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Singing Cockleys and Moises, alive-alive-oh

There has been some consternation among my Australian friends, who are staggered that Australia have chosen some groundsman called Burt Cockley to replace Moises Henriques in their one-day squad (he's being sent home to have that ingrowing 'i' in his name removed).

Cockley, a fast bowler whose main claim to fame is that he used to mow the grass at the North Sydney Oval, has played four list-A games for New South Wales. That's state games, not one-day internationals. He has taken five wickets, four of them on the pitch he used to tend last week. It is a bold selection.

Jarrod, a timid Victorian, suggests that there is a pro-NSW conspiracy, but I think there is another reason why the selectors summoned Burt. It's his name.

Say it. Burt Cockley. What image comes to mind when you say the words Burt Cockley? Well, he sounds like a gardener, for a start, but it is also not the name of a modern Australian cricketer. It is a throwback to another age. In fact, when I first saw a headline saying "Australia summon Burt Cockley", I assumed it was a link to an archive story from the 1930s. Players just aren't called Bert, let alone Burt, any more.

The Australian team used to be full of Burt Cockleys and similar evocative, solid, son-of-the-soil names. Clarrie Grimmett, Wally Grout, Hugh Trumble, Clem Hill, Bert Ironmonger, even the underplayed Hammy Love (which sounds like a bad production of Romeo and Juliet). All were splendid names for Australian cricketers. Even Don Bradman wasn't bad, although Donald would have been better.

Ideally, an Australian Test cricketer should sound like one of the more rural characters in The Archers. I'm surprised they never had a Walter Gabriel or an Eddie Grundy or Sid Perks.

Then came the 1990s and players with effete names like Shane and Ricky and Justin and Nathan. Good players, but embarrassing names. Australia lost something of their history when they started selecting Shanes. They won games, but it felt wrong.

Gradually the selectors are taking a stand against metrosexual names like Ricky and Nathan. Recent selections suggest a return to old-style names that sound like the pioneers who built Australia.

Brett Geeves, Clint McKay, Doug Bollinger, Callum Ferguson. All good old-fashioned names. If the selectors continue this trend, the next players to be called up will be three splendidly named Tasmanians: George Bailey, Tom Triffitt and Gerard Denton. They have the right names, even if the stats don't support them, to restore a sense of historical pride to Australia.

The only mystery - and one that Jarrod would agree with - is why in this climate of selecting players with old-fashioned names, Dirk Nannes, who sounds as 1890s frontier Australian as you could find, cannot get a look-in.

Our South Africans are better than your South Africans

It was a happy homecoming for Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott today. Playing the Diamond Eagles in Bloemfontein, the Joburg-born Strauss made 72 and the Capetonian Trott got 85 to delight their many friends and relations in the crowd. Matt Prior, another Transvaal transplant, got 19, while Eoin Morgan, an Englishman via Dublin, made 67* as the touring side almost posted 300.

Look, it's going to be a long winter tour so if there are any South Africans out there who want to whinge about this selection policy (or even any England fans who think the national side should be reserved for purebloods), go ahead and do it now.

Personally, I'm delighted that so many people want to come and play for England. The more the merrier. And while Trott and Pietersen still sound like saffers (the test is whether they call a barbeque a braai), no one could mistake Strauss and Prior for anything other than Englishmen. Just listen to that voice, just look at those teeth.

Ronercise

There was a sketch on A Bit of Fry & Laurie some years back that featured Stephen Fry doing weird and amusing gyrations as part of a plan to lose weight. "A few years ago a friend put me on to dancercises," he explains to Hugh Laurie. "I won't tell you who this friend was, but if I dropped the hint that it was a prominent quantity surveyor, I'm sure you can probably guess. And the key to dancercise is the rather ingenious coupling of the word 'dance' to the word 'circumcise'."

That came to mind when I stumbled on the video below of Ronni Irani during an international series against Australia. Quite why, I don't know. Maybe Ronnie has a surveyorish air about him.

Anyway, I had an interview with the former Essex captain and talkSPORT broadcaster today for a piece that will be in next week's Times and while doing the usual semi-bored Googling and Cricinfoing that passes for research these days, I came across this footage of Ron in his England days entertaining the Australians with his own "ronercises". Even Nasser Hussain was amused and to judge by what Irani has to say about his former team-mate and captain that is some achievement.

