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West Indies, Australia end 2007 on a high

Well done West Indies for winning, astoundingly, their first overseas Test for seven and a half years (as always Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are excised from these statistics). I must admit to having doubts when I boldly wrote yesterday that there was no chance of South Africa chasing more than 350 to win, but West Indies bowled excellently and did not flap, as they could have easily done, when Kallis and De Villiers added 112 for the sixth wicket. All the bowlers did their bit and they seem, for the first time in a while, to have a pace quartet of genuine pace, accuracy and venom.

John Dyson, the new coach, must take some of the credit for instilling belief into the team (as should Chris Gayle, the new captain). Naturally, Dyson is Australian. These guys just don't know how to lose, do they? Except for Geoff Lawson with Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Ricky Ponting and Co roll on, winning the first Test against India in disappointingly easy fashion. The worry is that India would probably still beat most other sides on the same wicket. Is it just psychological? Have Australia become impossible to beat? We need someone to shake them, instil a bit of the doubt that England did in 2005. Can't Sreesanth be brought in to bowl at Hayden's nose? Can't the much vaunted golden batsman build a long innings any more? I was looking forward to this series so much but after one Test it has gone flat. Boo.

Cricket's biggest scandal

Clive Radley, head coach at MCC, and Rachel Heyhoe-Flint, the former England women's captain, have been cricket's winners in the New Year's Honours List today. Radley gets and MBE and RHF has an OBE, but where is Graham Gooch's knighthood for services to scoring hundreds while looking thoroughly Eeyore-like? An MBE for Ronnie Irani wouldn't have been out of order, either.

West Indies collapse in sight of victory - but should still win

While Australia continue to stroll towards victory in Melbourne, at least West Indies are showing us how to win with style. Well placed an hour before the close of the third day in their Test against South Africa in Port Elizabeth, some 330 runs ahead with eight wickets in hand in their second innings, the Windies had one of those truly nasty collapses that only they and England can have, dropping from 122 for two to 144 for eight. And yet, at 359 runs ahead, they should still win. The highest run-chase at the ground in the 118 years it has staged Test cricket is 271.

If anything, the collapse may have increased the chance of a West Indies win, removing any reticence about when to declare. Jerome Taylor, Daren Powell and Fidel Edwards, the remaining batsmen, will be told to make the best use of their meagre batting talents as quickly as possible before resuming their normal roles and attempting to make inroads into South Africa before lunch.

The thing I have been most impressed with is Chris Gayle's flagrant disregard for the usual convention that a captain should be a bit more careful when he bats, especially if he opens the innings, than usual. Gayle put the game just about beyond reach today when, having patiently waited a full nine balls, he hit Dale Steyn for 19 runs in the fifth over, including a top-edged six over fine leg. His innings of 29 off 22 balls was scored at a similar rate to his 66 off 49 balls in the first innings. It made up for the turgid yawnsome batting of Darren Ganga, who had raced to four by the tenth over and scored 45 of a couple of thousand balls, or so it seemed, before being run out. In fact, these two complement each other well. Caution and flair seem the ideal blend at the top of the order for West Indies.

Statto-geekery reveals Lee's impressive streak

There has been justified praise of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, whose innings of 104 today against South Africa not only put West Indies in a winnable position but was his seventh consecutive innings of 50 or better. Only Everton Weekes (named after the famous football club, Weekes United) and Andy Flower have done the same.

But statto-geek that I am, I have spotted an almost as impressive streak that continued in Australia earlier in the day when Brett Lee dismissed Anil Kumble. It gave the fast bowler his 250th Test wicket, the sixth Australian to do so, but also meant that he had taken at least three wickets for the eighth consecutive innings. He later got the wicket of Zaheer Khan, meaning that he has taken four wickets in his past five Test innings, all of them since Glenn McGrath retired. So much for Australia being a weaker side. Lee has stood up to the extra responsibility and responded in terrific fashion.

If five-fors get as much attention (places on honours boards and ball-waving to the crowd and all that) as hundreds, then for my money a three-for is worth the same as a batsman reaching 50. There is more scope for a bowler to fail to take three wickets for reasons not within his control (ie, other bowlers doing well or teams declaring) than there is for a batsman not reaching 50. Thus, I would argue, Brett Lee's achievement is even better than Chanderpaul's or at least comparable.

