Cricket Please !!!

Unfortunately, side issues and ugly ones at that, are obscuring the world of cricket at the moment.

Of course, the sordid Zimbabwe affair continues to haunt the game. Here is what Des Wilson, former chairman of the ECB's corporate affairs, says in The Guardian, one of the organizations that was most surprisingly allowed in by Mugabe. Now, it turns out that everyone has been allowed access.

Sadder, at least from a purely cricketing point of view, is the contract crisis in the Caribbean. The West Indies are one of my favorite teams and it is really disappointing that just when they were looking at better times -- what with the Champions Trophy victory and the appointment of Bennett King as coach -- this crisis should crop up. Hopefully, it is resolved soon just as the crisis in India was in 2002.

And the perennial chucking controversy is alive and kicking as well as Amit Verma provides some very interesting insights here.

In the midst of all this mire, at the cost of sounding repetitive, I once again thank Sehwag for the simplicity and unadulterated joy he brings to the game. This article by Sambit Bal is excellent. It makes some attempts to understand the incredible phenomenon that is Sehwag and would be of great interest to non-Indian fans, who do not know him as closely as we do.

Finally, isn't there a Test match starting in Adelaide today? Great! Something to take us back to pure and simple cricket!!!