Shoaib, Asif to get complete transfusion from Razzaq's blood

In order to remove all traces of Nandrolone from their urine in record time, the PCB has launched an incredible and impressive secret campaign. Adbul Razzaq, an important, yet replaceable member of the squad, conveniently fractured his knee just minutes before leaving for the Caribbean. In an interview, he appeared completely befuddled as to how it happened. Chloroform, anyone?

Meanwhile, the rest of the squad, including the reserves, and even a few spectators, have already pissed in cups and been cleared by some drug testing authority in Malaysia. Wasn't the movie "Entrapment", starring Sean Connery, filmed in Malaysia? Didn't Connery play Bond for a while? Wasn't "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" the worst film ever made? Exactly. That's shady too.

Doctors in England will be making the world's first (maybe 100th – who knows. First sounds better.) complete blood transfusion and muscle sieving procedure to remove the controversial nandrolone from Asif and Shoaib's body. Then they will use Abdul Razzaq's blood to fill them up again. It's dramatic, it's crazy, but it just might work. As long as they don't somehow infuse the two with Razzaq's somewhat insipid bowling ability, it sounds completely foolproof.

Of course, questions abound. Is the procedure safe? In particular, will Razzaq survive after donating every ounce of his blood? The answer is: who gives? We've got Azhar, haven't we? They're practically the same person.

If all goes well, Shoaib and Asif will be nandrolone-free and ready to roll when Pakistan take on the Windies in a couple of weeks. In fact, they might as well pop a few more doses while they're at it…

Co-authored by Billu.net
Cross-posted at Billu.net and Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan

Jacob Oram is one crazy SOB

This guy is nuts and he looks like a sheep farmer too!

Jacob Oram, who has a finger injury, has apparently been convinced by his medical staff or himself, that cutting his finger off actually IS the last resort for complete recovery. Here we go...

Soon after Oram suffered the injury, coaches had said he was likely to make a recovery in time for the World Cup in March but his recovery has been relatively slow and he now faces a race against time to be fit.

"We've got taping techniques and guards that fit into a batting glove, and I'm confident I'll be fine," said Oram.

"If it means cutting the finger off, if that's the last resort, I'll do that there's no way I'm missing this."

Hmm. Now if Michael Vaughan or Shoaib Akhtar would cut an injured appendage or ailing muscle off every time it got hurt, well then...Umm..nevermind. I don't like where I am going with this.

Razzaq is out of the World Cup

Abdul Razzaq has fractured his foot and is no longer going to play in the World Cup. This was certainly unexpected. I was thinking Shoaib or Asif would be the first ones replaced due to their 'injuries'.

Razzaq's like for like replacement is Azhar Mahmood, so we needn't be too upset about this. Azhar's bowling is a bit nippier than Razzaq's, though his batting is not so consistent. Plus he hasn't played international cricket in a long time. On the whole, Mahmood in the team actually works fine for me. Needless to say, its a bit sad that Razzaq is not going to play, because he is a staple member of the squad, but I think we might be better off with Azhar, especially if Shoaib and Asif don't join us soon.

Ranking the contributions of Wicketkeepers

As part of the wicketkeeping study initiated at this site, it was necessary to incorporate a ranking system in order to gauge wicket keeper contributions. As mentioned before in an earlier post, due to database restrictions, I can only quantify the contributions of keepers rather than judge them by the byes or catches dropped. I have used 5 different scoring techniques.

• A - (dismissals/Test) * batting average
• B - (batting average/10) + dismissals/test
• C - (batting average – overall average of batting average for all keepers) + ((dismissals/test)-overall average of dismissals/test for all keepers))
• D - (batting average/highest batting average amongst keepers) + ((dismissals/test)/(highest dismissals/test amongst keepers))
• E - (batting average/average batting average amongst keepers) + ((dismissals/test)/(average dismissals/test amongst keepers))

D and E use constants (D using highest average, while E used average batting average) so they give the same order.

30 wicket keepers were used to calculate the average of the batting average and the average of the dismissals/test. The average batting average is 20.09, which the average dismissals/test is 2.95.

Contributions of wicketkeepers have increased over the years

Using the 5 scoring techniques for wicket keeper contributions, it was possible to churn out data for different decades. Players that kept wicket for 5 years till 2000 and 3 years after 2000, were included in the 1990 decade. The groupings are presented below in the following ugly colors.

