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Allen Stanford’s multi-million dollar 20/20 extravaganza has become the latest entrant to the Pantheon of Cricket Vaporware - those would-be cash cows that disappear after, if they’re lucky, one outing, or if they’re unlucky - none.

The Stanford 20/20 Super Star match, set down between West Indies and South Africa for November 10 with a winner take-all purse of €3.9 million, has been cancelled. The reason will shock you, so sit down.

It clashes with an official ICC fixture. The West Indies start a Test match at Lahore less than 24 hours after the scheduled date of Allen Stanford’s brainchild.

I’ll defer to Caribbeancricket.com for analysis of the reasons and impact of the cancellation. Five million smackers for a twenty over-a-side slugfest sounds ridiculously obscene, and hopefully the lad from Texas will do something more constructive and less flashy next time… and I reckon there will be a next time.
Oh, the mention of vaporware reminds me to check out www.i2020cc.com for any updates…

It seems that use of the phrase “Welcome cricket 2007″ in public is a breach of the ICC’s copyright. Well might you say, Whaaa?

Wednesday’s Jamaica Gleaner reports that the local organising committee (or LOC to use its official acronym) for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 has instructed its lawyers to serve notice on the owners of a downtown Kingston property which has the words “Welcome cricket 2007″ painted across the front.

The Gleaner quotes Robert Bryan, executive director of the Jamaican LOC as saying “the words Cricket World Cup 2007 used in tandem with World Cup, indicate an association with Cricket World Cup 2007.”

The report does not say if Bryan was asked about the legal position when the words “World” and “Cup” are not actually used.

One has to wonder whose market was being ambushed in this case. Or is it now going to be impossible for anyone living in a World Cup host locality to display their excitement about the coming event without being sent a bill for the privilege?

The solution, of course, is to change the wording of the sign to: “Piss off cricket, welcome basketball 2007.”

Collis King would be best remembered for being the batsman at the other end as Viv Richards blazed away in the 1979 World Cup Final at Lord’s. It’s more than a quarter of a century since he last played for the West Indies, and he’s now in his fifties, but last weekend he turned up in central Queensland for a seven-a-side cricket competition.

ABC Local Radio in Wide Bay has a story on their website about the 22nd annual seven-a-side cricket carnival at Mundubbera. King was captain of a team called the Nixon Nuffies.

He can be heard on the audio report which accompanies the ABC story.

A fabulous innings from Brian Lara is at an end. It’s almost certainly his last Test match in Australia, which makes it a pity for Melbourne and Sydney’s sake.

Lara now has 11,146 runs in Test matches for the West Indies. Let’s hope he can score at least 29 in the second innings to pass Allan Border’s total in Test matches for Australia, and put the world record beyond dispute.

McGrath bowls around the wicket to Lara. A short ball, waist-high, angled across the left-handed batsman, Lara exposes his leg stump as he pulls to deep backward square for a single. He is 214 not out. The crowd rises to give Lara a standing ovation. Lara waves his bat in the air, the Australian players come over to congratulate him. He has passed Allan Border to become the highest run-scorer in Test cricket.

Supposedly.

Something I forgot about in researching my earlier post today is that Allan Border captained the Rest of the World XI against the Marylebone Cricket Club in the five-day match for the MCC’s bicentenary in 1987. Should we then, perhaps, add another 26 runs to Border’s career total?

Can of worms.

That was a fantastic innings by Brian Lara at the Adelaide Oval yesterday. Overnight, he is 202 not out in a West Indian total of 352 for 7. This morning, the papers are reporting that he needs twelve more runs to overhaul Allan Border’s career aggregate of 11174. But thanks to the ICC, there will be some nagging doubt over the moment when he becomes the leading Test run-scorer of all time.

The ICC, as we will recall, decreed that their six-day game between Australia and an “ICC World XI” in Sydney last month was, for all purposes, a Test match. This is despite the fact that “ICC World” is not a member entity of the International Cricket Council, that the one-sided match was over inside four days, and that the event is unlikely to repeated, leaving the words “ICC World XI” standing out like a sore thumb on twenty-two players’ stats records.

Brian Lara played in that game. It wasn’t one of his finest efforts, scoring 5 and 36, but it does place 41 runs on his Test record as a representative of the mythical “ICC World”.

The ICC-friendly stats show that, before the start of the current Adelaide Test, Lara had scored 10961 Test runs. It is my view that the correct focus is on Lara’s runs in Test matches against other ICC members - in this instance, all the Tests he has played for the West Indies. And that total is 10920.

Which means, with another 202 runs to his credit overnight, that Lara has at this point of time scored 11122 runs in genuine Test cricket. That’s another 53 before he passes Border.