Tendulkar falls inches short

I don't know if Four Weddings and a Funeral was big in India, but you can't blame Sachin Tendulkar if he starts doing an impersonation of Hugh Grant's opening speech in the film this evening.

"F***. &$£%. *&£%.£(^@"

It is not every day that you can make 175 in an international game of cricket and feel so thoroughly miserable. Tendulkar almost broke the record for the highest score in one-day internationals (19 short of Saeed Anwar and Charles Coventry's mark - and 11 short of his own personal best); he almost led India to what would have been the second highest winning score batting second in an ODI (they finished four runs shy of beating Australia's 350-4 and had needed only 19 off 18 balls when Tendulkar was out); he almost kept India's hopes of becoming the world No 1 alive (now that Australia have a 3-2 lead in the seven-match series they cannot be overtaken).

And to cap all that, it was reported today that some 12-year-old kid has beaten one of Tendulkar's earliest feats. One Sarfaraz Khan made 439 off 421 balls in a three-day match for Springfield Rizvi school in Mumbai against the Indian Education Society. When he reached 330, he passed Tendulkar's best as a schoolboy, which he set in 1988 as a 15-year-old.

Sarfaraz then went on to pass the 349 that Vinod Kambli had made in the same game as Tendulkar - they shared a stand of 664 - and by the time he was out Sarfaraz had the highest score ever made in the inter-school Harris Shield tournament.

Beware the Banglas?

It must be pretty grim to be a Zimbabwe fan at the moment. The state of the national side has got so desperate that even an ODI win against Bangladesh, chasing a target of less than 200 last week, is described as "an upset".

Bangladesh have been getting better of late - with five wins against higher-ranked opponents in ODIs in the past two years and a first Test series win away from home, albeit against the West Indies second XI - but it is more a reflection of Zimbabwe's weakness that their win in the first ODI was seen as a surprise.

Normal service has since been resumed. Shakib Al Hasan, the Bangladesh captain, vowed after the defeat that his side could still win the series 4-1 and if they win the final match tomorrow then that will be the case. But it is not just that Bangladesh have been beating Zimbabwe, they have hammered them.

In the second ODI, Bangladesh won with 123 balls to spare (Shakib making 105*); the third ODI featured a batting collapse by Bangladesh, but they still won by four wickets with almost ten overs in hand; and then, in the fourth match, they dismissed Zimbabwe for 44 and won with 229 balls unbowled.

Zimbabwe are hopeless, but I don't think England should take Bangladesh too lightly this winter. Shakib has introduced a certain steel into their play (his fuming at his side because they had not won the third game easily enough shows that) and they have some bright talented young bowlers and batsmen. You would expect an England side to beat them in Tests and ODIs even if they leave a few leading players at home. But they are now a significant banana skin - on their own wickets if not yet abroad.

Certainly, Bangladesh have developed enough that defeat in an ODI to them in Chittagong would not necessarily be termed an upset.

Scores to settle

The knives - or rather the sharpened pencils - are out among the fraternity of cricket scorers, who are disgruntled at being treated like second-class citizens, according to a piece in today's Times by Ivo Tennant.

Some scorers say they have not yet been paid for work during the World Twenty20 in June. They are also miffed that the accreditation process was laborious and that they were unable to get tea because they had to queue with the public and didn't have enough time. "It was what one might expect at a club Sunday third XI fixture," one scorer sniffs.

The ECB replies that if bills have not been paid, it is because the scorers were slow to get their invoices in and that the rules for accreditation were quite clear. If there were problems, it is the scorers' own fault.

I have some sympathy for scorers because in my wild and reckless youth I was one of them. Indeed, I was the scorer for the Essex Under-16s when I was at school. My English teacher was the manager and knew that I liked cricket - but also knew how poor I was at playing it. He arranged for me to score for the school first XI and then for the county. It may not be as glamorous as opening the batting at Lord's, but I have announced bowling changes over the PA system at Chelmsford.

I always found that I was well treated. I ate lunch and tea with the players, drank with them after the game and was even allowed to join in their fielding practice (for all the good it did me). On one occasion, when a school side arrived with only ten players, I was offered up as a substitute fielder. It was a cunning plan by our captain that backfired when I caught him out at square leg.

