Sport is more than a numbers game

The true dimensions of athletic genius are not revealed in numbers and ranking points, Nirmal Shekar writes in the Hindu in light of the ICC's recent gaffe over rating the greatest players.

Of course, a bunch of bored schoolboys armed with a calculator and with access to www.cricinfo.com might have surely done a better job than the honourable experts to whom the ICC chose to hand over the job. As an exercise in ranking the finest players in history, this one was as arbitrary and subjective and flawed as it could have possibly been.

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While, predictably, most of the ire directed at the ICC from these shores was caused by the ‘injustice’ done to a little man from Mumbai who the ICC masterminds slotted in at No.26 in the list of batsmen, my own reaction on spotting a familiar name at No.59 in the list of bowlers bordered on temporary insanity — I just couldn’t stop laughing.