The sight of people marooned up creeks without paddles, confined to an indefinite period of loneliness is probably something that Andrew Symonds can relate to

Tait can have no complaints about missing out on a contract

There will come a day though when a player will strongly disagree with the need for rehabilitation or rest and will challenge that sort of edict

Watching the 4th ODI from Abu Dhabi, I suspect that had Imran been captain, the game plan would have evolved differently

My prediction for the future is that fewer teams will take their batting Powerplays so late in the innings

The last game at the Wanderers was typical of the entire season really

Loyal to a fault, Australian cricketing culture is built around 100% support for the captain

As sport becomes a business and athletes become businessmen, umpires should be the only ones empowered to regulate this market

Judging by Dyson’s miscalculations today, he is certainly no statistician or mathematician

Just about every country, with the exception of India (Sehwag) and Sri Lanka (Atapattu) show us that left-handers do indeed average more than right-handers in the last 10 years or so

The question is: why were they rusty and is that acceptable in modern sport

I’m no closer to answering the original question about why it is that there seems to be more left-hand openers at the highest level of the game but there’s no doubt that they are over represented

This is not a lament for the dead, nor is it a denial of the bleeding obvious

For Ponting to take an unscheduled break at this particular point of the season when Australia have lost four games on the trot is just poor timing

What about the fact that if the Deccan Chargers reach the final against his beloved Qld Bulls (if they hadn’t been knocked out), Symonds would be happily playing against his own mates, against the team that nurtured him to his current stardom

As for Matt Hayden – my personal view is that he probably mistimed his jump by a few weeks

In this instance, KP may have misjudged his power play slightly but the writing is on the wall

More revealing though is the unspoken assumption (tradition) that past captains are unlikely to keep playing under a new leader

The champagne days are over for the time being

What is clear though (although not quite as obvious to the ICC) is that we have a major problem with over-rates