A poor sport

They keep saying that cricket is a rich sport. Look at the amounts of money involved. Look at the number of sponsors. Look at the celebrities. Look at the earnings of the top players.

Aye, whatever the sport lacks, it's not money.

There are a few things that it will miss in the coming days, though. Things that all the money in the world cannot buy.

It will miss the sight of the only Aussie who walks when he is out, and whose batting was the closest thing to Flashdance on the crease. It will miss the tall man in the black cap whose cover driving would have inspired Browning and Wordsworth to poetic excesses, and whose captaincy would have won him a place in most teams. It will miss perhaps the greatest all-rounder the world has seen since Ian Botham and definitely one of the greatest bowlers of modern times.

Cricket may have the bucks. But it will shortly lose Messrs Gilchrist, Fleming and Pollock.

And it will be all the poorer for that.