I'm not suggesting that should be the model for international cricket - although it is probably safer to play pre-match football with a sexagenarian scorer than with Owais "Psycho" Shah (just ask Joe Denly) - but more could be done to make scorers feel valued. Lord knows they aren't that well rewarded financially: barely £100 a day for a Test that involves continuous concentration from start to well after the finish.

My solution would be to place the match scorers in the press box. We already have a press scorer, whom the journalists find tremendously useful to consult, but there is no reason why the official match scorers can't be in there as well, so long as they don't fight with our man over whether a leg-bye had been signalled or not. They can communicate the scores to the scoreboard by computer.

Not only does it place them on hand should we have any questions, but it means that by lumping them in with the press they get the same privileges. The Surrey scorer complained that it took him 90 minutes to get his accreditation for the World Twenty20 and that he had to queue with temporary cleaning staff. This is clearly wrong. It took me all of five minutes to stroll to a desk in a hotel near Lord's, produce a passport and get my pass. It should be as simple for the scorers.

Putting them in with the press would also tackle their most pressing problem: how to get a cup of tea and a sandwich at the interval. They can come and share the scoff with the hacks. Just as long as they leave a slice or two of cake for me.

Batting for (and by) beginners

I don't know if the England team analyst, who is also Stuart Broad's sister, ever reads this blog, but on the off-chance that she is passing by, the following photos may help her and Andy Flower to prepare England properly for the challenges ahead this winter. They were taken at Lord's earlier this year as my Kirby Strollers charity side prepared for what would be a glorious, undefeated summer (won one, drew one). Look and learn (and click on each image for a larger view)...

This is Richard, opening bat and all-time leading run-scorer in the history of the Strollers. Note the perfect balance, eyes looking straight at the ball out of the bowler's hand, feet poised ready to step back and cut or forward to drive. Like a larger, more ginger David Gower. His wife took the photos and somehow didn't forward me any of the ones of him slashing and missing (or indeed any of him hitting the ball).

Now this is Gareth, our Kolpak South African. Went to school with Kevin Pietersen and was a champion tennis player in his youth. Clubs the ball like a Neanderthal bagging a new wife. A flamboyant stroke-maker, rather than a nurdler: this was one of many balls that disappeared back down the net. Got run out while batting with his brother-in-law in our second game. Opponents should note that this is his only weakness.

John, modelling a Ray Bright-style beard that had sadly disappeared by the second half of the season, shows the perfect finishing position for a cover-drive. The ball seen trickling past his left foot was, he maintains, Photoshopped in at a later date. Opened the batting in the first match of the season but came in at No 8 in the second because, along with three other team members, he didn't arrive until half an hour into the game. Ian Bell should give that a go. Or perhaps not turn up at all?

The captain demonstrates his own unique approach to batting, modelled on that of Serena Williams. Note how he takes the "back and across" method to an extreme degree, almost stepping on first slip before playing the ball in front of middle stump. Is he trying to pull or cut or even play a straight drive? He doesn't know either. Tell KP to have a second helping from the braai and then try to copy this.

Lest we forget

One of our final links with the Golden Age of cricket has been broken with the death on Saturday of Hugh Dinwiddy, the last man to have played first-class cricket with Don Bradman and Jack Hobbs, as Martin Williamson notes on Cricinfo.

Dinwiddy played a handful of games for Cambrige University and Kent in the early 1930s, including a match against Surrey at Blackheath in which he made 45 (coincidentally I was at the same ground on the day he died watching the local rugby club beat Nuneaton). Hobbs, then 50 and in his penultimate season, made a hundred.

In 1934, Dinwiddy played for Cambridge against the touring Australians and scored exactly the same number of runs as Bradman - he was out for a duck. A year later, he played his final first-class game (Dinwiddy, not Bradman alas) and went on to teach and serve in the Navy. One point of interest for Terry Wise, this blog's regular reader in Uganda, is that Dinwiddy later helped to establish Makerere University in Kampala, for which he was appointed OBE.

Dinwiddy's death and the impending poppyfest that is Remembrance Sunday should make us cherish the few remaining links we have with the pre-war past. Earlier this year, the last person to see WG Grace play died and there are surely few around now who saw Hobbs or Sutcliffe or Larwood in their pomp. Anyone who saw England win their last Ashes Test at Lord's for 75 years in 1934 would now be in their 80s or older. Even Bradman's Invincibles is more than 60 years past.