Name	Country	Career
Evans, T G	England	1946-1959
Waite, J H B	South Africa	1951-1965
Parks, J M	England	1954-1968
Murray, D L	West Indies	1963-1980
Knott, A P E	England	1967-1981
Wasim Bari	Pakistan	1967-1984
Marsh, R W	Australia	1970-1984
Taylor, R W	England	1971-1984
Kirmani, S M H	India	1976-1986
Smith, I D S	New Zealand	1980-1992
Dujon, P J L	West Indies	1981-1991
Salim Yousuf	Pakistan	1982-1990
More, K S	India	1986-1993
Russell, R C	England	1988-1998
Healy, I A	Australia	1988-1999
Parore, A C	New Zealand	1990-2002
Stewart, A J	England	1990-2003
Moin Khan*	Pakistan	1990-2004
Richardson, D J	South Africa	1992-1998
Flower, A	Zimbabwe	1992-2002
Rashid Latif	Pakistan	1992-2003
Kaluwitharana, R S	Sri Lanka	1992-2004
Mongia, N R	India	1994-2001
Boucher, M V*	South Africa	1997-Present
Jacobs, R D	West Indies	1998-2004
Gilchrist, A C*	Australia	1999-Present
Sangakkara, K C*	Sri Lanka	2000-Present
Kamran Akmal*	Pakistan	2002-Present
Jones, G O *	England	2004-Present

The groupings are certainly not meant to be precise, so don't hate on me, but the results below do give us a clear indication of where cricket is headed.

The chart above indicated the trend using the 5 scoring techniques. D and E were calculated using 2 different constants, so when normalized, are exactly the same. I didn't have too much data before 1970, but I have included the few players from that era for which I did have some. The average on the chart is the average of the 5 scoring techniques (weighted a bit more towards D and E unfortunately).
The conclusion is that the days of the specialist keeper are numbered. A keeper is now as much a batsmen as he is a keeper. More importantly I feel that a player like Adam Gilchrist, who people think is a once-in-a-lifetime cricketer, is just the first great wicket-keeper batsmen in this trend. Dhoni, Sangakarra, McCullum and even Akmal to an extent may eventually surpass Gilchrist's statistics.

End of an era - Retirements looming for several cricketers

It's going to be really strange realizing that players I have been watching, ever since I started following cricket, are going to be retiring soon after the World Cup. It really hasn't hit me yet, but it surely will and it's definitely going to be a sad day. Each of the following players players probably deserves an exclusive post and some thoughts and memories, but for now, a list will suffice. After all not too many of these guys have announced their retirement.

And more importantly they're not done entertaining us yet...

Mathew Hayden
Adam Gilchrist
Glenn McGrath
Anil Kumble
Inzamam-ul-Haq
Marvan Atapattu
Sanath Jayasuriya
Brian Lara

Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik Mobilink Jazz commercial

Omar loves commercials and if you're reading this blog, you probably already know that Omar loves cricket. Anyway I just need to type something here, so that the video doesn't look lonely with no text around it. I like this commercial. Its got Afridi and Malik and the model Iman Ali.

Shoaib Akhtar Pepsi commercial

Readers of this blog are probably aware of my bias towards Shoaib Akhtar. Anyway, while looking around for some cool commercials to post on the blog, I found this one especially amusing given that under the circumstances, its probably true. It features Woolmer as the annoyed team coach.

Cricinfo's Fantasy League returns for the World Cup!

Yay - This makes me happy! I'll put in a couple of teams this time around! I really had a good time with the Eng-Pak Fantasy leagues. I did pretty well on it. The thrill of actually being in the top 5 for a couple of days in a particular game was exhilarating. Though eventually losing that test match by 345 points because some English bugger made a century and I didn't pick him was equally depressing.

The Cricinfo fantasy league is fun, easy to use and its as addictive as gambling! Good deal! The prizes are sweet too. From Cricinfo...

The prize pool is a generous £10,000 - with the top prize being a trip to watch England on their tour of Sri Lanka and £1,000 cash. There are also signed and personalised team shirts, limited edition merchandise, books, DVDs and magazine subscriptions for the best selectors at various stages of the competition.

Who wants to join my "Friends and Enemies" league?

Announcing a statistical study on wicketkeeping

With all this talk about Kamran Akmal's decline in recent months, I wanted to look at the statistics on offer and try and figure out if his glovework and batsmanship are truly in decline. I've been working on this for quite a while now, and in doing so, have managed to put together some interesting trends. I'll post them on this site routinely over the next couple of weeks, as we don't have too much live cricket going on. A direct link to the study can be found here.