It is almost as rare. In an idle half-hour today, I checked the career figures of the usual suspects and reckon that Lee's eight consecutive three-fors has been matched or bettered by only six men. Charlie Turner did eight in a row in the 1880s (and seven of his were five-fors) as did Sydney Barnes and Imran Khan. Clarrie Grimmett took three wickets or more with the final nine innings of his leg-spinning career.

Waqar Younis also took nine three-fors in a row and then, astonishingly, followed it with 14 in succession in Tests from 1992-94. I thought that would be the record, but of course Muttiah Muralitharan trumped them all. He has gone on a streak of ten or more three-fors on four occasions, the most being in 2006-07 when he had 16 notable innings in a row. Just another eight more needed by Lee, then.

Hair-brained

I don't normally make fun of typos and slips in other people's copy, not least because there but for the grace of dog go I, but there were a glaring couple of mistakes that appeared in Michael Beloff's round-up of sport and the law in The Daily Telegraph yesterday. Near the end, he refers to "Australian umpire Darryl Hair" and his suit for race discrimination against the ICC which was abandoned, Beloff says, "after eight days of hearing".

It's bad enough that Beloff should get the spelling of Darrell wrong, but he is out by two days on the length of the trial, unless he is including the weekend, when the court did not sit. Play was abandoned first thing in the morning of the seventh day. A good sub-editor should have picked these mistakes up, but they are almost inexcusable given that Beloff was the QC who represented the ICC in that very trial. Or was eight days the number that he billed?

Incidentally, Hair has just completed a month-long Neuro-Linguistic Programming course for the ICC, which was part of the rehabilitation programme he had to undergo in exchange for dropping the lawsuit. It sounds like they are turning him into an emotionless cyborg, but they already have Simon Taufel for that. Apparently it has something to do with improving his flexibility and communications skills.

He will umpire a couple of Intercontinental Cup matches in Dubai next month and is due to be involved with the Under-19 World Cup in February, around the time that the ICC will decide whether to renew his contract and, presumably, allow him to stand in Tests again. With India and Sri Lanka saying they have no problem with Hair now that he has served his time, the only stumbling block to him being reinstated is Pakistan but I imagine they have rather more important things than cricket to concern them right now.

No Christmas presents from Australia

So now I know what I've been doing wrong with my fielding all these years. I've been trying to keep my eyes on the ball when attempting a catch, rather than gazing at a point about a foot above the ball. Still, these Australians are so good they can all probably bat, bowl and catch with their eyes shut.

Shane Warne may think that the era of Australian dominance is coming to an end but there were few signs of it on the second day of their keenly awaited Test series with India. And to think that we were getting excited because it looked as if Australia would be bowled out for under 300 on the first day. First, the tail took them towards 350 and then Stuart Clark and Brett Lee shut India out for 196. Good to see Tendulkar make some runs on what is probably his final tour of Australia, but chances are that this match will be wrapped up on the fourth day. Australia kill any anticipation for a tense series as quickly as a child seeing his mother kissing Santa on Christmas Eve.

Two things to look out for on day 3: if Hayden makes another 22 runs, he will be the fifth fastest to 8,000, beating Ricky Ponting by one innings; and if Hussey makes 102 runs in his next two innings, he will be the second fastest to 2,000, behind Bradman.

Meanwhile, at least there is a game on in Port Elizabeth, where West Indies are nudging up towards 350 with four wickets in hand as I type. One of my wishes for 2008 is for West Indies to be competitive in overseas Tests, so at least they are making South Africa work in this match.

Turkey tikka masala

Line and Length would like to wish a very merry Christmas to all our friends and readers around the world. Do let us know your cricketing thoughts over the festive season.

One email arrived this morning from Mathew Gullick, who is touring India with the England lawyers XI, acclimatising himself to conditions before the start of the inaugural Lawyers Cricket World Cup. Mat will be keeping us posted with our plucky bloodsuckers as they get smashed by lawyers from all parts of the Commonwealth this winter.

