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Inzamam would probably have chosen to end his story a little differently, had he written his script himself. He would, for instance, have not wanted the World Cup debacle, the resultant omissions from the squad and the ICL saga to have marred his final steps as an international cricketer playingfor Pakistan. He wouldn't have wanted to end his career having lost a series at home to South Africa, he wouldn't have wanted to have ended hislast test with Pakistan having to fight to draw the game. Atleast, he would have preferred for it to have been him doing the fighting.
 

 
No contemporary writer of fiction, on paper or film, could have dreamed up a better entry for any entity. T20 cricket has come with a bang, and caught the imagination of its biggest sample size of potential addicts, simply by making them feel good about themselves. The murmurs of match fixing, though very much present, are somewhat muted in the most significant constituency, simply because the temptation to enjoy a rare Grand Triumph is too much. An Indian world championship cricket win after 22 years – can anything else matter more?

 
The current scenario of International cricket is somewhat disturbing. The reason – Australia’s undeterred domination of world cricket, and the ever- extending gulf between them and the rest of the cricketing world. Despite occasional bursts of brilliance by every other team, including even Bangladesh, why do Australians still remain invincible? And more importantly, does the fact that they have possibly the oldest squad in world cricket have anything to do with it?
 

 
One Day Internationals had begun in various experimental forms three seasons previously. However, it took the World Cup tournament spread briefly across England's fabled summer of 1975 to galvanize global attention.  After a few thrillers, the concept was ultimately driven home with an equally fabled Final between West Indies and Australia (a DVD please someone, anyone).  Played over 60 overs per side (!), both teams gave as good as they got and cricket emerged the happy winner ensuring its own relevance and a new audience through the latter twentieth century.
 

 
In April Stephen Fleming resigned as captain of the NZ ODI saying he wanted to stay on as a batsman only in that form of the game, and focus on his test career. Although this came as a bit of a surprise, it did seem to be the best arrangement for both the NZ teams. He was becoming increasingly tired as an ODI captain, and still had enough years ahead of him to finally realise his full potential as a Test captain and batsman.

(HW Classics is a section where we relive articles written in the past which are timeless. These are the articles which grow on you with each reading (well, that's what we feel anyway) and therefore, probably shouldn't be relegated to the back pages of the site.)