Sex and cricket, and India's fittest squad

While England's football coach, Fabio Capello, follows a strict disciplinarian approach, banning the England WAGs from travelling with the team in South Africa, cricket team coach Andy Flower has stated that he will not be following suit.

"I have absolutely no problems with the football team WAGs travelling with my boys during the Ashes. Alex Curran, Abbey Clancy and the rest of them are fine ladies, and the ECB has absolutely no objections to their presence with the team during the ongoing tour of Australia," said Flower.

The former Zimbabwe great completely ruled out the possibility that this would affect his team's concentration, and hence hurt their chances of retaining the Ashes.

"Nonsense. The presence or absence of WAGs has absolutely no effect on on-field performance, as clearly demonstrated by the consistently miserable show by the England football team at all international tournaments. The WAGs were present in 2002 and 2006, and aren't there this time. Do you see a difference in the England side? I certainly don't. Why should it be any different for us?" he argued.

Flower also weighed in on the eternally ongoing debate regarding the adverse effects of sex before a game. "I don't really know if an abundance of sex before the game leads to a poor performance on the field, but I can tell you with authority that a poor performance on the field does not lead to an abundance of sex afterwards. Not that I'd know, but just ask the English footballers," he quipped, unable to resist another good-natured jibe at Steven Gerrard's beleaguered side.

Meanwhile, the BCCI has decided to finally get tough on players who aren't physically up to the mark for international cricket. Stung by widespread criticism of the lack of fitness shown by players such as Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sharma among others, the BCCI selection committee has decided to pick the squad for India's coming series against Australia purely based on fitness levels. The squad: Salman Khan (actor, captain), MS Dhoni (cricketer, vice-captain), Gautam Gambhir (cricketer), Suresh Raina (cricketer), Mohammad Azharuddin (politician, but superbly fit for his age), Saurav Ghosal (squash player), Ramji Srinivasan (fitness trainer), Shahid Kapoor (actor), the entire Lokmanya Tilak Sanskriti Nyas Malkhamb Troupe ( malkhamb troupe).

"With this squad, we guarantee that there will be absolutely no concerns regarding fitness. Of course, we can't guarantee that they will do well at the cricket, but then, we've never been able to guarantee that anyway," said chairman of selectors K Srikkanth.

The poor spectator and TV audience response to the ongoing Asia Cup, largely due to the mass appeal of the football World Cup, has caused the ICC to consider a rebranding and marketing exercise to boost cricket's sagging popularity vis-a-vis football. Attempts are on to come up with a catchy slogan to promote the sport and give it some sex appeal, along the lines of "The Beautiful Game", a phrase that has helped market football all over the world.

"So far, the best we've got is 'Cricket. The sport you want to sleep with. Not sleep through'. But we're working on more," said a source within the ICC. Other contenders reportedly include "The game with inner beauty", "The game next door" and "Cricket: It's more than just India v Sri Lanka".