He writes: "My first dispatch from India contains very little cricket news: I managed to get my kit on the plane (though excess baggage charges were eye-watering) and landed in India safely a week ago.  Since then I have sent the kit down to Hyderabad (no doubt it will arrive at the wrong hotel, turn up months later back home, etc), and have spent four days in Delhi and three in Jaisalmer near the Pakistan border before coming back on the overnight sleeper to Jaipur.  Cricket really is a national obsession in this country, and wherever I go I am asked about it - ages from 10 to 60 were discussing the Indian team selection for Australia in our sleeper compartment late last night!

"I have done lots of touristy things - been to the Taj Mahal, gone on a desert camel trek, etc, but now thoughts are turning to the tournament.  With a few hours to spare in Jaipur I thought I'd see what has been posted on the web about it, and have discovered these two - one story from the Times of India about the Pakistan team's difficulties, and a website uncannily like our own blog from the Sri Lankan team."

I particularly liked this (hopefully tongue in cheek) comment from the Pakistan team's manager, complaining that they have been unable to practise during the state of emergency in their country: "The only victims of the emergency have been the lawyers and the judges as their fundamental right to play any form of cricket was placed under effective suspension. The emergency has been lifted only partially as the judges are allowed to bat but are not allowed to wear any pads, helmets, gloves and other items of defence. Their right to bowl has been restored but they cannot bowl fast ones as low speed limits against their liking have been set. They are allowed to spin the ball but for the time being are banned from bowling a googly, a chinaman or a doosra."

As Peter McGuinness commented on the original post, this is a rare tournament where everyone is on the side of the umpires.

Looking ahead

England flew back from their rather disappointing Test tour of Sri Lanka this morning - how quickly we have forgotten the extraordinary success they had in the one-day series that preceded it, beating the World Cup finalists in their own back yard - and thoughts now turn to part two of the winter: the tour of New Zealand in February and March.

(Incidentally, I disagree with the Times style ruling that sports teams have a "tour to" somewhere instead of a "tour of". Even though tours are truncated these days, players still spend more time in the country than they do getting there, especially in the 50 or so years since teams toured by aircraft rather than boat.)

The squad for the New Zealand tour (there's a style loophole) will be announced in barely a fortnight and is unlikely to be that different from the Sri Lanka 16. Having ducked the chance to give Mark Ramprakash a final chance, the selectors are hardly likely to call him up now. Among the batsmen, the only change will probably be Andrew Strauss to come in, and possibly open, while one of Ravi Bopara and Owais Shah will stay at home. I imagine that after Bopara made little impact bar enthusiasm and good fielding, he will be the one told to head back to Chelmsford and prepare for the county season.

Warne's lost that loving feeling

Bah humbug. Shane Warne cares not a jot for Christmas cheer (or indeed for the fact that Australia won everything in sight for eight years under the coaching of John Buchanan) and has instead called his former national coach a "goose". Well, at least it is a festive insult.

I'm assuming he means that Buchanan is a bit of a fool for his recent airing of some unusual ideas, but surely Buchanan deserves a bit more respect given everything he did for Australia. Or is Warne, in likening him to a dumb animal stuffed with fat (hypocrite alert), still wounded by not being made captain?

There is another conclusion. If Buchanan is "Goose" then there is no denying that Warne is "Maverick". Who is "Iceman", though? Mike Hussey?

Small glimmers of hope

I write this a few hours before the start of the last day of the first part of the England cricket team's winter and with only one wicket down and 102 runs on the board there is a chance that they may yet save the Galle Test. They will still lose the series 1-0 and be dumped to fifth in the world rankings, but it is better than it appeared yesterday when a heavy innings defeat seemed a probability.

Thanks to the rain but also some pleasing display of backbone, England may yet escape with a bit of honour. Alastair Cook continues to impress after a shocking first Test and Ian Bell has, disturbingly, become England's safest bet for a middling-but-not-quite-substantial score. If Bell gets his regulation 70-odd and Cook can get England's first hundred of the winter, the match will be almost safe. Pietersen (96 runs in five innings so far) needs to make a score at some point, too.

