Writing on the wall for Mickey Arthur

 Quite apart from homeworkgate the writing was clearly on the wall for the coach at the weekend. The team practised at Merchant Taylors' School surrounded by ducks from the lake and soon after they left a magpie was found trapped in the pavilion. You can't argue with the omens of the birds !

Things you learn whilst you're watching the rain.

Two of my team mates are studying A level ( or it might be GSCE) history and the topic is American ( i.e. USA) history of the 1970s ! I thought I'd misheard but no, it's stuff in my lifetime - that can't be history can it ?

Those dodgy cheerleaders

Watching the Champions Trophy I couldn't help but hear, even when not in the ground, that there was a guy on a loud speaker who ever 5 overs or so told the crowd the team score and the not out batsmen's score.   Totally unnecessary and very annoying if you ask me, but it seems that having some idiot on the loud speaker has crept from Twenty20 into the one day game.

 

Satisfying then to hear that another totally out of place piece of "entertainment" is proposed to be stopped at the IPL, if for all the wrong reasons.   Jagmohan Dalmiya has proposed that cheerleaders are eradicated as part of the clamp down on sleeze and corruption at the IPL.   I hope it comes to pass, even though I can't see it having any impact on corruption!   Looking down Dalmiya's widely reported 12 point list, it begs the question why many of them (moving away from the cheerleaders for a moment) weren't in place from day 1, given the game of cricket's troubles with corruption all over the world.   

 

I trust that all domestic competitions around the world have taken all the relevant steps to ensure there is a minimum realistic chance of corruption, but perhaps I've been massively over-optimistic!