I would love to hear from any readers - or their grandchildren - who saw the great names of pre-war cricket. What was Hutton like at the crease? Did he bat differently when he returned after the war with one arm shorter than the other? How great could Farnes have been if he hadn't been killed in action? Was George Headley really as good as Bradman? How graceful was Hammond, how wily O'Reilly?

If you have any good stories or memories from your relatives who may have seen these players, do get in touch and share them.

Why do we not love umpires any more?

Sad news: as you may have read elsewhere on this website David Shepherd, the popular former umpire, died last night at the age of 68.

With his ruddy cheeks, broad West Country way of saying "lunch gentlemen" and his reputation for fairness and accuracy, Shepherd was much loved. He stood in 92 Tests and more than 150 ODIs, having earlier been a solid journeyman pro for Gloucestershire.

A sign of how respected he was came in his final year as an international umpire, in 2005, when the ICC offered to put aside their rule about neutral umpires so that Shep could stand in one final Ashes series. He turned them down, but was touched by the offer.

It is a sad fact of modern cricket that umpires are less loved now than they once were. When I started following the game, the likes of Shep, Dickie Bird, Mervyn Kitchen, Sri Venkat, Steve Bucknor, Lloyd Barker, David Constant and others were tremendously popular with players and fans alike. As kids, we would try and get the umpires' autographs after county matches. Their mannerisms and quirks were adored, rather than mocked.

It is hard to think of modern umpires who are loved. Some, such as Simon Taufel or Aleem Dar, are respected; others, like Daryl Harper, Rudi Koertzen or Billy Bowden, cause amusement but their judgment is often critisicised (unfairly, I'd say). The constant, ever-intrusive gaze of TV cameras means that the human failings of our officials, who are better trained and probably more accurate than they ever were, are picked to pieces.

As fans we are often too harsh on officials. They do not mean to make mistakes and when they do it deeply hurts them. When Shepherd made several howlers in the 2001 Old Trafford Test against Pakistan, he was mortified and apparently came close to retiring. Yet the players respected the fact he did his best and was unbiased. There would have been protests if he had stood down early after one duff game.

Shep was an umpire in an age when players and officials realised they were on the same side. Mutual respect came from mutual honesty. Of course, players still tried to cheat but they were not outraged when they were found out. They did not try to blame their dismissals on bad decisions.

One comment from Tatenda Taibu when Shep stood down in 2005 sticks in the mind. He was playing in his third Test for Zimbabwe as an 18-year-old and he got a thin bat-pad to a ball from Harbhajan Singh, which was deflected to short leg. Taibu walked off and later said: "After the day's play Shepherd came to me and said, 'Well walked young man, I hadn't seen the edge, thank you.'"

Many players would have been cursing their honesty even four years later - "I'd have made a hundred if I hadn't walked" - but Taibu was chuffed that the umpire had sought him out. "Since then I have been full of respect for him," Taibu said. "If a man of his stature can find time to thank a young boy who is only playing his third Test, it's just heart warming."

It is a great shame that this friendship and camaraderie between players and umpires is dying out.

The northern "prejudice"

James Anderson is "gutted" not to be Andrew Strauss's vice-captain for England's tour to Australia this winter. The reason he was not given the responsibility, apparently, is because he is a bowler and from the North.

I suspect that Anderson was speaking with a wry smile, rather than a chip on his shoulder, but he has a point, although it is the bowler bit, rather than coming from the North, that really counts against him.

England have had only three captains in the past 60 years who were fast bowlers. Andrew Flintoff and Ian Botham found the extra responsibility too much. Only Bob Willis (seven wins and six draws in 18 Tests) had much joy. You then have to go back to Gubby Allen to find a fast bowler who captained England - and he lost the 1936 Ashes after leading 2-0. Fast bowlers simply do not make good England captains.

The world was, of course, a happier place when England's captains were all batsmen and gentlemen amateurs from the Home Counties who could rock up on the morning of a Test after a quick hour's work shuffling their share portfolios in the City, introduce themselves to the collection of miners who had been dragged away from the pitface to form the England bowling attack and order them into battle.

We may not have won that often, but that was hardly as important as having the right sort of chap to introduce the players to the King during the luncheon interval. You could hardly trust a bowler - especially a northern one - with that sort of responsibility.

