Haider sets up glorious un-retirement

There's been a recent tradition of retirements and comebacks in Pakistan cricket and it seems that Haider will be the latest after bizarrely retiring from international cricket yesterday. This of course allows him to be in cahoots with any bookmakers who allow bets on when he'll come out of retirement (that's a joke in case you're in doubt!).

I give it until about April until Haider unretires, following the likes of Yousuf and Afridi (and probably lots of others but I get confused over who has "retired" and who has been "banned").

Unswerving loyalty (and stupidity) from Mike Hussey

Captaincy isn't easy and it's important the players understand that no captain can make the right call every time. But Mike Hussey really has taken loyalty to an extreme when he says: "who better to learn under then Ricky Ponting?"

I could try to list the huge number of people that make up the answer, but time is short so instead perhaps it's best to ask the question the other way round. "Who is worse to learn from than Ricky Ponting?" In recent cricketing history, that's easy. Andrew Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen and Mohammad Yousuf. Apart from that Ponting is inferior to all other international captains.

But that doesn't mean I think Australia should make a change either - I still think he's best for the Aussie job for the moment.

Pakistan team news

So Kamran Akmal is out. Or rested. But at least he's not playing and I think Pakistan have done the right thing there given the morale-sapping results of having a keeper that misses significantly more than a chance a game.

Why Pakistan made their preparation for this Test even more turmoiltuous than it needed to be is difficult to understand. Yousuf needed to be considered for the series, or called up if injuries meant reserves were needed. Not called up mid-series as their new skipper Salman Butt tries to create team unity in a team that epitomise the opposite - something that King Cricket picked up on recently. And having brought Yousuf over as late as yesterday, it was clear that he wasn't going to be right to play today so they needed to rule him out of this Test long ago - not leave the team hanging thinking he may play as they did.

It'll be interesting to see if this impacts Pakistan's performance at all....given the team knows nothing other than turmoil, perhaps it won't have any impact at all!

Ponting gets out of jail

Quite amazingly, Australia came back from over 200 down in the 1st innings to beat Pakistan at the SCG - an incredible come back in anyone's book. The Aussie side can relax knowing they've got themselves out of jail, but some of Ponting's comments seem a little bizarre! In an article on Cricinfo titled "Ponting's toss decision vindicated" there are a couple of paragraphs that make strange reading:

Ponting was heavily criticised from the first day for his decision to bat on a juicy surface that set up Australia's fall for 127. By the end his logic was satisfyingly sound. "I backed us at the start of the game to make more runs in the first innings than what I thought Pakistan could make in the last innings," he said. "As it turns out we got 120-odd and bowled them out for 139 in the last innings of the game."

At one stage during his post-mortem a relaxed Ponting teasingly asked all those in the press conference who had doubted his decision to raise their hands. All the Australian journalists' arms went up. "I feel better now," he said. He smiled, knowing that when it comes to Australia's Test team he knows best. "It comes down to results and we've got a great result here," he said. "So I look like a genius where I didn't a couple of days ago."

Que? His logic is anything but sound and he certainly doesn't look like a genius! You don't bat first because you think you might just score more than the opposition will get in the last innings! He's trying to retrofit an idiotic decision to demonstrate some kind of thought process. It's a bit like Haroon Lorgat the other day - just admit you got it wrong and move on. The other thought that occurs to me is that this really was a battle of two terrible captains - Ponting versus Yousuf whose captaincy was apparently "bizarre" - i.e. very defensive when Pakistan needed 2 wickets to wrap up the Australian 2nd innings.

On another note, well batted Mr Cricket.

Batting for your life

England need to bat for 3 sessions (subject to weather) today with 8 wickets in hand so real dedication is needed. We have Pietersen first up so all we can hope with him is that he scores enough that when he's out we're past Australia's total - I don't think telling him to defend would be helpful. England's top 2 I'd want batting for my life would be Strauss and Collingwood, if runs were not important.

Interesting then to see some New Zealander's talk about who they'd want batting for their life. Tendulkar, Dravid, Chanderpaul, Yousuf and Sangakkara all seem to make it.

Recognise the ICL

It's interesting to see the response to Mohammed Yousuf signing up to the ICL. From the comments at the bottom of this page about Yousuf, it seems the vast majority of people want the ICL to be recognised by the ICC.

When I was in India the ICL was on and it looked like an interesting league. I've not watched the IPL and that, I assume, is a slightly higher standard given the players involved, but the ICL is still a very good quality of cricket. It's difficult to make a judgement based on a few TV matches, but to my untrained eye it looked like it was at least as good as County cricket.

The BCCI recognise that there's money to be made here and not surprisingly they don't want a rival league in their backyard - all be it one that they have proved is helpful to them in that they can learn what works and make better use of the learnings given their massive spending power. I would argue that the BCCI should be a little more forward thinking and consider how the ICL could be useful to them. And that the ICC should recognise the ICL asap so that member countries can stop the farcical banning of players that only goes to weaken world cricket.

The BCCI needs to show that it's capable of playing a lead role in world cricket, rather than playing the role of an angry teenager. They could start by accepting Gambhir's one-match ban. The rest of the world are ready to support India as the lead-player if only the BCCI can get their act together and realise they are subordinate to the ICC, not above them.

ICC Awards

Ricky Ponting is most people's pick for the cricketer of the year award - no suprises there. For me Mohammed Yousuf gets the Test player award at a stroll and Jacques Kallis just takes the ODI player award. The ODI is the only one there can be much debate on - the candidates are all worthy - Hayden, Ponting, Kallis and McGrath. It may be that McGrath gets it for sentimental reasons....certainly no-one could complain about that as an ODI bowler who averages under 20 is a massive rarity.

You can see all the award noninees at Cricinfo.

ICL controversy in Pakistan

It seems that the ICL is going to make it's mark on Pakistani cricket, having managed to secure the signature of Imran Farhat, Adbul Razzaq and Mohammed Yousuf along with Inzamam-ul-Haq. That's four of their squad gone immediately, given that the PCB have already made their stance clear - no player who goes to the ICL can play for Pakistan. Yousuf is a huge loss for them - all the others, it can be argued have limited value having failed to live up to their hype in the past or in Inzamam's case, due to his advanced age, but Yousuf has been Pakistan's best player over recent times, and at 32 he still has several years in him.

I have deliberately not commented on the ICL until now because it sits outside of the international cricket calendar and Dean Jones had previously commented that the ICL would not target current Test players. In this case though, the ICL clearly have lured current test players with money, so Pakistan will be annoyed to lose the services of all four, especially considering the youth of 25 year-old Farhat and 27 year-old Razzaq, although Razzaq got in before the ICL announcement by retiring from international cricket. The PCB need to stand strong if they have the long-term interests of the game in Pakistan and the rest of the world at heart and not give them contracts or pick them again.