew Hollywood star Brad Pitt and tennis ace Roger Federer "very well" and could arrange for them to promote a proposed cricket tournament in the United Arab Emirates, the court heard.

PLUGS BUNNY

"I didn't know it was a paid read," says Rabbits Warren. What a maroon:

Attack on pokie reform came from 'up top', says Ray Warren

A RESPECTED NRL commentator has admitted that ostensibly off-the-cuff remarks during a rugby league final attacking proposed poker machine reforms were provided to him by Channel Nine management.

"It was a directive from up top that it be read by at least somebody, so I read it."

Warren said he supported the comments and while he could not be sure, he believed they were a paid message. "I think it was an ad, if you like, it sounded like an ad. I think it was done on behalf of the rugby league, who is fully supportive of the clubs."

Why is a rugby league article on AGB Cricket, you ask impetuously? Well, think about this post next time you are watching the cricket on Nine and Richie spruiks a Broome holiday (with camels), Slatts calls the Sportsbet odds, Heals shills Survivor Marrickville, Tawny sells Ricky Ponting's authentic replica underpants ($500 unframed), or in fact, when any "innocent" remark feels just that little bit incongruous.