The "anti-Northern" argument is less credible now. Sixty-two of England's past 92 Tests were led by men from the North (Vaughan and Flintoff). Mike Atherton had 54 Tests in charge from 1993-2001. Chuck in Paul Collingwood and his 25 ODIs as captain and the North has been reasonably well represented.

Going back over time, though, the South has held sway. If you don't count Willis (born in Sunderland but raised in Surrey), the last northerner to captain England before Atherton was Geoff Boycott, who had four Tests 16 years earlier. Northerners like Mike Denness, a Scot, and Ray Illingworth, whose 31 Tests as England captain came after he left Yorkshire for Leicestershire, had to move south if they wanted a look-in.

Yet with the exception of men from Middlesex (Mike Brearley, Mike Gatting and Andrew Strauss) and an aberration for Surrey and Peter May in 1956, the rule of thumb since the war is that if you want to win the Ashes you need someone born in or playing for Yorkshire in charge (Len Hutton won it twice, Illingworth and Michael Vaughan once each).

Anderson's problem is not that he is a northerner, it is that he plays for Lancashire. Just look at what happened when Flintoff was captain. Perhaps he should follow the young Vaughan's example and cross the Pennines if he wants to captain a successful side? That and work harder on his batting.

200% effort

Younus Khan is back as Pakistan captain after the briefest of resignations (you're not considered a proper Pakistan captain until you have resigned at least once) and he is determined to do as well as he can for his country, even if it means cloning himself to do so.

That is the implication of his press conference today. "I used to play 100 per cent," he said. "Now I have to play 200 per cent."

Rather makes Kevin Pietersen's promises to play at 110 per cent look half-hearted.

A question of cricket

Poor old Monty Panesar seems to have gone out of fashion faster than Friends Reunited. Seemingly loved a year ago, he is now England's third-choice spinner and former team-mates are sticking the knife in.

The latest to have a pop is Michael Vaughan, who wrote in his diary, serialised in The Times, that "Monty is really starting to irritate me with his lack of cricket knowledge".

One wonders what he means. It could be a general lack of awareness and unwillingness to get involved in a game, but perhaps Panesar has been coming last in the team quiz nights, always confusing Raymond and Richard Illingworth and Herbert and Bert Sutcliffe. I can see why that would irritate.

Or was it something deeper? Maybe Monty really knows nothing about cricket, its customs, traditions and rules. Does that explain why he always appeals so excitedly for leg-before when the ball is missing first slip? Maybe he just doesn't know the lbw rule.

To test out this theory, I watched the tape of the last game Vaughan and Panesar played together (against South Africa at Edgbaston in 2008) and tried to lip-read their conversation. This is what I think they said.

Vaughan Monty, old chap, will you go and field at mid on for a while?

Panesar Yes, yes, mid on. I know where that is. [starts to wander to third man]

Vaughan No, over there. To the right of the umpire

Panesar The what now? The vampire?

Vaughan Umpire. The man in the white coat.

Panesar I thought he was a dentist. Why do people keep saying "ow that hurts" to him?

Vaughan They're saying "Owzat". It's what bowlers say when they want a wicket.

Panesar Why are they wicked? Is it because they are throwing the ball at the batsman's stick pile? It looks like it took him ages to balance those little ones on the top of the big ones.

Vaughan That's the whole point of the game! We try to hit their sticks, they try to stop us and if the ball hits the batsman's leg and would have gone on to hit the sticks then the bowler says "Owzat" to the vampire, I mean the dentist, I mean the umpire, and we all celebrate if he raises his finger.

Panesar This sounds like a fun game. What did you say it was called again?

Flight needed for 15 tired Trinibagoans

Bad enough that Trinidad & Tobago should lose the final of the Champions League today, but it seems that they may also be struggling to find a flight home.

Apparently, the organisers booked their return flight from the Champions League for Monday, not thinking that they would make even the semi-finals, and having lasted a few days longer they have found there are not enough seats left on this weekend's flights back to the Caribbean.

Normally this would be no big deal - go and do some sightseeing in India - but the West Indies domestic tournament starts next Wednesday and T&T have to get back for a match in Guyana. They asked the West Indies board if they could delay the first fixture by a few days - what with being the pride of the Caribbean and all that after their exploits in India - but of course that would have made common sense so the board said no.

As things stand, the Trinidad team may well have to make their way back to the Caribbean on separate flights and then it's just a question of hoping that enough players and kit show up in Guyana next week.

Hoggy to Chelmsford?

