Australian players receive pay hikes

The last week has obviously been very bad for Australian cricket. They slipped up not once or twice, but four times, including losses to England and Bangladesh in one-dayers, Somerset in a tour game and England (again!) in a Twenty20 fixture. They now lie bottom of the heap, at this instant at least, in the NatWest Series points table.

Perhaps its coincidental that Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers Association have now finally reached an agreement on splitting up the revenue between the board and the players and rewarding the players for their feats this month. It maybe recalled that in April, the two sides agreed on the split and began to work on the finer details.

Gareth Batty, who bowled the grand total of 15 overs across four Bangladesh innings earlier this summer in the tests, first suffered the ignominy of a few writers wondering if England were better off picking Pietersen instead and sharing the overs with Vaughan and Ian Bell. Then he got picked as Giles' replacement in the one-day series. Now, he has been cast away after Giles was ruled fit to take part in the series. Ashley Giles, the one-eyed emperor of the blind, is actually playing in today's game against Bangladesh.

Really does make me wonder about how crappy Batty must be, if he doesnt have the captain's confidence to do the job against Bangladesh, if he doesnt get picked even when Giles is absent while Giles is picked the moment he returns. He really must be the worst spin bowler in the world, and that is a very honourable position to have, especially when Giles is around.

Steve Waugh, writing in his column, reckons that Australia's poor week is mainly because they have lost focus and really need to get back their work ethic.