March 12, 2004
 

Cricket

It happened today. Shane Warne's resurrection, the most famous one since that of Jesus Christ nearly 2000 years ago, was well and truly complete today when he took his 500th Test wicket to help Australia beat Sri Lanka at Galle very convincingly. Muralitharan was pipped to the post and this was always on the cards especially after Australia negotiated him excellently in their second innings. Warne is now 19 wickets shy of overtaking Walsh and it'd be an amazing feat if he did manage to get past Walsh in this series, although you can never really write off Murali making a stirring comeback to reach 520 quicker than Warne.

As the plaudits start rolling in about how Warne is the greatest of them all etc. etc., it must not be forgotten that he hasn't really been the angel that he's made out to be. If, as Cricket Australia chairman Bob Merriman says, "Test cricket has been played for 127 years and in that time only one other person has taken 500 wickets", it is equally true that in the 127 years of Test cricket, only one man has been banned for taking a diuretic and only one other Australian has been fined for accepting money from a bookmaker. Warne's faults must not be swept under the carpet. Yes, it is an awesome sight watching him bowl and snare the batsmen. Yet, like I mentioned just over a year ago, Warne's actions cannot and must not be condoned. Lets put it this way, when Murali gets to 500 wickets, Warne will be in a minority of one in the list of most admired & gentlemen cricketers with 500 Test wickets.

Nitin writes in 'The Acorn' that the Indian cricketers are being made to play in a country whose most recent missile test can hit anywhere from Eden Gardens, to Wankhede to Chepauk to Chinnaswamy stadium.

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Link of the day

So how did the smiley come about? CNet talks to one of the inventors.

Rambled @ 4:38 PM

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