I don't know what the weather forecast is in Sri Lanka, but chances are they will not have to bat out the full 90 overs, but here's hoping that they get enough time in the middle to show that the disaster of the first innings was just one of those things. It would be a shame if the weather could be used as an excuse for Sri Lanka not winning, rather than England's doughty batmanship. Let's hope for 66 more overs, giving a round total of 100, and England only a couple more wickets down in the time.

Donate your second-hand boxes and gloves

Here is something for collectors of rare memorabilia: in this blog post I will almost unprecedentedly praise the ICC.

Calling all Victorian readers of Line and Length (that's those of you who live near Melbourne rather than any passing time-travellers): you have a chance to do something noble this Christmas. The ICC's East Asia-Pacific branch, with Cricket Australia, the MCG and the Lord's Taverners, are inviting all spectators who attend the first Test between Australia and India, starting on Boxing Day, to bring any old cricket equipment with them and donate it to those less privileged.

So if you have any bats that you rarely use, gloves, pads, helmets, balls - heck, even if you have the odd spare groin protector (washed, preferably) - bring them along to the MCG and donate them to give youngsters in Asia and the Pacific the chance to play cricket. A collection bin will be located on the grassed area by Gate 6 on the morning of the first three days.

This is the third year that the ICC has run the programme and more than 1,000 bits of kit have been sent to places such as Fiji, Japan and Papua New Guinea, parts of the globe where cricket participation has more than doubled in the past five years.

Vaas 90; England 81

Well, here's the good news: England have worked out a way to play Muttiah Muralitharan: crumble in a pathetic heap before he is given a bowl. Murali took only one wicket for Sri Lanka this morning, thanks to the spineless capitulation in the face of some admittedly fine and aggressive pace bowling. The snorter of a ball from Lasith Malinga that got Kevin Pietersen, bouncing it almost up the batsman's nose, was one of the best wickets of the year and is well worth a watch.

You know that things have not gone well when you switch on the radio to be told "England are making a good recovery after their early wobble and are now 61 for six". Two run outs is inexcusable, but the worst wickets were Michael Vaughan, shouldering arms to an off cutter from Chaminda Vaas's seventh ball, and Ravi Bopara, playing far too ambitious a stroke early in his innings and chipping Vaas to mid-on.

Vaas, who only two Tests ago people were suggesting may retire after this series, is a shoo-in for man of the match, even though his captain made a double hundred. As well as his four wickets today - and presumably a few more tomorrow - Vaas made a crucial 90 runs in a seventh-wicket partnership of almost 200 with Mahela Jayawardena.

That's right: a tail-end batsman made more runs than the combined total of England. Vaas may know which way to hold a bat, but he has passed 50 in only 13 of his 148 innings and is a bit short of being ranked as an all-rounder. That said, England's last four have never scored a fifty between them in more than 200 innings...

Cricket: bigger than Paris Hilton

Thanks to Will, I learn that Google has done an analysis of the most popular searches on its website during the past year and, well my gosh, the fourth most popular search in the world was "2007 cricket world cup", behind "American Idol", "youtube" (who on earth needs to Google youtube when they can surely have a guess at youtube.com?) and "Britney Spears".

The 2007 World Cup was more popular, in terms of searches anyway, than the iPhone, Ms Hilton, Anna-Nicole Smith, Iran and two people I've never heard of called Chris Benoit and Vanessa Hudgens. I had to Google to find out who they are, which may have pushed them ahead of the World Cup by now.

Note that people were searching for "World Cup", not "ICC World Cup", which the governing body was insisting we call the cursed thing.

A long innings

Happy birthday to Eric "Snowy" Tindill, who is 97 today, the second Test cricketer to reach that age. Francis MacKinnon, who died in his 99th year in 1947, is the only Test cricketer to have lived longer.

In addition to five Test caps as a wicketkeeper for New Zealand, Tindill played for the All Blacks at fly half against England at Twickenham in 1936 in the 13-0 defeat that became known as "Obolensky's match". He is believed to be the third-oldest surviving rugby international, after Ernest Pinkham, 99, who played on the wing for Canada against Japan in 1932, and James McLaren Henderson, 100, who played at No 8 in Scotland's triple crown-winning side of 1933.

