EDITOR'S CHOICE JOBS AXED AT FIRM Staff fears as jobs are axed at Wavin HEAD BOWS OUT Head says farewell after 17 years at Malmesbury School HE WILL BE MISSED More tributes for train death policeman CANCER GIRL'S HEADSHAVE 40 join in Becky's charity shave ON AT THE CINEMA The Dark Knight (12A) Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging (12A) Baby Mama (12A) VOTE Do you feel safe from crime in Wiltshire? Yes No GET OUR NEWS BY E-MAIL Just register

Most read Comments 1 Strange goings on in Devizes 2 Super slimmers gain from huge loss 3 Prom girl's diet joy 4 Neighbours' fears over garden centre expansion 5 Hatts off to new Bluebirds sponsors 6 Armed police in drugs raid 7 Yet another twist in flag saga 8 Mings won't break the bank for Belle 9 Staff fears as jobs are axed at Wavin 10 Canal work hit by thieves Today | 7 Days 1 Wiltshire gun cop accidentally shoots himself 2 Brake firm may quit Chippenham 3 Plan to save historic Devizes building snubbed 4 Top Gear praises Wiltshire speed camera campaigner 5 Strange goings on in Devizes 6 Police hunt dog dirt vandals 7 Policeman in rail line death is named 8 Armed police in drugs raid 9 Mum stands up against muggers 10 Yobs gone but litter is back

Comment

Muthiah Muralitharan need not have had a sleepless night Sunday worrying if the Kandy storms would clear for him to break Shane Warne's world record when England's first innings continued the following morning.

Sri Lanka's greatest spinner had already regained his title as international Test cricket's highest wicket-taker of all time when he dismissed Ravi Bopara the previous day.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is entirely to blame for this confusion.

In 2005 they illegally and erroneously accorded official Test match status to a frolic that was given the ludicrous label of Super Test.

In reality, it was just a first-class match between the Australians and an ICC World XI staged at the Sydney Cricket Ground in October 2005.

The hosts won this superfluous bun fight by the overwhelming margin of 210 runs and plans to repeat this nonsense on an annual basis were swiftly abandoned.

At the time this match was played, the ICC's own qualifications stated that "only full members of ICC can participate in Test matches."

In other words a Test match could only be played between the ten nations currently accorded full member status. Basically it has to be an international and cannot involve a multinational team.

In fact the ICC Cricket Committee originally recommended that this match should not have Test match status.

However, once sponsors Johnny Walker and the television and radio broadcasters let it be known that they would not support the game unless it had Test status, pressure was brought to bear on the Cricket Committee to reverse their original decision.

The Kandy confusion came about because Murali took five wickets in this superfluous Test and Warne six.

Most of the media has kowtowed to the ICC by including these dismissals in the bowler's Test career records.

Hence the Kandy Test started with Warne being credited with 708 wickets and Murali with 704. In international Tests they had 702 and 699 respectively.

When Murali dismissed Michael Vaughan on Sunday he became the second bowler after Warne to take 700 Test wickets and had achieved this feat in 28 fewer Tests (115 compared with 143).

Before the storm brought a premature end to England's collapse, he had added the scalps of Ian Bell, Kevin Petersen, Ravi Bopara and Matt Prior to claim his 61st five-wicket bag - 24 more than Warne.

So it was Ravi Bopara (not Paul Collingwood the following day) whose dismissal, edging a leg glance to the keeper, brought Murali the record.

Common sense needs to come into play now and pressure is growing on the ICC to review and downgrade their status of this contentious mismatch.

Two years after the event, any fears that they would be open to litigation from the sponsor and broadcasters who refused to become involved unless it was given official status can be discounted.

Many statisticians refuse to include this match in their Test records.

I am 100 per cent behind them and all records I publish in the Playfair Cricket Annual, plus those I provide for BBC websites and commentaries, ignore it.

Ironically it was the ICC who overturned the original Test match status granted to the 1970 England v Rest of the World five-match series that replaced the cancelled South African tour of England.

10:02am Thursday 6th December 2007

Print

Email this

Comment