I also wish I had access to Cricinfo's ball by ball statistics database. If I had access to "byes conceded" or "dropped chances", I'd be a happier man. On that note, does anyone know of other cricket databases, where I can access this information or does Cricinfo have the monopoly? As a result of this, I am a bit handicapped as to what I can work with. So instead of judging a keeper by his failures (which would probably be a more accurate technique), I will rank them by their contributions. This contribution consists of their batting and fielding averages. Some of the questions that I wish to address are:

• Can I rank the contribution of wicketkeepers against other keepers?
• Can I rank the batting and fielding contributions of wicketkeepers to their team?
• Is Kamran Akmal's contribution to the Pakistani side in decline?
• How does Kamran Akmal compare with past Pakistani keepers?
• Are exceptionally good wicket-keeping batsmen (Gilchrist, Sangakarra, Flower) an anomaly? Or is this a trend of the times?
• If so, can I show that the times indeed, are changing, in that, keepers are becoming better and better at batting?
• Who are the best keepers by year with regards to their contributions?
• Which keepers are most consistent in their performance?

Some questions may not be answered, while other queries may yet be added to this list. Stay tuned to this blog as results on this study are posted.

Back from California: omarlovescricket returns to cricket blogging

Ah - I'm back from sunny San Francisco. It was a welcome break away from the bitter cold. Though, upon my return, I learned that the weather this past weekend at home was actually pretty warm. Balls! Such is my luck.

What you missed
Fans and haters of omarlovescricket must visit the Bay area at some point. There is no cricket there, unfortunately, but there are plenty of wineries, even more wineries, spectacular views and great food! It's a beautiful city. Very picturesque.

Cricket stuff I missed
Upon my return, I was excited to learn that Australia have been white-washed in New Zealand. Well that's spectacular news! Always refreshing to see the great Aussies getting whipped. Naturally, Gilchrist followed up their embarrassing series loss with the expected, "We didn't really want to tour New Zealand in the first place" argument. Well, Mr. Gilchrist, boo fucking hoo!

Mathew Hayden smashed 181 runs! Bloody hell. King can't be too pleased about this. Apparently Hayden also poked fun at Inzi after his feat, which doesn't make me too happy either.

I was gone for a week, which is adequate time for a Pakistani controversy. Apparently Woolmer called Shoaib Akhtar "blacky". Sigh....

Ahmer sums it up.

Pakistan is also in the midst of dope testing all its players. The whole world awaits the results...

Michael Holding, another omarhatescricket favorite, in an undiplomatic manner, slams the associate nations playing the World Cup. Zainub at Sundries sums it up. Though I agree with Holding, I also recognize that the ICC isn't perhaps doing enough to promote the quality of cricket in these nations. I am, however, confidant that these nations will improve with time.

And last but not least, another cricketing hate list spawns. Billu.net has recently just launched a blog series discussing (or rather cursing) various characters they don't want to ever invite for dinner.

Vacation time....

Vacation time for me in sunny California!

Be back online on the 20th of Feb!

Can you be the next Pakistani opener?

Position Available: Opener for the Pakistan cricket team (National Squad) - temporary position

Position Requirements

No experience required.

Age - Must be young. Under 25, with minimum domestic or international exposure.

Preference for candidates from "warring tribal areas."

Required to score 100 on debut
...and 50 every 20th game thereafter.

Cover drives must be spectacular
...no other shots required
...the worse your pull shot, the better your chances
...proper technique is severely frowned upon

Must flash aggressively at every 3rd delivery well outside the off stump
...contact with delivery optional

Must get out on every 5th such aggressive flash
...contact with delivery not optional

Bandana wearers encouraged to apply.

Must have the diving agility of a cheetah
...but the catching ability of a snail

Must be able to bowl legspin or off break
...however, not required to take wickets (please see note)

Note: In the event that a wicket is taken, or if said player does in fact have wicket taking abilities, the PCB and team management cannot be held responsible for the consequences. The ICC will suspend said player for one of the following reasons:

a) Throwing
b) Match-fixing
c) Match-fixing and throwing
d) Bringing the game into disrepute
e) Bringing yourself into disrepute
f) Bringing iguanas into disrepute
g) Bringing koala bears into disrepute
h) Bringing antique furniture into disrepute
i) Not bringing anything to repute whatsoever
j) All of the above

Complicated numerical nomenclature will be supplied for every law created/cited in the process of having said player banned for just enough games till he/she is completely demoralized and out of form.

Terms and conditions

Short term contract only, 1-1.5 tours
Must be willing to travel extensively, across continents, on a moment's notice

co-authored by billu.net
cross-posted at billu.net and cricket.bloggers.pk

Pakistan's opener rotation schedule comes full circle

Salman Butt has just been named as one of Pakistan's World Cup reserves! Which means an another complete cycle and run-through for our young openers is close to completion. Many critics claim that the PCB really has no long term or short term plans or strategies, but one has got to admire the consistency in our opener rotation.

