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The super flop
Please can somebody put me on the right track? Was this the biggest ever cricketing flop in its entire history which has roots for well over a hundred years at least where international cricket is concerned!

In the Christian year of 2004AD, on the 4th day in the month of July the International Cricket Conference awarded the rights to stage cricket’s newest major event, the ICC Super Series. It was to be staged in Australia, 30 years hence, when Sir Garfield Sobers had then taken a star studded side in the season of 1971-72.

With the granting of the rights the ‘big boss’ of the ICC Malclom Speed announced that the winner of this series would earn US $ one million for the Test match and US $ 750,000 for the one-day series which would consist of three matches.

The concept behind this was to stage this series once in every four years and it was decreed –the top team of the ICC Test Championship every four years starting April 2005 will qualify to play the team of champions in the ICC Super Series Test for a ‘winner takes it all’ prize expected to be $US 1 million in addition to generous payments to the players.

Then on February 2nd 2005 the ICC announced that under the chairmanship of former Indian captain and batting legend Sunil Gavaskar a star studded panel that included -- Michael Atherton (England), Sir Richard Hadlee (New Zealand), Jonty Rhodes (South Africa), Aravinda de Silva (Sri Lanka) and Clive Lloyd (West Indies) would sit to select the Super World team.

The Super Selection Committee after much deliberations announced a squad that comprised – (Test and ODI) Andrew Flintoff (England), Rahul Dravid, Irfan Pathan, Virendra Shivag, Harbajan Singh, Sachin Tendulkar (India) Sohaib Akthar, Inzamam-ul-Haq,Navd ul Hassan (Pakistan), Mark Boucher, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Makhaya Ntini, Shaun Pollock (South Africa) Muttiah Muralitharan, Kumar Sangakkara and Chaminda Vaas (Sri Lanka), Brian Lara and Ramnaresh Sharwan (West Indies) (Test only) Steve Harmison, Andrew Strauss and Michael Vaughan (England), Anil Kumble and V.V..S. Laxman (India), Danesh Kaneria and Younis Khan (Pakistan), Andre Nel and Graeme Smith (South Africa) , (ODI only) Darren Gough, Kevin Pieterson and Marcus Trescothick (England), Shahid Afridi, Sohaib Malik, Abdul Razzak and Yousaf Youhana (Pakistan), Sanath Jayasuriya (Sri Lanka) and Chris Gayle (West Indies).

The selectors also took the following factors as criteria for selection:
* Players’ overall career records in both Test and ODI cricket
* Their form in both Test and ODI cricket over the past twelve months
* Their overall playing records against Australia and their performances against the world champion team in Australia.

* Players’ positions in the LG rankings for both Test and ODI cricket
* The distinctive characteristics of the venues in Melbourne and Sydney which will host the games.

Super selector Gavaskar went on record saying “We want the best flair and the Talent in the world, but we also need players with the qualities to dig deep when the going is tough and take advantage of any weaknesses or errors in the Australians”.

However the final squad of 20 players was to be announced in August.
The first time eyebrows went up was when the two captains were announced – Graeme Smith (Tests) and Shaun Pollock (ODIs) – both from South Africa.
As a captain Smith does not possess the best credentials compared to captains like Stephen Fleming of New Zealand (who is hailed as one of the best in the trade in current cricket among very knowledgeable personalities in the world) and Michael Vaughan of England. Even the Indian skipper Saurav Ganguli was the only overseas captain to stand up to Australian supremacy on their soil a while ago.

Then the ODI skipper Shaun Pollock was removed from the captaincy of South Africa by their own selectors. At the same time Marvan Atapattu of Sri Lanka has proven his credentials as one of the most successful captains in one day cricket in present times. This was proved a few days later when he was picked to lead the mythical world one-day team.

However after all this bellowing and imprudent ascertaining, the World Xl selected by the ICC Super Selectors fell flat on their faces and crashed to an ignominious 3-0 defeat in one of the worst ever cricket shows ever to be staged.

On the face of the defeat beaten captain Pollock said “We had a good team, it’s just that we couldn’t come up with the right performances. We had a few players who had no cricket for a long time and players from India and Sri Lanka straight from matches against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. And from that perspective we were undone.”

Then the next question….. What was all that criteria spelled out in the selection if the final result was to be this? Even bottom of the table Bangladesh scored 250 runs in an ODI against the Australian attack while playing on foreign soil. They were able to do so because they played as a team that had a sense of belonging. A pack of “ahindas” are not going to deliver the goods especially when they are pitted against a high quality side playing on home soil. It can be undone more easily when the team of “pick-ups” is not the very best that you can lay your hands on.

The future of the series, at first touted as a four-yearly tournament, is now in doubt, it was reported. Tournament director Brendan McClements admitted that he did not know whether there will be another Super Series. Still, he hailed the tournament as a success, claiming an attendance of close to 80,000 over the three matches and a global television audience of more than one billion.

McClements is reported as saying, “In Melbourne alone, 580,000 watched the first match on television. Not that it is a television event”, he was quick to stress. But asked when the International Cricket Council would decide on the future of the series, McClements pointed to the television rights negotiations, which will take place after the 2007 World Cup. Presumably, the series will not survive if the TV bosses don't accept it as part of the cricket package.

However if the ICC is genuinely interested in helping and developing the game across the world and are hoping to take it to the next dimension they can consider developing a squad made up of all the leading players in the world who will be on a plane just higher to Test cricket, and they will play against top cricketing nations on a regular basis (by incorporating this team also in the ICC international calendar) with the available list of players so that the players who reach that level too will have a sense of belonging playing for the ICC, as they are representing a team that is giving them regular work. So they will have to keep on performing in order to hold on to their places at this level. At the same time the ICC can develop other grades of teams and go and play in other developing cricketing countries so that they too could get a taste of real international cricket.
Frankly this current effort is a colossal waste of time and energy. I genuinely feel sorry for that man – Jhonnie Walker.

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