Pakistan continued their domination of a spirited Zimbabwe team, winning all three ODIs quite convincingly. Earlier, they had won the only Test to be played, by seven wickets. Zimbabwe are a side rebounding from the chaos of the past few years. Some of the white players are back and that has added some backbone to their batting and bowling. Earlier, Zimbabwe were decidedly better than Bangladesh in their recent series.
Bangladesh have only shown brief glimpses of a side worthy of Test status over all these years. Certainly, Ireland, Canada, Kenya or Holland would fancy their chances against them. Is it not time that the ICC start a relegation promotion system for Test cricket, a playoff between the two weakest Test teams and the two strongest non-Test teams. This would be certain to a light a fire under the teams who are sitting comfortably with their Test status and not feeling any pressure to perform.
Well done, Aleem Dar: Meanwhile, Australia and Sri Lanka are embroiled in a Test series in Sri Lanka. Australia are one up and were foiled by the weather in the second Test. The third Test is under way and the Sri Lankans are finding it much harder to get cheap wickets after the retirement of Muttiah Muralitharan. Muralitharan’s bowling action was interesting, to say the least. Once, in order to judge the legality of his action, he bowled with a cast on his arm in a bio lab, which kept the arm straight. But Murli actually bent his arm completely before releasing the ball.
It would have been interesting if he had tried bowling with his bent arm in a cast. The ball would probably have fallen on his front foot! And last but not the least, Aleem Dar has done a three-peat, winning Umpire of the Year – for the third year in a row. This man is such a credit to his profession, to his sport and to his country. Quiet, modest and unassuming, Dar just gets on with his job, doing it almost flawlessly. Well done, Aleem!