I may be wrong, but this is the pecking order. Salman Butt starts off. Once Butt fails, Taufeeq Umar is slated to be next. Mohammad Hafeez, is around here, though its uncertain whether he comes after Umar or before Farhat. Anyway, Imran Farhat the bandana toting, catch-dropping bastard comes next. Imran Nazir, the young dashing aggressive opener from Peshawar or somewhere around there, comes in dead last. Now these are the openers on the rotation schedule. Yasir Hameed is an opener too, plays like an opener, and also looks like Imran Nazir crossbreed with Taufeeq Umar. Anyway, he is an opener, but somehow he has been placed into the middle order rotation schedule. (That's a lot slower as may be expected)

On occasion, the selectors and management will plug in Shoaib Malik, Kamran Akmal, Shahid Afridi as openers too. These 3 players are permanent members of the squad, so they are not on the rotation schedule. They are only fit into that opening slot on a temporary/hopeful basis during the transition period. But rest assured, they WILL fail too, so the integrity, frequency and time period of the rotation remains.

In SL last year (March 2006), we had Salman Butt, Kamran Akmal, Shoaib Malik and Imran Farhat as our openers in either test or ODI.

Note: The opener rotation schedule is not biased towards the format of the game. It is speculated that since our openers never cross 60 in either format of the game, and will always aim for a strike rate of over 150 anyway, using them in both formats is sound thinking! As a result, we do not employ specialist test or ODI openers.

In Eng (Summer 2006), It was Salman and Farhat again, but Butt starting doing badly, so Akmal came into open. Kamran Akmal is pretty bad opener. He deserves his own post. So then Mohammad Hafeez came in, scored his 50, which is a tradition for any Pakistani opener who has been out of the side for a while). He failed eventually (a bit sooner than expected), so they got in Taufeeq.

Then WI came to us. Taufeeq was dropped since he played much better in 'ICC Cricket Captain 2005' than in real life. We stuck with Farhat and Hafeeez. Blah blah.

Then we went to SA. Enter Imran Nazir. Bye bye Farhat.

There we have it. So its all just a gamble. Imran Nazir, who 6 months ago was nowhere near being our World Cup opener, is now destined to play the entire tournament. Isn't that amazing? At least its a fair system.

I wonder how I can scribble my name as a possible opener. I'd like to go in right after Farhat, but before Nazir, in the schedule. The reason being, prominent scientists have shown that public expectation in the openers is lowest right after Farhat fails.

Kaneria's selection a bunch of balls

Why the fuck has Danish Kaneria been selected into the World Cup squad over Abdur Rehman? Agreed, a spinner probably wouldn't have played anyway, but his selection has come out of the blue.

Rehman played just 1 ODI in 2007. He was up and coming and was very impressive against the West Indies. Yes, he gave 27 runs in 2 overs against the South Africans, but every one of our bowlers got bumjacked in that game. There was NO reason to drop him.

This is just stupid. Why are we taking players who we think may be good but have hardly played the format. Kaneria has not even been a part of our ODI squad in this South African series...or the West Indies...Or part of the maybe 10 series before that!

He played 1 ODI in 2006 (0 wickets), and 5 ODI's in 2005 (3 wickets). I think we've all established that we need an attacking or a restrictive spinner in ODI's. Kaneria is nowhere near that requirement. The reason he is our sole test spinner is because he has become a stock bowler. He needs at least 30 overs to take his 5 wickets plus he always gives away about a 100+ runs. Read my blogging colleagues post on Kaneria for older, yet still quite apt opinion on Kaneria.

One would assume that players who have fucking played the ODI format in the last 6 months at least should be in the running, right?. Kaneria has played 16 ODI's in his life with an average of 49.17. So he gets a wicket every 50 runs. Okay....A lot better than Rana Naveed these days, but still! I am not discounting the fact that he may not be a great ODI spinner. 16 ODI's, though its plenty of matches, it wasn't a consistent enough run. What irks me is how suddenly everyone who has played an ODI can suddenly come into the picture. The PCB is evidently panicking now. I would wait a couple of days before Wasim Akram gets a recall. Hell, I wouldn't mind since I am sure he's better than Iftikhar Rao and Rana Naveed at the moment. Anyway I'm digressing...

Rehman's average in his early days is a shade under 20 (which is brilliant), including an amazing series against the Windies back home. I saw him play and I am really disappointed for him.