Half a dozen New Zealand sportsmen have played rugby and cricket for New Zealand but Tindill is the only one to play Tests in each sport. Indeed, he has a strong claim to be New Zealand's most accomplished all-round sportsman: he also founded the Wellington Table-Tennis Association, was treasurer of the New Zealand Boxing Council from 1973-81 and played grade football. In later years, he was a New Zealand cricket selector, umpire and rugby referee. He was also, continuing this blog's recent theme, a qualified accountant.

It doesn't add up for Strauss

Sorry to have another dig at accountants (see comments on this post) but the bean-counters cropped up in conversation recently when I interviewed Andrew Strauss, who was taking part in a coaching session with ill children at Great Ormond Street Hospital School for Chance to shine.

Afterwards, we were chatting about general matters and conversation turned to Alex Loudon giving up cricket for a career in the City. Strauss said that "every morning I am grateful that cricket saved me from becoming an accountant".

This interview four years ago, back in the days when he was called Andy, records how close he came to becoming a numbers monkey in a pinstripe suit. Strauss said that if he hadn't been chosen for England's one-day tour of Bangladesh in 2003, he would have spent the winter doing work experience for Cricinfo and in the City. Strauss has A levels in maths and further maths and his father was an insurance broker; it would have been so easy for him to leave the game to work in finance, but fortunately he turned out to have that little bit of extra talent that was not there to save Loudon.

Initially speaking

CMJ thinks that Sri Lanka may give a Test debut in Galle on Tuesday to Chanaka Welegedara, a left-arm fast-medium bowler who took two wickets against England for the Sri Lankan Board President's XI last month. If he is chosen, he will bring an impressive collection of initials to the Sri Lanka XI.

Uda Walawwe Mahim Bandaralage Chanaka Asanka Welegedara, or UWMBCA for short, will eclipse even the collection of initials presented by WPUJC Vaas. Poor old Muttiah Muralitharan has the misfortune of not possessing even one middle name, but I suppose he has other virtues.

UWMBCA has one initial fewer than John Elicius Benedict Bernard Placid Quirk Carrington Dwyer, who played for Sussex in the 1900s, but the record-holder may well be the now-retired Amunugama Rajapakse Rajakaruna Abeykoon Panditha Wasalamudiyanse Ralahamilage Rajitha Krishantha Bandara Amunugama. Can we just call him Bob?

The World's Fastest Bowler

Why don't they make TV programmes like this any more? In 1979, Australian TV wanted to find out who was the fastest bowler in the world and got together a dozen quicks, many of them from West Indies and none, oddly, from England, to be recorded on camera, their speeds taped by the most sophisticated speed guns they had at the time. What a galaxy of stars: Thomson and Lillee, Croft, Holding, Roberts, Daniel, Hadlee, Imran Khan and a few others. Plus Richie Benaud presenting it in the very best fashionware that 1970s Melbourne could provide. Fantastic.

Sadly, I can't embed it from YouTube so you will just have to follow the link. I won't give away the winner, but his recorded time of 147kph (91mph) was some way faster than all the others, although you suspect that the likes of Brett Lee, Shoaib Akhtar and Shaun Tait would better that today. Maybe it's time for a repeat? Thanks to Stuart George for sending me this.

Last orders to win Ashes book

A reminder of our competition to win a copy of Nigel Henderson's new book, If It Was Raining Palaces, I'd Get Hit By The Dunny Door, which details his gloom as an England supporter during last winter's Ashes tour. I asked for new acronyms for England players, following on from Kevin Pietersen being dubbed Figjam ("F*** I'm Good, Just Ask Me).

Best entries so far are "Spanish" for Flintoff (Sinks P*** All Night In Southern Hemisphere) from one Panayoti Maginopolis and "Egbert" for Pietersen (Egomaniac Girlishly Becomes Emigrating Reviled Traitor) from this blog's old friend Andre Nel. But I'm sure the rest of you can do much better. You have until the end of the day. It's free, and could make a lovely Christmas present...

The other England touring party

As Michael Vaughan's side scrape to a draw with Sri Lanka, it is time to alert you to another England touring party that faces an even more daunting task than winning a Test in Galle. Mathew Gullick, this blog's old friend and nocturnal companion during last winter's Ashes, is part of a disturbingly small 12-man squad of lawyers that will be representing England at the inaugural lawyers' World Cup in India.

