Gayle, Inzamam and Dravid last minute inclusions

Following Tendulkar's and Gibbs' withdrawals from the ICC Super Series, their replacements have been named. Inzamam, Dravid and Gayle have been called up. Inzamam and Gayle replace Tendulkar and Gibbs respectively in the test side while Dravid replaces Tendulkar in the one-day side.

With Gayle being called up instead of Gibbs, this means viewers, spectators, World XI players and their Australian opponents will salivate at the prospect of seeing Sehwag and Gayle bat together. Even if Gayle dropped down the order, the most likely candidate to open with Sehwag would be Afridi. Just make sure you do not miss a ball of the action when these chaps are batting!

And no, Gibbs hasn't pulled out fearing the long arms of the law, yet again. This time it is an injury.

Meanwhile, the ICC has announced that the umpiring duties for the three one-dayers will be shared by Aleem Dar, Darrell Hair, Rudi Koertzen and Simon Taufel. Simon Taufel and Rudi Koertzen will be the on-field umpires for six days of the Super Test.

There is one problem with the appointment of Taufel and Koertzen for the test. Given that the games are official tests and one-dayers, the announcements violate Law 3.1.3 of the ICC's own playing conditions for test matches.

Law 3.1.3 states:

ICC will appoint two umpires to stand in each Test Match. Neither of such umpires shall be from the same country as the participating teams and shall be selected from the 'Elite Panel' or the 'International Panel'.

Correct me if I am wrong, but this effectively means that Taufel, who is from Australia, one of the participating teams, cannot umpire in the Super Test! But of course, who stops the ICC from moving its own goalposts.

Darrell Hair, although resident in England for a while now, continues to represent Australia on the umpiring panel. His appointment seems to have now created a situation where he could report Murali for chucking, again.

Labels: super series 2005