We have no choice when it comes to our pacemen, but if anything, go for consistency in squad selection for the spinners. We used to have a brilliant spin attack in ODI's and were really successfully then. On many occasions, both Saqlain and Mushtaq would play the same ODI's. Saqlain was, in fact, one of the fastest bowlers to ever get to a 100 ODI wickets. Those were great days! Why is Pakistan so fucking scared to play specialist spinners? Now that our fast bowlers are losing their limbs and muscles left right and center, the PCB should been bold and the team management should have had a change of strategy. Instead of playing shitty fast bowlers who are not in form, play a couple of spinners, who ARE in form. Rehman should have been in this ODI squad. This is bullshit. The PCB better have some reasons for this, but I am sure the don't. Choots...

Cross-posted at Cricket.Bloggers.Pk

From hot to cold - flat pitch bullies Pakistan clobbered mercilessly

3 days ago, Pakistan creamed South African by 140 odd runs. A few days before that we had been whipped by 160 odd. And now this. Why the heck is this team so brittle one day and so killer the next? It's shocking. No wonder Pakistani cricket fans are considered to be nuts. We go through such emotional extremes throughout our supporting days. It's draining as hell!

Not going to take anything away from the South Africans. Ntini and Pollock were really impressive. The other chaps were decent too, but the Pakistan threw the match in the first 10 overs. Just how unplayable could they possibly be? Watching them play was frustrating. Even poor deliveries were blocked, they were completely on their back foot throughout and just too under confidant and wary. It was as if they had decided that they were going to lose match if they lost the toss. Yes the conditions were against them, but 8 runs in 10 overs? No way was the going that bad...

Thank you England!

England beat Australia in the 2nd final to win the Commonwealth Bank series!

Yes!

What an incredible victory! It's hard to express my joy. My depression over Pakistan's thrashing yesterday at the hands of the South Africans, has been pretty much appeased by England ending their tour on a high note.

As my readers can probably gauge, I support Pakistan most of the time, but I also support any team battling Australia. I admit having a lot of respect for Australian cricketers and their aggressive and clinical style of cricket, but their domination is boring, their arrogance is irritating, and seeing them lose on their own soil is pleasing as hell. We all love the underdog, and after a dismal series, England have really pulled this victory out of a hat. After a terrible hiding in the Ashes, its great to see England return home with their heads held high.

This also spells great news for the rest of the cricketing nations. Australia have been beaten convincingly, very soon before the World Cup, and that too in a format in which they are expected to dominate. They're probably still going to be the favorites to lift the cup, but I bet they're not going to be as cocky as before.

Anyway....Brilliantly done!

England matching Pakistani injury lists knee for knee, hamstring for hamstring

Vaughan has flown back home to England. Shabbir Ahmed played a single twenty20 and Shoaib Akhtar just played for a couple of sessions of a test and both went home. Is anyone else a bit shocked by the spate of injuries that have befallen the English and Pakistani sides? I'm no doctor, but its safe to assume the amount of cricket being played today is reducing the shelf life of our cricketers. I remember supporting Gavaskar just last year when he ridiculed the complaints of modern players on being burnt-out.

"These players are turning out for their countries. It's an honour to represent your country. I would be willing to sweat 365 days in a year for India. Those who can't stand the heat should stay out."

At the time I thought it was silly for highly paid players to complain while they had the best health care possible provided to them. Mike Selvey's response to Gavaskar last year was apt and equally valid today. Some excerpts...

What Gavaskar fails or is unwilling to grasp is the idea that it is not the volume of cricket but rather the sheer intensity of it that creates the problems.

But this does not mean we should not listen to the rest of the world on this issue. When Brett Lee confesses that the petrol has run out and he is "bowling on fumes", it really does mean something. The home boards have a duty of care to state this in the strongest terms to the ICC.

The cricketing boards are really packing in the tours for commercial purposes, and the cricketers are feeling the adverse effects. I feel that the rift between team management and their respective boards with regards to player burnout is increasing. The management have no choice but to rest key players, and adopt rotation policies. New Zealand have implemented a rotation policy for a quite a while now. However, w hen you rest key players, the competition gets reduced, and the quality of match play goes down.

Woolmer, amongst others, recently spoke up against this hectic South Africa tour, and these collective voices against overburdening the cricketers are getting louder. No matter how good medical staffs are, it seems to me that they can't catch up to the pace of international cricket. Or maybe its just Pakistan that seems to be suffering a lot. Shoaib Akhtar, Shabbir Ahmed, Umar Gul, Razzak and Malik are all on the path to recovery from some ailment or the other. England also have Anderson, KP (though he was just unlucky), and Vaughan, who keeps finding new ways to injure his fragile body. The PCB has recently launched an inquiry into how these players are getting injured to often, and England, I'm sure, will soon follow and is also concerned.