Starting at the end of December, the blood-sucking money-graspers noble chaps representing Blighty will compete against other lawyers from the likes of Australia and India and elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Unlike the other World Cup in the Caribbean this year, the players will break off halfway through the group stage for a legal seminar.

Dauntingly, the matches will be played at an international venue, the Rajiv Gandhi stadium in Hyderabad, where Yuvraj Singh made 121 in a losing cause against Australia two months ago. Makes a bit of a change from the village ground in Dulwich where the Times team (featuring Mathew) usually plays.

Mathew tells me that hopes are not too high after the India legal team toured England last summer and, after bowling out our boys for 90, chased down the target within 15 overs, but spirits are soaring. Mathew will be filing reports from India and you can follow the team's progress through their website.

Some spinners I have known

The cricket blog Are You A Left-Arm Chinaman is one that has only recently crossed my radar, but it is a year old today and to celebrate the occasion, and up his hits count, he has asked various of us in the blogosphere to write nice things about spin bowlers. The King has, against his better judgment, written in defence of Warnie and Cricket With Balls praises leg spinners generally. There will be others.

So, to put my hand up and come to the party as they used to say in the England dressing-room, here is a personal reflection on XI spin bowlers I have known in rough chronological order. Incidentally, if you haven't yet voted on Dileep's spin poll, do.

1. Neil Edwards was the spin bowler in my year's cricket team at school and fulfilled the spinner's prime role of sometimes being hit for loads of runs and occasionally taking loads of wickets. He resembled Penfold out of Dangermouse. It was no surprise to anyone that he went into accountancy when he left university. Some people just pop out of the womb looking as if they are accountants.

2. Eddie Hemmings is hard to forget for his role in one of the earliest great Test matches I can remember. Lord's: England v India, the visiting side need 24 to win to avoid the follow-on and Kapil Dev hits Hemmings for four successive sixes. Hemmings got what was coming to him after he hit the final ball of the 1989 Natwest Trophy final for four to beat Essex. He dismissed Dev early on in India's second innings to ensure that Gooch's heroics with the bat were not in vain.

3. Shane Warne. Did well on Australia's tour of England in 1993 apparently. Now sells hair.

Relive last year's Ashes misery this Christmas

This blog has spawned a publishing phenomenon. Well, sort of. You have to use sensationalist language like that if you want to grab people's attention. What I really mean is that Nigel Henderson, my colleague who jacked in his job at The Times last autumn so that he could drag his girlfriend round the cricket grounds of Australia following England's Ashes heroes, has published a book about his experiences and some of those were first reported here and here and here and, when he went missing after the Sydney Test and sparked a worldwide manhunt, here.

Sadly I could only pay Nigel in alcohol and free pints of Guinness will only go so far when you have rent to pay and have coughed up £10,000 of your savings to watch England lose 5-0. So Nigel has written a book, If It Was Raining Palaces, I'd Get Hit By the Dunny Door, which is funny, touching and in places downright painful (largely in the poor use of the conditional mood in the title, to be honest - shouldn't it be "if it were raining"?)

Go and buy a copy now to slip into a beloved relative's stocking. Or, if you are feeling tight, Line and Length has two copies of Nigel's book to give away as a prize for the best two answers to the question below, which you can submit by clicking "comments" under this post. Usual Times competition rules apply, whatever they are (something to do with me not giving my Dad the prize and Australians not being allowed to win because they won the Ashes and isn't that enough?) and my decision is final. Deadline is ten minutes before the pub opens on Friday.

QUESTION: During the last Ashes series, the Australian fans came up with the nickname "Figjam" for Kevin Pietersen, which stands for "F*** I'm Good, Just Ask Me". What other witty acronyms could be applied to members of the England team?

Pietersen almost got away with it

There has been a lot of uproar about some of the contentious decisions in the latest Test match between England and Sri Lanka, especially that Kevin Pietersen was caught on the half-volley (although personally I think the "one hand, one bounce" rule that is common in school playground games should be used in Tests).

