A couple of "well, fancy that"s :
(probably not going to make front page but things you ought to know anyway)
A learned lady who goes by the name of Lynn McConnell and writes for Cricinfo recently published an article entitled "Out-of-date seedings paint false picture of tournament" about the next ICC Champion's Trophy.
She bemoans the draw, which was based on 'old' world rankings and is as follows :
Pool A - Australia, New Zealand, Zimbabwe
Pool B - South Africa, West Indies, Kenya
Pool C - Sri Lanka, England, Bangladesh
Pool D - Pakistan, India, Netherlands
Saying : "In each of the four pools there will only be one relevant game, with two non-events being played out involving the tournament minnows".
Lynn suggests the following draw (based on 'current' rankings) :
Pool A - Australia, England, Zimbabwe
Pool B - South Africa, New Zealand, Kenya
Pool C - Pakistan, West Indies, Bangladesh
Pool D - Sri Lanka, India, Netherlands.
Subtle, eh? Does away with all the 'non-event' games at a stroke. Incidentally, World Cup 2003 had the following 'non-event' games based upon the rankings :
Bangladesh v Canada (Canada won by 60 runs)
Kenya v Sri Lanka (Kenya won by 53 runs)
Kenya v Zimbabwe (Kenya won by 7 wickets)
Oh, yes. It also does away with 'Australia v New Zealand' at the group stage.
Lynn McConnell is New Zealand editor for Cricinfo.
Whilst on the subject of people having their own ideas of right and wrong (and not at all anything to do with vested interests), a certain person who shall remain anonymous has passed on a rather worrying message from the official Somerset County Cricket Club website.
The message, from Mr Giles Clark (commercial chair), states that the club "... will not countenance in responding to silly and sometimes mischievous gossip emanating from other local websites."
He goes on to say "Thankfully, a vast majority of site users are purely interested in what the Club has to say officially." which is quite clever and astute of them, because there doesn't appear to be a 'feedback' mechanism on the site.
Furthermore, Mr Clark also claims a regular '40,000 - 80,000 visitors a month' and claims 1.5 million visitors last year. That means that the official site is likely to lose around half a million visitors this year alone.
The reason it's a worrying message? Well, if their current encouraging rate of increase in visitor numbers continues, there won't be anyone left in 2005 - and we wouldn't wish that on anyone.
Hang on. Only 'sometimes mischievous'?