Kiwis set to take flight to Indian Cricket League?

(Subhas Chandra announcing ICL. Photo/ Zee News)

By Kowalski

An interesting bit of news is coming from the usually quiet Kiwi Land.

Rumour is rife that a couple of top New Zealand cricketers have been lured into playing in the rebel Indian Cricket League by Dean Jones, one of the Directors on the board of this shrouded in controversy league.

But to my utter disappointment, Shane Bond is not one of them. The pacer says no one has shown any interest in him so far and he couldn't care less.

Well, it's a pity for fans like yours truly if he is not one of those high-profile names that have been finalized by Jones because I don't think they'd be bigger than Bond.

But even as we wait for these mystery names to be out in open, greats like Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne have already shown their interest in playing in this so called rebel series.

Looks like Subhash Chandra is all set to give BCCI a run for their money!

Graeme Hick: Colossus in County, underachiever in international arena

By Rico

At last, Graeme Hick had something to cherish when on June 17 he became the 16th batsman to have scored 40,000 first-class runs in the County Championship Division One match against Warwickshire at Edgbaston.

Hick's career has been a unique story. He is a colossus in county cricket, where he continued to churn out the centuries in his sleep for life-long county Worcestershire but never shone in international arena.

He was chosen at 16 years of age for the 1983 Zimbabwe World Cup squad, but did not play in the mega event. He had to wait until hewas 25 and had already made 57 first-class hundreds to play international cricket for England. In 1987, he was named as one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year, mainly on the basis of his county record.

By the time he burst into international scene, public interest in his seeming destiny as a great batsman was intense. He was considered England's Great White Hope and even compared with Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara. But, Hick had a disappointing England career.

He was given a hero's reception by the crowd when he came out to bat in his Test debut at Headingley on June 6, 1991, against the fearful West Indian pace attack. A tortured 51 minutes later, he was back in the pavilion having made only six and his weakness against body-threatening ultra-quick deliveries badly exposed. He was dropped after scores of 0, 43, 0, 19 and 1.

He went on to play 65 tests over a decade, in and out of the England side, scoring 3383 runs at an average of 31.32 with six hundreds and 18 fifties.

Hick's failure in the international arena has been attributed to the perceived technical flaws in his game. He is suspect against the short ball. Atherton felt as early as 1991 that Hick was ''good, but not in the Lara or Tendulkar class.''

Some, like Shane Warne and Ian Botham, felt Hick was the victim of poor man-management -- a player who had been messed around and should have been handled differently.

Steve Waugh opined Hick's success at county, in turn, ruined him as his technical weakness went untested in a ''largely innocuous'' county bowling environment. Hick's international career has been the tragic story of a prodigy turning a cropper, but now he will have at least something to tell his children and grandchildren.

The 40,000 club members: Jack Hobbs (61,760), Frank Woolley (58,959), E H Hendren (57,611), CP Mead (55,061), W G Grace (54,211), Herbert Sutcliffe (50,670),Walter Hammond (50,551),Geoffrey Boycott (48,426), T W Graveney (47,793), Graham Gooch (44,846), T W Hayward (43,551), Dennis Amiss (43,423), Colin Cowdrey (42,719), Andrew Sandham (41,284), Len Hutton (40,140), Graeme Hick (40,000)

Image: nobok.co.uk

Fred-alo and Woolmer’s ghost derailed campaign, Mr Vaughan!

By Kowalski

Sunil Gavaskar once described them as "Champion Whingers", a team which would give any excuse under the sun to cover-up for their shortcomings and Michael Vaughan's latest explanation for England's dismal World Cup campaign kind of justifies the tag!

Believe it or laugh, Vaughan thinks Andrew Flintoff 's drunken night-out on a pedalo after England's loss to New Zealand in their opening group match affected the team morale so badly that their whole planning for the tournament went off the track.

"You have to be honest. The Fred-alo incident did affect the team. It did affect morale. Those incidents are bound to affect team spirit. Suddenly you've got players who have no freedom left. I like to see players enjoy themselves but no one would dare go out after that incident - and you can't create any spirit then.

"That incident changed the whole atmosphere in the camp. We went into the New Zealand game with a really good attitude but we didn't play well and after Fred-alo we just started taking it all too seriously. That might sound silly but everyone was too tense and desperate. There was no escape - and even on the field you have to be pretty free, especially in one-day cricket."

OK, Freddie was a bit, alright terribly, out of form at the World Cup and the whole episode didn't help his cause in anyway but then somebody should remind Mr Vaughan that cricket is a team game.

Remember how the Aussies won the 2003 edition after being rocked by the Shane Warne Doping Scandal.

Vaughan doesn't stop at that, he thinks Bob Woolmer's death, yup it was not a murder after all also bogged down his lads.

"In the World Cup I was more tense than I've ever been as a captain. Duncan [Fletcher] was more tense than he'd ever been as a coach. And sometimes the captain and coach have to look at the way they're acting because the team follows. I didn't captain as well as I should've done because of the pressure I put myself under. I'd openly admit that. But I couldn't switch off because away from the field there was so much going on - with Bob Woolmer and Fred-alo."

Come on Mr Vaughan, Freddie has taken enough flaks for drowning his sorrows – and himself, almost -- and please Woolmer dying in Kingston couldn't have scared you so much at St Lucia that you forgot how to put bat to a ball !

Photo: BBC