King Cricket cut through the rot, however, with this very valid point:

"From England's point of view, as regards this Test match, the main problem was that Kevin Pietersen edged a ball to second slip. As a batsman, if you edge the ball to second slip, there's a fair chance you're going to be out."

A knotty problem

Apologies for a few days off, but I was away at a wedding. As I grappled with attempting to tie my tie on Saturday, succeeding on the 22nd attempt, little did I realise that the question of neckwear was about to engulf the cricketing classes.

Michael Atherton's interview with Mike Brearley, the new President of MCC, yesterday contained many interesting themes, but the one that has grabbed the attention was Brearley's suggestion that Lord's should get rid of its "jackets and ties needed in the Pavilion" rule. There is no denying that Lord's is modernising under the enthusiastic secretaryship of Keith Bradshaw, and the Australian will find Brearley a willing accomplice, but is this a step too far?

On Radio 4 this morning, Allan Lamb debated the issue with David Frith (whom Jim Naughtie kept calling "Firth" and introduced him as former editor of the Wisden almanack, when it was actually Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine). Lamb was naturally in favour of a relaxation of the rules; Frith felt it was important that traditions should be upheld and that there were better things that Brearley could be doing.

As a tie-hater, who went into a profession where ties are now almost frowned upon (sadly that other great Fleet Street bastion - the boozy lunch - has gone the same way), I support Brearley up to a point, but I do also feel that standards are one of the things that makes Lord's so pleasant to be at. Smartness is surely what matters most, rather than a specific dress code. A gentleman looks just as smart - and in some cases rather less awkward - in a clean, well-made open-collared shirt than with a tie on. Maybe MCC should have a rule that ties are welcome but it should only be the club "bacon and egg" one, rather than any other form of neckwear?

Anyway, what do you think?

Warne v Murali v Such

Regular readers of The Doosra, Line and Length's sister blog (well, our second cousin anyway), will already have discovered that Dileep is running a poll to find the greatest spinner of all time.

There is already a comment on there from some masquerading as, or possibly actually being, Colin Gibson, the ECB's head of press, who wants to know why Eddie Hemmings isn't on there. A ridiculous comment to make. The really scandalous omission, of course, is not Hemmings but Peter Such.

Anyway, Colin, share your love among our blogs. You never comment on Line and Length. Surely you have a few bad jokes to pass on?

Bad joke alert No 2

I'm in the mood for terrible jokes, partly because Christmas is coming and partly because I'm best man at my cousin's wedding on Saturday so I need all the ammo I can get. Anyway, today's prize for feeble humour goes to Andrew Miller, of Cricinfo fame, who wrote a very serious story about the corrugated iron sheets on the roof of one of the stands in Kandy being blown off by high winds and gashing a few spectators.

However, he was a bit more frivolous before the accident happened when posting commentary on the Cricinfo website. "There goes another one," Miller wrote, referring to the disintegrating stand. "The sheet hasn't yet hit the fan, but it's only a matter of time." Ba-doom-tish.

Given the quality of puns from readers to the bee joke, I'm sure some of you have a few good jokes in you that I can share with a wedding audience, so send them in.

Bee update

Further to yesterday's story about the swarm of bees holding up play (why couldn't they have come today for a few overs?), I was interested to come across this story from six years ago in which Sri Lankan government activists were preparing to break up opposition rallies by releasing mass swarms of bees. The opposition were arming themselves with insect repellant and bracing themselves for a long fight. Has bee warfare now turned its attention to cricket?

Meanwhile, day 4 of our Douglas Jardine video diaries are online here.

Super Sanga

A brilliant Test for Muralitharan - again - but this match was won by Kumar Sangakkara's batting in both innings. His 92 saved Sri Lanka from humiliation, his 152 put them firmly on the way to victory.

If you haven't seen it yet, I dug out some stats for today's paper to show just how extraordinary Sangakkara's batting feats have been in the past year. He has become the ninth batsman to score hundreds against all other Test nations, will be the fourth fastest man to 6000 runs if he gets 15 in his next innings and has scored more double hundreds than anyone bar Bradman, Lara and Hammond.

