Cut-price royalty and graveyard shifts
Prince goes for cheap, Ganguly and Dravid just go ... and so does Charli Delaney
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As is often the case in the CB Series (and all its previous incarnations) the two visiting teams, this year India and Sri Lanka, have been competing to meet Australia in the final after the hosts pulled away in the group stage. So the meeting between the two visiting sides at the Adelaide Oval was a crucial game, but clearly Channel 9 didn't see it pulling in a huge audience and ditched it from the schedule. It was left to Foxtel, a pay-TV channel, to telecast the match in Australia.
Cricket entered a new era with the IPL auction in Mumbai. Money was thrown around like confetti and players (not always the obvious ones) ended the day much richer than when they started. But spare a thought for one man: Ashwell Prince. Along with Mohammad Yousuf, he was the only player not bid on. Yousuf, though, comes with baggage as he has a legal wrangle with the Indian Cricket League hanging over his head. Prince, therefore, stands out. It's like being the last kid left for a schoolyard football match and still not being picked. Except, Prince will get paid his base rate - US$175,000 - so it's not quite as bad as it seems.
The political world in Australia has changed with Kevin Rudd replacing long-time prime minister and cricket tragic, John Howard, but it has taken a while to remove the traces of the Howard government's passion for the game. The office used by Howard's communications team took days to clean up, and there was plenty of evidence of office cricket. The most revealing leftover was a picture of Mark Vaile, leader of the National Party, which had been used as the stumps. "I've got the stumps in my office, which happens to be a Mark Vaile poster," said Labor senator Robert Ray. "So much for parliamentary solidarity."
There is certainly a changing of the guard in Indian cricket. Never mind that Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly have been dropped from the one-day side; they have now been dumped by one of their sponsors and replaced with two up-and-coming stars, the Sharmas, Rohit and Ishant.
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Taunton, the home of Somerset, has often been thought of as a graveyard for bowlers. Well, now part of the ground really will be a graveyard - or more accurately, a former graveyard. The club has begun work to expand the playing area, which required the removal of 50 Victorian corpses buried just outside the boundary. "We have put up notices around the church and have done all we can to notify the public. No-one has carried out anything like this on a cricket ground," chief executive Richard Gould told the Times, and he added the local church diocese did not object and no relative has yet come forward to state opposition.
Never mind all the money in the IPL and India's growing power in the game, the one market that cricket would love to get a toehold in is the United States. Maybe the key is hidden away in Indianapolis, where the new mayor, Greg Ballard, has been getting very excited in his new position and thinking of ways he can help his city develop. In a recent interview with the Indianapolis Star Ballard revealed his idea of a North American cricket tournament. "We could create it, it would be ours," he said enthusiastically, before admitting his knowledge was limited. "I don't know the rules. I just know it's huge around the world."
It's not only well-known Australian sportsmen who are announcing their retirements. Charli Delaney, an original member of Hi-5, a favourite dance group among Aussie kids, has also hung up her boots. The link to cricket? She blames Adam Gilchrist.
"He actually sent me a text message this morning and said, 'I can't believe you're worth double what I am'."
David Hussey reveals that his brother Michael took a bit of time to accept the difference in their IPL values. David went for US$625,000 while Michael had to wait for the final round of bidding and only fetched his base price of US$350,000.
Andrew McGlashan is a staff writer at Cricinfo