There’s an argument to say that the ICC’s decision to allow “hyper-international” teams into the realm of official Test and ODI cricket should be a catalyst for retrospectively including other RoW matches, and indeed the WSC “supertests” of the late 1970s. But there’s a catch here (and it’s not a Classic). If we include the WSC games as Test matches (which DK Lillee afficianados have been clamouring after for decades), then wouldn’t we need to exclude those official Test matches played at the same time?

In Allan Border’s case, this would remove the first five Tests of his career (three against England and two against Pakistan in 1978-79) from his record. We would, therefore, have to deduct 422 runs from his aggregate, bringing his total back to 10752 (curiously, that would give him a century on debut, 162 at Chennai in 1979-80).

Lara passed 10752 during his innings of 153 against Pakistan at Sabina Park in June this year. Can of Worms.

All of which is reason why Test cricket should only be recognised as matches between ICC full member entities, and not redefined at the whim of the ICC marketing consultants.

I’ll be happy if Lara reaches 214 today, but I’ll be saving the full ovation for 255.

I must confess that I haven’t watched much of the current Australia-West Indies Test series to date. For the most part, I’ve had the alibi of Other Committments, but it’s also true that I haven’t found it very motivating to follow. It’s a shame, because I have always enjoyed following Aus-WI contests over the last three decades or so.

As I write, Australia are 7/362 in their first innings at Bellerive, shortly after lunch on day three, 213 in front. Brad Hodge has just brought up his half-century in his maiden Test innings, and yesterday Mike Hussey notched up his first Test century in his second Test. Both these guys are wonderful reserves to have for any international eleven. Hodge has probably taken over the Martyn/Katich spot in the team for a while, but I fear Hussey’s place in the annals of Test cricket will be along the lines of Tom Moody or Martin Love.

I can’t make much comment about the West Indian batting at this stage, I keep blinking when they play their innings. I keep thinking about the 1975-76 WI team, they had just won the World Cup and then got flogged 5-1 by Australia in the Tests. They were a better team than 1-5, and weren’t far from developing into one of the greatest teams of all time. I wish I could say that about the 2005-06 West Indians. However…

In case you haven’t picked up on it yet, the Cricket Australia website has a regularly updated MP3 section, mostly comprising press conference interviews. They also have ABC commentary highlights of each day of the Test - day one and day two are already available.

November 6, 2005: Australia defeats the West Indies by 379 runs to win the First Test at The Gabba. Now let’s go back thirty years.

November 1975. Quite a month. Indonesia invaded Portuguese Timor. Morocco invaded Western Sahara. Even in Australia, a democratically-elected government was overthrown. Yes, quite a month. Supertramp invaded my brain, staying in control until after Christmas when they were flushed out by the arrival of the Queen’s most potent weapon, Bohemian Rhapsody.

(Yes folks, I Was A Teenage Supertramp Fan.)

But there were other matters of national importance in Australia in November 1975: the defence of the Frank Worrell Trophy. Clive Lloyd’s West Indians came full of hope of putting on a good show against a powerful, but aging Australian lineup. In the end they were thumped 5-1 (ah yes, a six Test series, and only one of those pesky one-dayers). But there are few Test series of which I have memories as fond as for this one. It just didn’t feel so one-sided.

It was a team with so many legendary veterans - Lloyd, Fredericks, Gibbs, Murray - but two youngsters by the names of Gordon Greenidge and Michael Holding were both playing like shite and couldn’t hold their places in the eleven. And Vivian Richards didn’t click until he was promoted to opener (in place of Greenidge) late in the series.

Let’s return to 2005. The West Indies have been demoted to a three-Test series in Australia, but only the most canny meteorologist would suggest anything other than a 3-0 drubbing at this point. Does this crop of Windians have its own Greenidge and Holding? Or is West Indies cricket as relevant today as a Supertramp 45, or indeed, a Richie Benaud safari jacket from his Reuben F Scarf commercials of that summer?

With the July 8 program apparently pre-empted by a combination of the G8 and the bombs in London, “World Cricket” is back on the BBC World Service this week.

There’s reaction to the depleted West Indian side currently touring Sri Lanka, a look at Bermuda’s qualification for the 2007 World Cup, an interview with Shep on the occasion of his final international, and Neil Manthorp’s view on the coming Asia v Africa series.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/meta/tx/nb/world_cricket_au_nb.ram

Last Friday (July 8 ), BBC Radio 4 played a 30-minute program entitled “Cricket Calypso”, about Judge Ray Funk of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Funk is an expert on calypso music, including calypso tunes about West Indian cricket. Not that he necessarily knows much about the game.

It’s available for listening online till this Friday (July 15) in realaudio format.