Most interestingly, I think, is Sangakkara's average since giving up the gloves. As a wicketkeeper he averaged in the low 40s but as a pure batsman in 22 Tests he has an average of 96.40. That's even better than Mike Hussey and one of the rare instances when the adjective Bradmanesque is justifiable.

Poor joke alert

Graham Morris, the man who brought the world the picture of Mike Gatting poking Shakoor Rana, does more than just take great cricket photographs. He also does a good line in bad jokes. Such as this one that he sent me by e-mail:

"After today's swarm of bees interrupted play in Kandy, I think England should immediately call up Tim Ambrose," he wrote. Why Graham, why do you say that?

"Because..." he continued... "Ambrose is the England B keeper! Geddit?"

We get it, Graham. Stick to the snapping.

(click photo for closer view)

Australia play up and play the game

Day 3 of our exclusive serialisation of Douglas Jardine's video diaries is now online here.

To cap it all

Muttiah Muralitharan has the new world record, but you'd have thought that the Sri Lankan cricket board could have splashed out on a new cap for him to mark the occasion, even if there is a civil war on. Compare the two pictures below (click on them to enlarge them). One was taken in Australia two weeks ago, the other (with him holding the ball) was taken today. It appears that the SL board have since had a rebrand of their logo, but instead of issuing their champion bowler with a new cap they have crudely stuck a patch over the old one, making him look like a cub scout who has just earned his badge for spin bowling but whose poor blind mother made a botched job of sewing it on.

To be fair, the Sri Lanka branding may have changed some time ago, in which case there were two options: if Murali wants to wear his old cap that he has had so much success in, like Steve Waugh did, let him wear it uncovered; or if he must wear a new corporate logo, give him a fresh cap for the cameras.

Mr Jardine shows the Australians what's what

Part 2 of our exclusive serialisation of Douglas Jardine's video diaries is now online here

Who will pass Murali?

Much as I hope that England will battle hard on the third day of the Test in Kandy, eking out a valuable lead from the tail, it is almost inevitable that at some point, probably within half an hour but certainly by the end of this match, Muttiah Muralitharan will take the one wicket he needs to pass Shane Warne's world record of Test victims.

Chances are that Murali will extend the record well beyond 709, probably up to 800 or more. It has even been said that he will take 1,000 Test wickets but at the age of 35 his career may be winding down. Anyway, let's be charitable and assume he plays for two more full years and gets to 850 Test wickets. Is there anyone out there who will have any chance of passing him?

Of those who have more than 300 Test wickets, Anil Kumble (575), Shaun Pollock (416) and Chaminda Vaas (321) are likely to retire before Muralitharan, but Makhaya Ntini (319) is only 30 and may have another five years ahead of him. Assuming reasonable fitness, he would probably get 12 Tests a year, so in 60 Tests he would have to take 531 wickets or 8.85 a Test to match Murali. Some ask. In reality, Ntini would be more likely to get to about 560 wickets in that period, reaching the same mark as Glenn McGrath.

If anyone is to pass Murali, who takes just over six wickets a match, it will be someone who is young, with a great strike-rate and likely to get a fair proportion of his country's overs. Eleven players, including Ntini, who played in 2007 have a better strike-rate than Muralitharan: Shoaib Akhtar, Shane Bond, Stuart Clark, Stuart MacGill and Brett Lee are too old and have too few wickets at this stage to be thinking about getting within even 400 of Muralitharan; Dale Steyn, Mohammad Asif, Lasith Malinga, Umar Gul and Sreesanth are young enough but the most prolific of them, Steyn, is taking wickets at the rate of only 4.7 a match. To pass Murali, they will probably need to play until they are nearly 40, which shows not only how impressive Murali is, but how much bowling Sri Lanka give him.

The only other bowler I can think of who may get near Murali's record is Danish Kaneria, who is a couple of weeks from his 27th birthday and has taken 212 wickets in 49 matches (only 4.3 wickets a match). If he sticks at that rate, Kaneria would need to play 148 more Tests, which would take him until he is 39, to get to 850. Then again, leg spinners improve with age.

All of which is a convoluted way of saying that Murali's record is likely to last a very long time. It may be broken some day, but chances are the person who will do it has not yet begun his Test career.