Matthew Hoggard may be only the fourth best cricketer to come out of Pudsey* (the Yorkshire village, not the ophthalmically-challenged charity bear) but he remains a fine catch after his county cruelly chucked him on to the scrapheap a fortnight after he took a Championship hat-trick.

Leicestershire were straight in with an offer, but if he doesn't fancy the idea of life at the bottom of the second division there are other options. Sussex and Middlesex are keen on him (second division again), but now comes news that Essex are also in the market.

"Yes we possibly would be," says Paul Grayson, which is surely enough to send my friend Nightwatchgirl, who has a schoolgirl crush on the tousle-haired scamp, into a frenzy about her dreamboat coming down south.

We have a good track record of taking disaffected northerners at Essex and giving them a happy time: Darren Gough, Ronnie Irani, Geoff Miller... A future career on Hole on the Wall or TalkSPORT or as a national selector beckons if Hoggy just takes the A12 exit from the M25.

Disturbingly, though, Grayson said that Hoggard rang him to see if Essex would be interested. They go back some years together and we have all called in favours from mates occasionally, but it seems quite sad that someone with Hoggy's pedigree (and relative youth) needs to go round begging for a game off his friends, rather than clubs bashing his door down.

Hoggy: if you ever want to turn out for my Kirby Strollers side, we'll happily have you. We'll even let you bat as high as No 7.

* For those in doubt, the other famous cricketers from Pudsey who might have a claim to be better than Hoggy are Len Hutton, Herbert Sutcliffe and Ray Illingworth

Trini Posse v Blues Brothers

We're a couple of hours away from the final of the Twenty20 Champions League. Trinidad & Tobago against New South Wales Blues. Excited? Or do you have as much enthusiasm for this as 99% of the Indian audience, to judge by the TV ratings?

I'd be interested to know what Line & Length readers have thought of the tournament. Have you watched any games? Have you been following it on the web? Do you think it is just another tournament too far for tired players? How can it work better? Is it better than the IPL?

For what it's worth - and I concede that having been out there for the first week I may have a biased view - I like this tournament. Despite some low-scoring games, the matches have generally been exciting, with a higher proportion than usual coming down to the last couple of overs with either side in contention.

If it has had a problem it is that the tournament sits uneasily between a busy summer and a busy winter. There are only ten months between the second World Twenty20 and the third, in the Caribbean in April, and in between there is a Champions Trophy, an Ashes, a one-day series between India and Australia, a Test and one-day one between England and South Africa, countless other trips here and there. It is hard to become memorable on such a heavy diet of cricket.

Some have complained that it has been missing some of the game's big stars. No Tendulkar or Pietersen or Smith or Sangakkara or Clarke or Dhoni or Murali or Gayle. No Pakistanis at all, save Sussex's Yasir Arafat, (and they, after all, are the Twenty20 world champions).

Yet there has been plenty of stardust. Sehwag did his best to get Delhi buzzing and J-P Duminy has been arguably the player of the tournament. Jacques Kallis had a good game. Brett Lee and Dwayne Bravo always entertained. And new heroes emerged and excited: Rilee Rossouw, Andrew McDonald, Cornelius de Villiers, Alfonso Thomas...

Football's Champions League works because it is spread over a year and teams play each other home and away. Interest ebbs and flows between games. That won't work in cricket with England's nearest neighbours, Pakistan and the West Indies, being an eight-hour flight away. If only the Germans played cricket...

And yet there is the seed of a good tournament here and it has received the best finalists it could have wished for, even if Cape Cobras and Bangalore Royal Challengers have had their moments.

Trinidad have barely had a dull game (perhaps their win over Somerset was an exception) and if the final is anywhere near as good as their second-round win against the same opponents, we are in for a cracker. New South Wales are ruthlessly efficient, which could suggest that they are boring, but it is hard to claim that when Brett Lee is bowling yorkers and conceding only a couple of runs in the closing overs.

Will Moises Henriques start to whimper when he sees Keiron Pollard, above, again, who turned the Australian's fine opening figures of six runs off two overs, into a nightmare by taking 42 off Henriques' next nine balls?

Will David Warner and Phillip Hughes, right, click for the fourth game in a row, having put 121 for the first wicket against Trinidad, 56 in 28 balls against Somerset and 62 in seven overs in the semi-final against Victoria? In five games, Warner and Hughes have each scored almost 200 runs, which suggests that even if they are surplus to Australia's requirements at the moment they remain among the most deadly openers out there.

