Short-sighted view of world

Well, you certainly do if you're an Australian cricket fan. He, or Sheila, depending on their gender mate, will be feeling fair dinkum. Today was the scheduled end of the Super Series clash between Australia and the best of the rest of the world. The much-lauded encounter was supposed to end on its sixth day today. But as we all know, it was all over within four days of the clash accorded full-Test status.

The World XI careered to a 210-run humiliation leaving the game's organisers, the International Cricket Council sporting an expression veering from the rage of a Tasmanian devil or the shrug-it-all nonchalance of a koala bear.

Six days for a test match, six days. The sigh of sheer frustration must have been akin to the Michael Palin Ripping Yarns episode of Barnstonworth United FC suffering another caning and a disgruntled fan trekking home to smash everything in t'owd terrace house accompanied by bellowing the margin of defeat as '8-1, 8-bloody-1".

Even in their wildest dreams the ICC could not have anticipated the clash at the Sydney Cricket Ground lasting a full six days. Even with almost every decision being pored over by the third umpire, it was never going the distance. Ordinary test matches rarely trouble the fifth day unless the weather intervenes or they are the knife-edged dnouements of the recent Ashes series.

But that's a minor quibble. The principal conclusion to be drawn from the World XI v Australia mis-match is that the principle of a world-best any team should be jettisoned from any sporting calendar.

World XIs should be confined to playground protestations about who is going to be Zinedine Zidane, Jonny Wilkinson or Kevin Pietersen. And once that noisy arena is outgrown World XI selections should be left to those pub pitch-battles about whether Maradona was more skilful than George Best, Donald Bradman more destructive than Brian Lara, or Ellery Hanley a more potent rugby league force than Paul Sculthorpe.

What Sydney proved this past weekend was that while a World XI looks positively power-laden with class, talent, panache and flair on paper, it's a totally different ball game when the project is transferred to actual grass.

It's precisely because of the disparate talents of a gathering of the globe's best players that it will never succeed, especially when up against a national outfit like Australia where the team ethos is virtually weaved into those baggy green caps down to the laces of their garitti-logo'd boots.

Anyone would look at a side encompassing the myriad skills of Brian Lara, Jacques Kallis, Virander Sehwag, Andrew Flintoff, Inzamam-Ul-Haq and Muttiah Muralithiran and purr that they should push over any one nation that dares to take them on.

But that's the core of the problem. They, in all their glory and sunshine days, are not one nation. They are not unified. They are not bound by any bond save for a coming together for a match designed more to raise money on the back of cricket's increased profile than on a competitively cagey contest.

You cannot forge team spirit in a matter of weeks, no matter how hard you train, no matter how excellent the facilities, and no matter the talents at your disposal.

The only bonus for English cricket to come out of the farce that was for world cricket a Stupor Series was the confirmation that Flintoff is indeed a deserving world figure.

Not only did he perform well with both bat and ball, he continued to display that blessed sportsmanship which characterised his dynamic Ashes displays. And according to certain reports, 'Freddie' also remonstrated with an outbreak of racist chanting aimed by a virulent corps to Sri Lankan spin king Muralithiran. Now that's taking a stand.

Updated: 11:07 Tuesday, October 18, 2005