The Australian cricket loving community are in a fantasy world where we are still the team we once were. We are a shell of our former selves and people need to wake up. Sacking the second greatest batsman this country has ever seen is not the answer. Ricky Ponting is one of the best. He is still one our of best. So why are we showing him no love and trying to kick him out the back door? ...

It has, overall, been slim pickings for Australian sport these last couple of years and whilst we may marvel at the superstars of our home-bred games, on the international scene we have struggled. But judging by the performances of the last two weeks, we may be turning a corner. ...

Cricket, a fairly popular game in the subcontinent, has made many people rich in the form of betting. Fans just can't resist putting up their life savings on the a player's performance or the result of the game or runs scored on the next ball. There are so many different forms of betting available at their disposal. ...

In what was a very eventful week is sports, we saw a lot of action happen. New kings of cricket were crowned and the AFL had another draw, the first time in over a hundred years that there have been 2 draws in the opening rounds.AFLSt Kilda 13.17.95 drew Richmond 14.11.95...

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Every Monday I will be writing up a weekly wrap up full of sports results and what happened in the world of sports. I’ll try and cover as many as time allows me, as well as post other articles throughout the week, touching on some things that I’d like to talk about more in-depth, so the weekly report doesn’t get so congested. ...

With the ICC Cricket World Cup only a month away, the Australian team seem to be in dire need of some stability. After a disastrous Ashes series that saw Australia go down to England convincingly, you would expect that the same sort of results would carry over to the Twenty/20 series and the one day series against England. ...

During the inaugural one-day international (ODI) World Cup in 1975, India were set a total of 335 to win off 60 overs against England. Indian opening batsman Sunil (Sunny) Gavaskar, a man who would later become the first batsman to pass 10,000 runs in Test cricket, was of the view that it was simply impossible to score so many runs within 60 overs. How he came to this view after being in the field whilst 334 runs were scored by the English is unclear, but that’s by the by. His instincts told him that the 335 run target to win was unachievable, and thus he faced 174 deliveries in scoring 36 not out as India crawled along to a final total of 3/132 off their 60 overs and a 202 run defeat. How times change. The recent advent of twenty-twenty (T20) matches has changed the dynamic of how cricket in all forms is played, increasing the urgency shown by players and the desire of spectators to see the game move along at rapid pace, rather than languidly meandering along as was the case in many a day gone by. An overarching question lingers though - how does the way that T20 matches capture the public imagination impact upon ODIs and Test matches? I don’t foresee either version of the game dying out, though it is likely that the number of international T20 matches programmed for each year will outstrip the number of programmed ODIs in the not too distant future. Rather, the impacts on ODIs and Test matches are likely to be more subtle and potentially to the benefit of each version of the game as a spectacle. Impact of T20 on ODIs The best way to summarise my views on where ODIs are headed (and what needs to be done to reinvigorate them) is to consider a young lady who was once the most attractive girl in town. She didn’t have to do much more than turn up at a bar and guys were keen to talk to her. She was always the centre of attention. A few years of exalting in this status pass by and eventually as she reaches her mid-20s, her younger sister and her friends turn 18. More to the point, even though there’s nothing resembling a Rhodes Scholar amongst them, they are smoking hot. Uh-oh. Suffice to say, it’s rather more difficult for the former centre of attention to find herself a willing audience (check out the attendance figures for the recent Australia v Sri Lanka ODIs) these days. Moreover, the years of being the apple of every guy’s eye led her to become complacent. Now the time has come to reinvent herself in order to maintain public interest (Note: the analogy has clearly gone a little sour here – in real life, a woman shunned in this way is likely to spread vicious rumours about the hotter, younger women in order to drag them down rather than lift herself up. It’s true). The single biggest problem that ODIs face is apathy associated with overs 20 to 35, where part-time batsmen face up to part-time bowlers with a sieve-like four fielders inside the circle. Five ambled singles in this over, six in the next over. This is supposedly fun to watch. But here’s an alternative: •                Power plays are scrapped. •                Overs 1-20: Only two fielders permitted outside the 30-metre circle. •                Overs 21-30: Only three fielders permitted outside the 30-metre circle. •                Overs 31-40: Only four fielders permitted outside the 30-metre circle. •                Overs 41-50: Five fielders permitted outside the 30-metre circle. •                Bowlers can deliver a maximum 15 overs, allowing teams to bowl their allotted 50 overs with only four bowlers if they choose to. While the changes are only simple, they would encourage teams to select six specialist batsmen, a keeper and four specialist bowlers, rather than your ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ type players. The best cricket contests are invariably based on a well fought contest between quality batsmen and quality bowlers – why wouldn’t rule changes be made that facilitate such contests occurring more often? Cheap singles would also be harder to come by in overs 21 to 40, with some element of the risk/ reward trade-off that is evident in the first 20 overs being retained. Spinners operating during the middle passages of the innings would need to be on their game, but ideally they were picked as specialist bowlers and were thus up to the challenge. And the final ten overs would play out in the same manner as they do currently. Come on ODIs, the crowd in the bar is happily mingling while you stand half-heartedly on the fringes waiting for someone to come and talk to you. The time for reinventing yourself has come. ...

As I sit here watching the Australian cricket team capitulate right in front of me, like many Australians I am at a loss to understand how we have dropped so far from our perch at the top of the sport. Several pundits and fans have quickly pointed out that losing Warne and McGrath is the reason for our downfall. Together with the losses of Hayden, Langer, Gilchrist and Martyn, we have lost a lot of talent. ...

Those of us unlucky enough not to forge a career as a sportsperson will often seek an alternative route when it comes to entering the sporting industry. Sadly, the road leading to a career in sports journalism however is becoming blocked by the very stars who ply their trade in the sporting arena. ...