Will a West Indian side again win a match with spin, as they did against Somerset? Will Daren Ganga again raise the case for him to be West Indies captain with a confident display on the field and an eloquent one in the press conference afterwards?

Will it be interesting? Will it be relevant? I certainly hope so.

Behind every great man...

I always enjoy Cricinfo's lists and recommend the latest on the most memorable assorted female relatives associated with international cricketers. As well as the usual suspects - Mitchell Johnson's mother, Geoff Boycott's grandmother, Ian Botham's mother-in-law, Andrew Flintoff's daughter, who he fears visiting bars in Manchester - there are a few that were new to me.

Sachin Tendulkar was taught cricket by his female babysister and Jacques Kallis's sister, apparently, is a cheerleader in the IPL and rather miffed her brother by dancing so enthusiastically when he was dismissed playing for Bangalore. "She didn't have to look so pleased," Kallis complained.

Then there is Yuvraj Singh's mother, who embarrassed her son by saying that the ideal wife for him, given the amount of travelling he does, is someone "who can pack well and take care of his clothes".

My favourite, though, is Runako Morton's grandmother, whose "death" gave her grandson an excuse to bunk off training with the West Indies. Only problem was that someone ratted on him. It turned out one grandmother had died 16 years earlier while the other one was alive and well. As Cricinfo says: "Morton was given a one-year ban by the West Indies board for killing off the old lady."

Too much, too much

One plus of there being no Indian teams in the semi-finals of the Champions League is that it gives both their players and their fans a bit of a break before the next challenge: a seven-match ODI series with Australia. The same cannot be said for quite a few of the Australia team.

I knew the series was coming up but didn't realise how soon. Ricky Ponting addressed the media in Mumbai today, having arrived there with less than two thirds of a squad. Six of his 15 players were already in the country for the Champions League. In the first semi-final today, New South Wales, featuring Brett Lee, Doug Bollinger and Nathan Hauritz, play a Victoria side with Cameron White, Peter Siddle and Jon Holland.

If Brad Haddin and Michael Clarke, both of NSW, had been fit, that would have been more than half the squad who would have arrived for a tour a fortnight before their captain. Tim Neilsen would have needed only to book a roomy Mercedes E-Class to transport the team from Mumbai airport to their hotel rather than a coach. Ben Hilfenhaus and Mitchell Johnson will probably wear themselves out before the first game through being overbowled in the nets.

And of those six Australians playing today, three will not be returned to Ponting until Saturday, the day before the first ODI with India in Vadodara, which is 1,000km from Hyderabad, where the Champions League final is being played.  Great for acclimatisation, pretty lousy for resting before a big series.

It is a well-worn argument, but this has to stop. There is too much cricket being played. It wearies the players, bores the spectators and ultimately devalues the whole thing. There is no reason, save financial, why this had to be a seven-match series, no more than the England v Australia series had to be fought over seven games in September, although there was a certain black humour in seeing how many consecutive matches England could lose.

Wouldn't it be nice if the ICC did something to address this. Instead of organising Aids-awareness seminars or trying to expand the game into China and Vanuatu or stopping people bringing the wrong brand of cola or any brand of booze into stadiums, wouldn't it be a great idea if the ICC could say "enough is enough".

Like endless repeats of Fawlty Towers (the one with the Americans was on UK Gold for the second night in a row yesterday and the 85th time this year), too much of a good thing can turn people off. Even something as wonderful as cricket. Let's keep ODI series to a best-of-five maximum.

The price of failure

This was not in the script. Indeed, some might claim it was not even in the contract that the IPL teams signed with the Twenty20 Champions League. Tomorrow we reach the semi-finals of the tournament and there is no Indian team involved. As this picture shows, one hapless minion of Lalit Modi has already paid the price for failing to fix it for at least one side to progress.

Nothing is more terrifying than a disappointed Modi. I have this vision of him leaning forward into a microphone, like a Bond villain, and growling the order "Kill him" after a lackey has let him down.

Deccan, the champions, were knocked out in the first round and Bangalore, having lost their opening second-round match to Victoria, managed to kill all remaining Indian interest by beating Delhi to ensure they could not go through either. Instead we have New South Wales v Victoria and Trinidad & Tobago v Cape Cobras, with the winners meeting in Friday's final. I wonder if anyone will show up to watch?

