The Postman delivers

Dan sent me a link to Gavin Larsen's picks for the next World Cup and made a few comments of his own (they are posted under the piece about Murali if you want to take a peek). Gavin's picks do seem very conservative don't they? Given the World Cup is still a good three years away I was surprised that he has selected a pace bowler (Adams) who will be 33. But when you look a bit closer you realise that he had to be conservative as the core of New Zealand players are still remarkably young. Fleming is 31, McMillan is 28 and Vettori is only 25. Astle, Cairns and Harris are all on their last legs and who knows if we will ever see Bond again - but the rest of the current crop should all be available in 2007. And that makes it hard to pick any outsiders.

One outsider I will stake my hat on is Richard Sherlock. The Dominion Post reported the other day that he was clocked at over 150kph during the 'A' tour of South Africa, and I suspect that might mean he will be rushed in to add variation to the dribbly New Zealand pace attack very, very soon.

The thought of the New Zealanders as young guns cheers me up a little bit in the dim, dark, brutal days when we are reduced to letting a thuggish moron captain the national team (it depresses me to think that perhaps the selectors saw captaincy potential in Scott's mean-spirited and arrogant sending off of Ashafrul in the last ODI). The only Australians under 30 who are likely to play in Brisbane are Michael Clarke, Jason Gillespie and Ricky Ponting. And Gillespie and Ponting are both 29. Looking wider than the starting XI, there is not a single youngster amongst the bowlers given contracts this year by Cricket Australia - McGrath (currently 34), Warne (35), MacGill (34), Gillespie (29), Hogg (33), Kasprowicz (32) and Lee (29). By the time of the next World Cup the youngest of that crop, Brett Lee, will be 33.

Who knows? By 2007 Australia might be rubbish and Scott Styris might actually have learnt not to act like a thug and not to swing wildly at good balls.