We are concerned with the number of injuries we have had on this tour and we don`t want a repeat of this in future events," a senior PCB official said.

"The chairman PCB Dr Naseem Ashraf himself is going to look into this issue and we will have our medical panel examine all the players before the World Cup squad is finalized," said director, cricket operations, Saleem Altaf.

I never thought it would come to this for me, but there really is too much nonsensical cricket being played. The commercial aspects seem to have become the primary objective, and though the fans are getting what they pay for, injuries to players is undoubtedly the biggest side effect. It is also arguable whether the quality of cricket being played is deteriorating. Tim de Lisle's column in Cricinfo touches upon how this is changing the game we all love.

I love watching cricket so my suggestion is to have separate teams for separate forms of the game, thus each squad can focus on their specialty. Naturally some players are well-accustomed to several forms of the game, and they can be rotated. If twenty20 is the next big thing, then countries should develop pure twenty20 players. If the various boards develop a strong bench of players from which to choose from, not only will players develop their game since a lot more are seeing international cricket, but the fans are getting what they want. More cricket...

In a sense this is already being implement by most boards, and it is bound to become a staple for the cricketing nations in because in my opinion there is no way, the ICC will hold back on the amount of cricket being played. Its just not going to happen. Though I'm happy with our sport's success, I am worried about the people in charge and their obsession with Benjamins.

Hair (white chap) is suing claiming racial discrimination

White people suing citing racial discrimination isn't unheard of, yet it's still laughable. What stands out for me is that he's actually pulled Doctrove, the other umpire (A West Indian, hence black) into this mess. His argument is really childish. He's been punished, and now his way of hitting back at the ICC and PCB is: "You punished me, but what about Doctrove? It was half his fault too! You guys are racist!"

No, you fat &^%$, it wasn't Doctrove's fault. It was completely your own doing. I don't feel like writing anymore about Hair, so I will just quote my blogging colleagues who are a lot more eloquent than me at expressing frustration...
Billu writes...

Darrell Hair is like a big, fat, ugly boomerang - no matter how far you think you've thrown him, he keeps coming back. The latest installment in this ongoing saga involves him trying to sue the PCB for racial discrimination.I can think of two possibilities:
1. Because the PCB suggested that he is a racist...
2. Because he was removed from the "elite panel" and Billy Doctrove wasn't...

King writes...

Darrell Hair was made a scapegoat because he's an abrasive buffoon, lacking in people skills and several Test nations have no confidence in him. That's enough to ensure his demotion from Tests in itself.

Teeth writes...

With Hair filing the suit it puts PCB on a defensive back foot as it now has to defend its position contrary to what could have been had if PCB filed the suit according to its own stance on the issue. To prove racial discrimination is a tough task which generally is taken if a number of witnesses testify convincingly that there was a strong discrimination. As far as Hair is concerned he started the entire mess which consequentially lead him down this path, ICC in its hearing did not find credible evidence to support his ball tampering claim so hence he was definitely wrong to even suggest a side to have cheated.

Video of Afridi swinging at a fan

ICC charges Afridi for swinging bat at fan: Faces ban

Damn you Afridi! Here is the video which I posted just now. At first, it was thought that the ICC would not be charging Afridi, but circumstances quickly changes once Malcolm Speed saw the video footage. Here is how events unfolded. From SuperCricket...

The International Cricket Council on Tuesday angrily rejected criticism that they had failed to take any action against Shahid Afridi for trying to hit a spectator with his bat due to a fear of antagonising the Pakistanis.

Afridi was caught on television jabbing his bat at a spectator after he was dismissed for 17 in the first one-day international against South Africa at SuperSport Park, but is unlikely to face any official sanction.

"The ICC Code of Conduct says the four umpires, the team managers and the CEO of the home board can all lay a charge, but they must do so within 18 hours of the end of the match. The fact of the matter is none of these people did so," ICC media and communications manager Brian Murgatroyd said on Tuesday.

"Any decisions that are taken by ICC officials are made on the merits or otherwise of each individual situation and to suggest otherwise is misguided. I resent any implication that the ICC are biased or that we refuse to act because we want to maintain good relations with Pakistan and are afraid of antagonising them," Murgatroyd said.