The attendances for games not involving IPL teams have been very disappointing and even the crowds for the Indian games have been somewhere short of capacity. This is a shame, not least because tickets were on sale for as little as 200 rupees (about £2.65), but I wonder what interest there would be in this country for a game between, say, Otago and Victoria at Old Trafford?

The Champions League will take a while to catch the imagination, as Modi told me when we chatted during Bangalore's win against Otago last week. Nine out of the 12 teams taking part are unknown to most Indian fans and it will be a few years before posters of James Hildreth and Rory Hamilton-Brown are on every Delhi schoolboy's bedroom wall.

But it deserves to succeed. I like the concept - more than I like the IPL - and there have been some thrilling matches. Looking at the bookmakers' odds, it is hard to separate the remaining four - NSW are 9-4, Victoria and T&T 11-4 and the Cobras 15-4 - but surely every impartial watcher will be up for Trinidad.

They have a great story, bringing respect back to the Caribbean in what Daren Ganga, their captain, poetically called a "crap" period for West Indies cricket, and their come-from-behind wins against NSW and Deccan have really caught the imagination. With several players with Indian ancestors in their team (the Ganga brothers, Ravi Rampaul, Denesh Ramdin, Dave Mohammed), perhaps the local audiences in Hyderabad, where their semi-final and the final will be played, will find a team to cheer on as one of their own on Thursday and, maybe, Friday.

Twenty20 hits a new low

It only took Jharkand 20 balls to win their match in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy today (the Indian regional Twenty20 contest and a must-watch in our household). That's because they had dismissed the hapless Tripura for just 30, the lowest score recorded in professional Twenty20.

It beat the previous low of 47, made by the Titans against the Eagles in South Africa's Pro20 in 2004, but the Eagles then took a whole 67 balls in chasing it down.

No such sloth from Jharkand, who reached 32 in just 14 minutes and with 100 balls remaining. That is also a record, beating Mumbai's eight-wicket win with 87 balls left against Kolkata in the first IPL.

Well done Tripura, a team after my own heart. I had thought it odd that a Twenty20 competition would be named after a deceased Test player who had never even played one-day cricket, but according to Wisden's obituary, Mushtaq Ali, who played 11 Tests between 1934 and 1952, was "tall and debonair, often with a kerchief knotted jauntily round his neck".

Keith Miller described him as "the Errol Flynn of cricket - dashing, flamboyant, swashbuckling and immensely popular wherever he played", while Neville Cardus wrote: "He transforms the bat into a conjuror's wand." Sounds like the ideal character to associate with Twenty20.

Naked Ambition

There will be some disappointed Sheilas (or even Bruces of the right persuasion) out there in Oz-land when they unwrap their Men of Cricket 2010 calendar on Christmas Day.

3 Mobile has sponsored one of those nearly-nude calendars of international cricketers to raise money for the McGrath Foundation, a thoroughly deserving charity which lifts awareness of breast cancer, but despite the promise in the press release I received this morning that "Aussie cricketers reveal (almost) all for charity", it seems that Mitch, Watto, Kato and the rest have taken only their tops off.

To a man, they have kept not only their Reg Grundies on, but are even wearing jeans. Perhaps it was a chilly day. 

I'm not complaining myself, of course. But this is a public service of Line and Length to warn readers who are expecting to see tight buns and perhaps a strategically placed middle stump that the calendar nowhere near reveals all. Not that that should stop you buying the calendar or donating to the foundation's Pink Zinc campaign.

Although Mitchell "Mr February" Johnson keeps himself semi-clad, he does reveal a curious tattoo on his left side. It seems to be of some particularly muscled cat or panther, ready to pounce. Anyone know the significance? I hear that it originated in a dream he had. Johnson also has the Indian aum symbol tattooed on his neck, apparently because he saw it on a cover of a CD and liked it.

While not as prolific as they are in football, tattoos are making their way into cricket. Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff have plenty, of course, and Michael Clarke has his Test number, 389, picked out in Roman numerals on his lower back.

However, the number appears as three digits - III, VIII and IX - rather than CCCLXXXIX, as 389 should properly be done. Perhaps the tattooist wasn't paying attention in Latin class. Or maybe he was charging Clarke by the letter he could only do straight lines.