Please go away!

Phil Jaques
Phillip Hughes
Shaun Marsh
David Hussey
Brad Hodge
Marcus North
Adam Voges
Glenn McGrath
Luke Pomersbach
Chris Rogers

Ten players who could step up and take over from Matthew Hayden with ease.

There are more.

They are talented, capable and lacking only opportunity.

There is no shortage of alternatives, so why haven't we cut the fat already? There's no place for nostalgia in elite sports.

Taxpayer money goes to funding sport in Australia.

I expect Olympic gold medals.

I expect records to be broken.

I also expect cricket selections to be based on merit. For a while now we should have been assisting new, younger players to settle in, not carrying around a dead weight in hope of a miracle.

Sorry it had to be like this Matt, but you've had your chances.

Bearing in mind that David Hussey is from WA...

A Facebook group has been started for David Hussey to be selected to play for Australia.

If you're on Facebook, swing over to Australian selectors should pick David Hussey and join the group.

If you're not a Facebooker, sign up and then join. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell the selectors.

Jrod's petition can be found here.

Oops

Ok so it's emerging that Shaun Tait is depressed, and has been for a while, and he's actually been courageous, not cowardly.

I'M SORRY SHAUN, I FEEL REALLY REALLY BAD.

But as I clarified in my last post, with the information that was available it was suspiciously reminiscent of Sally Robbins.

However that is not the case and I think it's commendable that he has put his health first (ala Geoff Gallop!). I wish him a 160 km/h recovery, and I hope we see him happy and healthy soon.

Before I crawl away into a creek to weep about what a horrible person I am, I learnt about an intriguing string of coincidences today.

I never realised it is ESPN who own the broadcasting rights for cricket on the subcontinent (and threatened to sue Cricket Australia for $60 million if the Indians pulled out of the tour). Interesting of course, because ESPN own cricinfo. I also learnt that one of my favourite wineries is owned by an American company. Both these things disappointed me.

Also, I just heard this on the news:

"...Justice Hansen, when handing down his full reasons for the decision in Adelaide on Wednesday, said he was not told that Harbhajan had three previous breaches of the ICC's code of conduct until after the sentence was imposed.

He said he was particularly concerned about a charge of attempting to intimidate an umpire, for which Harbhajan was given a suspended one-Test ban and also fined.

"Overnight I have given earnest consideration to the code of conduct to see if it empowers me to reopen the sentencing process," Justice Hansen said.

"Regrettably I have concluded that I cannot do so and the penalty imposed by me must stand. At the end of the day Mr Singh can feel himself fortunate.""

Bloody hell. See I'd been (reasonably) happy to accept the appeal decision as being one made by someone who knew more about the situation than I did. However now that I've heard this, I'm quite annoyed. This person who was supposed to know more about the situation than I did, didn't! It's not on.

Anyway, that injustice is something else for me to weep about in the creek (when I get there, I'm not done yet).

On a lighter note, I'm rapt that David Hussey is playing with the national side at the Twenty20 at the G on Friday. I've seen him play at state level and I'm thrilled he's been given a shot, even if it is "only" a Twenty20 match, and even if he does play for Victoria. Don't screw it up, Davo!

Finally, I was wondering why the balance in earth had shifted on Monday. Something wasn't quite right, it was like the planets had aligned strangely or something. It wasn't until Tuesday that I realised it was because the English cricket team flew into New Zealand. Michael Vaughan is closer.