According to the bookies, India are more likely to beat Australia in their Test series than Winx is to beat Mister Ed. If the Border-Gavaskar series, starting in Pune on Thursday, were to be played a theoretical 11 times, Australia would be backable to win it just once. At best. And even that is beyond punters' capacity for optimism.
At a forum on the future of professional women's sports last year, the retired Australian netball captain Liz Ellis asked despairingly: 'Would it be better for us if we were in the news for being out on the drink and disgracing ourselves?'
Just what is the Australian one-day cricket team anyway? An instrument of cricket diplomacy? An international aid organisation? A travelling circus? Whatever it is, we now know what it is not: a representation of Australia's best cricketing talent in the 50-over format.
If you are a bit of a galoot at a golf driving range, the fun thing to do is aim some shots at the cart driving around sweeping up balls. The prank is only conceivable because the threat is doubly harmless: the cart driver is enclosed behind a reinforced plastic shield, and the ability of said galoots to hit any target, moving or not, creates its own unlikelihood.
The retirement rate (if not the retirement age) has gone up by 50 per cent across the men's and women's games in the past decade.
Like any binge television viewing, the Big Bash League moves too fast for analysis of one particular match. Themes can, however, emerge from the continuum, and here's a report card of the BBL06 season so far.
Whatever the Australian selectors thought they were doing when they chose Hilton Cartwright for the Test match in Sydney, Steve Smith evidently did not think they had picked him as an all-rounder on a dry fifth-day pitch.
Between now and the start of the first Border-Gavaskar Test match, Australia have no strenuous first-class engagements that will remotely approximate the pressure that will come down on them on 25 February.
Recorded long-distance telephone conversation between Kerry Packer (location: The Hereafter High-High-Rollers' Room) and unnamed Nine Network cricket producer (location: Sydney Cricket Ground). Date: First week of 2017.
Just before 11am on Wednesday, 20-year-old Matthew Renshaw walked off the Sydney Cricket Ground to a standing ovation after scoring 184, his maiden Test century.
Search pagination
Save articles for later.
Subscribe for unlimited access to news. Login to save articles.
Return to the homepage by clicking on the site logo.