Speed has five days after the match in which to react to the Afridi incident, but is currently in the Caribbean, where preparations for the World Cup have reached fever pitch.

"Malcolm Speed laid the charge against Gibbs because he felt it was appropriate to do so. If he had not done so then we were given to understand the Pakistan team manager would have acted instead," Murgatroyd explained.

"In the Afridi case, none of the other parties able to lay a charge chose to do so. Malcolm has five days to act and lay a charge if he deems it appropriate, and in all matters he reserves the right to do so."

Speed saw the video in question and promptly charged Shahid Afridi.

Afridi has been charged with a Level 3 offence under section C 2 of the Code which refers to "conduct unbecoming...which could bring (players or officials) or the game of cricket into disrepute."

If found guilty of a Level 3 offence, Afridi faces a ban of between two and four Test matches or between four and eight ODIs.

Great...If I were him, I would not appeal, but take the ban now before the World Cup begins. Afridi, you piece of.....

Afridi will make me eat my words..

...which I will gladly do in due time, but only after this series against South Africa is complete! Till then, I will stand by my position.

As my readers know I have continued my one-man campaign against Shahid Afridi for a quite a while now. Here, and here, here...and umm..also here. In fact, just look at my Afridi label.

So several people have already emailed or text-messaged me regarding my views on Afridi and they politely requested me to comment on this latest innings of his against South Africa.

Naturally, midway through this innings, one has to be very impressed. He made 77 runs of 35 balls with 5 four's and 6 sixes.

Brilliant innings obviously, but it was Afridi style innings. If he's around for 30 balls, he wrecks havoc. But does he stick around for more than 5 balls consistently? Naturally one can not expect this from him every single time, nor do I really expect him to. I am not saying he should score 20 runs every time, which I would be happy with. My reasons for his exclusion in the past have always been his lack of performance.

So lets see how this series pans out. I want Afridi to do well. But most of all, I want Pakistan to do well. I am still not convinced both can go hand in hand.

Don't make them cut their hair, you bastards!

The Zimbabwe cricket board is allegedly forcing its players to chop off their dreads otherwise the poor chaps get dropped from the national side!

Dreads are cool. Why the hell do they feel the need to do this?

I just wanted to redirect some attention towards this story and talk about how ridiculous and inane this issue is. Admittedly, I have not paid much attention to Zimbabwe's cricketing turmoil, as I probably should, but its never to late to talk about this injustice...and it is injustice. Why should players have to conform to ideals and set by others? As long as they get their job done as best as they can, their personal lives, and dress are their own business. (Hmm...can anyone else see the parallels with the Pakistani team?)

Why do these boards feel the need to play God and impose restrictions. It pisses me off to no end, and the Zimbabwe Cricket Board is now making my hate list.

You're very welcome!

Here's the story from Cricinfo...

It has emerged that three of the national side - Keith Dabengwa, Tawanda Mupariwa (pictured above) and Christopher Mpofu - were ordered to have their hair cut or be dropped as part of a new board dress code.

Mpofu and Dabengwa were the first to be chopped, although Mupariwa tried to resist and even wrote a letter to a ZC board member explaining why he wanted to keep his hair. However, he eventually gave up on Saturday evening and was seen spotting his new look when he took to the field for Zimbabwe A on Sunday.

...and some reactions and the reasons behind this order...

"I had to comply with ZC because they say it is a new dress code," one unnamed player told the newspaper. "There was nothing I could do because refusing meant I would be out on the final squad to the World Cup. If you ask me, this is gross human rights abuse but I need to look after my family. Cricket is my job and I cannot risk my job for dreadlocks."

Kevin Curran, Zimbabwe's beleaguered coach, refused to react, telling the paper: "I will not comment on those matters. Talk to the authorities."

The new dress code was introduced days after Peter Chingoka was re-elected as Zimbabwe Cricket's chairman. Critics point out that the side, which has now lost 13 consecutive ODIs, have greater worries than the hairstyles of the players. There is already unrest over the fact that players are paid in worthless Zimbabwe dollars while it is widely claimed that others, including administrators, are paid in US dollars.

This reflects a more widespread policy called Pfekazvakanaka (which means "dress well" in Shona), a rigid dress code, inside Zimbabwe being enforced by the ruling Zanu-PF party.

At the moment the country's supreme court is considering the case of a seven-year-old Rastafarian boy who was expelled from school for having dreadlocks. There are other instances of men with dreadlocks being accosted by the police and being forced to shave them off. It seems ZC's latest move is more evidence of that its leadership is merely aping the wishes of the government.

