Kevin Pietersen slams XYZ

Six Degrees of Separation was a 1993 film about an "affluent New York couple who find their lives touched, intruded upon, and compelled by a mysterious young black man who is never quite who he says he is". It starred Will Smith, Donald Sutherland and Ian McKellen, and was so crap that its only use now is as a vehicle for a column about news in cricket. To wit:

Jamie Cox, the first victim of Cricket Australia's "Integrity Unit", a body trying to police the un-policeable: people talking about their futures. The Big Bash League has a recruitment policy that stipulates that players, agents and franchises can't talk about players' futures outside of a certain window, a rule that is so against the mores of our race of human beings that you'd sooner expect adherence to borders by the hill tribes of Afghanistan. Anyway, why have this? Like, at all? It's un-policeable. You can't stop people talking. People talk. It's what people do. And Jamie Cox is far from the only person who has ever talked about players moving between BBL franchises outside said window, rather than take it to the bank via Betfair, an outlet that will give you short odds on…

Mumbai Indians (a particularly odd handle, even for a team containing mostly Indians) scoring 195 runs in 88 balls against Rajasthan Royals the other night. Apparently it was good. But I mean… what? Did Royals forget how to bowl? How can bowlers not throw down yorkers? Only one bowler conceded less than 12.50 runs an over. I mean… that's hideous! It's ridiculous! Just bowl at their toes! That isn't hard. All bowlers do is train how to bowl. Test cricket, they can land six in a row on a 20-cent bit. In this T20 malarkey they send down six different ones, all of which disappear into Row Z. I don't get it. Batters aren't this good. They're not. Something's crook in Tallarook. A town never visited by…

Chris Gayle, who's going to have back surgery so he can play his 100th Test for a collection of countries he's never seemed to particularly give a stuff about, given he has so often chosen the money offered by the various T20 smash-up derbies over representing the West Indies Test cricket XI. Just me? Just me getting old? One who would never pick the IPL over Australia (given he's making a motza already) is…

Michael Clarke, who returned from the United States where he watched a couple of baseball and basketball games to reveal things Australian cricket can learn from American sport. Such as: giving free stuff to spectators, providing a wide range of food, and engaging in post-match "media frenzies" with "all players giving insights to their fans". Wow! Players talking to media! Fancy that!

Wrote Clarke: "The Americans market their sport really well. That's an area where we have to continue to improve in Australia." Ha. There's as much chance of it happening as there is of Clarke playing first base for the Baltimore Orioles. Most cricketers think "the media" is something to be tolerated or used, rather than it being a conduit to the people who pay their wages, i.e. the People. Players are doled out sparingly to "the media". They don't want to talk to you, they don't. And you, the People, paymasters of these people, don't get full cop. So all power to Clarkey and his bold mission to continuously improve media access to players. But journos can't get in the sheds post-match. If anything it's getting worse. Unlike the access to a potential bestselling newspaper article about…

Kevin Pietersen, star of a headline in the the Sydney Morning Herald which read: "Kevin Pietersen slams England cricket boss", which is as far as I got into reading the piece. Is it news, Kevin Pietersen saying something provocative involving Kevin Pietersen? Kevin Pietersen should have his own news gazette, called the Kevin Pietersen Gazette, in which he can say stuff about people - usually himself. The Kevin Pietersen Gazette could exclusively quote Kevin and pen provocatively titled yarns around Kevin's quotes. And every week, every page, the banner headline could be "Kevin Pietersen slams [insert slammed person here]". Be easy to edit. Each book would be a template of last week's, Kevin Pietersen slamming someone. As one might slam those who'd assert…

"KKR will play confident cricket against KXIP," said Trevor Bayliss in a headline on IBNLive, a web news… thing. And… well. I don't know what those initials are. Do they represent entities on the stock exchange? Are they radio stations? Is there another team talked WKRP in Cincinnati? Y'know, I'm a sportswriter. I'm a bit of a sports hound. I read it. I consume it every day. But sitting here thinking about what these teams are… I fair-dinkum couldn't even hazard a guess.

I know they're in the IPL. But the first one… I can't get Kull Kingston Rovers out of my head. And the other one… nup. Got nothin'. Truly. "KXIP" is a team? Is it Kings Extreme In Punjab? Kalu X-Rays In Pyjamas? We may never know. (Until we google - the modern-day version of calling a brainy mate - that tells us it is, of course, Kings XI Punjab who'll be confidently played against by Kolkata Knight Riders in the first qualifier of IPL7.)

So there you go. Anything else you'd like this columnist to riff upon, do please tweet @journomatcleary.