More innovation needed in International Cricket

After a chastening weekend in front of the box for the smash and grab stuff from South Africa, Wickman is demanding more innovation in International cricket - and sport in general.

The time was when a couple of shepherds could smash a ball around a field using their crooks, a couple of stools and some sheep for fielders, make up some rules and turn it into an International game. Obviously they needed a bit of help from Hambledon and later the MCC but they invented the game. It then took the best part of 500 years before we started getting regularly beaten at it. And it wasn't until mid way through the last century that it was more than the Australians (let's face it they were exported Brits too) took us apart. Now any Tom, Dick and Hamed fancies having a pop at us and we're powerless to resist.

A couple of years ago we were the only ones even bothering with 20-20. No one cared. Now we're amongst the worst teams in the world at it. It's taken the Aussies a couple of stabs at it and they already look ominously good.

Look at Football. We were fine with that until last century. Whipped everyone. When Billy Webb-Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it so began the slow decline in English rugby prospects too (briefly stemmed in 2003).

The domination cycle in sport has shortened considerably. It only takes a couple of months, maybe a year, for us, as inventors of all the world's great games, to get dicke on. No, its about time we came up with a new version of cricket. I am thinking something innovative (Wickman likes to be outside the box) like 10-10 and then 5-5 and finally let's sell the world boundary bowls. If we practice like billyo in private, suddenly call a world championships with a couple of weeks' notice (having written up a really complicated rule book) we might lead the world for a couple of weeks at least. Although the current world champion of Boundary Bowls is a South African... damn.