England extend 'winning streak'

Agreed, it's only a 2 game winning streak, but under the circumstances, its quite an achievement! It was a long shot to the finals, but as I had hoped, it just might turn out to be an interesting battle versus Australia. The advantages of streaks in ODI cricket are quite short lived, and as a result England will be quite confidant going into the first final having beaten Australia in their last encounter. The Aussies will also be taking this game very seriously and will not be resting Ponting or any key players. Since they were beaten pretty effectively last time, they must have realized that this English side may have finally got their act together.

Have they gotten their act together though? Don't know. From the match reports, the bowling wasn't too penetrating, while the top order was a quite brittle. Lets hope for the sake of competition that the English streak extends to 3 games!

Check out Monty and Vaughan do the tango in this picture. Should Vaughan really be stressing his knees this way?

Announcing the 'omar hates cricketers list'

Once in a while, we at omarlovescricket ironically find ourselves hating people. Thus there is an urge to write about them and complain. So after considerable thought, we are announcing the birth of the "omar hates cricketers list". This list will generously include cricketers, their boards, maybe the groundsmen, some fans, journalists....There is no limit! We will include whatever we hate at that point in time!

The inspiration for this idea came from King Cricket's fetish for lists. We like the lists at King Cricket and though we do enjoy cricketers, it's easier to write about people we hate. The words seem to flow naturally.

Oh and one more thing. Assume that we hate equally. It's not easy to quantify our hate, so we're not going to rank them.

So keep an eye out for further developments. I have already tagged a few stories with buggers I don't like. Adam Parore as a journalist, Brendan McCullum as a bastard, and the PCB on the whole are a good start...

Public believes Inzamam prefers chocolate fudge brownie flavored ice cream

This is certainly not breaking news, but its close. The "Pointless Poll of the Fortnight" has revealed, quite surprisingly, that the vast section (35%) of fans feel, that Inzamam enjoys chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.

Some of you might have assumed that I actually know what flavor Inzamam likes, and would perhaps tell you at the end of the fortnight, and see if the survey matched the actual answer...but sadly, that is not the case. I don't know what ice cream Inzamam prefers, but judging by his size, I am positive he does like ice cream.

Anyway , chocolate fudge brownie, beat out butter pecan, peanut butter crunch and strawberry cheesecake, which were all tied for 2nd place with 19% of the vote each. Not so shocking, but a bit disappointing, was that pumpkin came in dead last with 8% of the votes. That's 3 votes, and most probably all 3 of those votes were me trying to fudge (no pun intended) the survey from different computers...

Anyhow, this week's pointless poll was also one of the most unpopular ones in this site's poll history, perhaps indicative of the fact that it might have have been the most pointless poll questions ever asked. Excellent!

Results are shown below...

			Votes
Pumpkin	8 %		3
Chocolate Fudge Brownie	35 %		13
Butter Pecan	19 %		7
Peanut butter crunch	19 %		7
Strawberry cheesecake	19 %		7

India's looking good...

Sachin just smashed his 41st ODI century, Ganguly's back with a vengeance, their opening conundrum's been solved, and the bowlers are getting wickets...

All in all, India after a poor couple of months in the middle, are getting back to where they were a year ago, in more ways than one. Not only are they back to their winnings ways, but the squad shuffling of the past few months seems to have come full circle. They're back to the Ganguly opening, Sachin in the middle, with Zaheer and Agarkar opening the bowling. I, for one, am very excited to see Ganguly back.

In this upcoming World Cup, where there is no clear cut 2nd best team, India, in my opinion, are looking pretty cohesive and tough. Thus the upcoming Ind-SL, along with the Pak-SA ODI series, will give us a clue and perhaps enable us to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of the four '2nd best' teams, one of which is most likely going to battle in Australia in the World Cup final in a couple of months.

England finally beat Australia

Australia's utter dominance down under in this Commonwealth Bank series against New Zealand and England made this series quite boring to follow. Though its good to see England finally beating Australia. No doubt, this victory will do them a world of good. I glanced at the points table and both New Zealand and Eng are tied with 9 points apiece. They both have a chance of making it to the final.

The batting finally came together, with Joyce providing the anchor and everyone batting around him. Its tough to score a century anyway, and for his maiden century to be against Australia in such trying times is an even bigger deal.

I'm also pleased to see Australia getting whipped in this game. Arguably, their loss shows their over-reliance on their skipper, Ricky Ponting, who was rested for this game. Now wouldn't it be amusing if England make it to the final and beat Australia? Well, unlikely as that may be, it would the dreamiest way to end this dreadful and demoralizing winter tour.