UK News
Insights from the UK and beyond
from Left field:
ICC name best test team of all time. Right or wrong?
The ICC has unveiled the best test team of all time as voted for by fans on the governing body's website. The ICC offered a shortlist to choose from.
Here it is:
Virender Sehwag
Sunil Gavaskar
Donald Bradman
Sachin Tendulkar
Brian Lara
Kapil Dev
Adam Gilchrist (wk)
Shane Warne
Wasim Akram
Curtly Ambrose
Glenn McGrath
Is it a bit 1980s focused? No Englishmen either but maybe that is not a big shock. Sehwag probably the biggest surprise.
These sort of polls are done almost weekly and discussed in bars around the world. The debate certainly won't end with this list but ahead of the 2,000th test later this week between England and India, it's a nice reminder of what a wonderful sport cricket is.
from Left field:
Cricket World Cup — live
Join us for coverage of the revamped Cricket World Cup on the subcontinent. Follow all the drama here with regular posts and some of the best photographs around. Comments welcome!
from Left field:
English cricket celebrates a coming of age
England's cricketers wrapped up a 3-1 series victory against Australia in Sydney on Friday and held aloft the little Ashes urn for the first time in 24 years on Australian soil.
They should enjoy the moment. It has been hard earned and a long time in coming. The taste of success will be sweet and should be savoured after so much hurt and torment at the hands of the great Australian sides of the last 20 years.
How can rickety cars put India on road to success?
When it comes to climate change, the environment and other weighty issues, what could the leaders of the world’s biggest democracy possibly learn from the rural Indians who cobble together rickety cars out of scrap metal and old bits of wood?
One of India’s best known businessmen says the improvised vehicles that carry crops and passengers along dusty village roads show how local people are often the best innovators, coming up with cheap and effective answers to tough problems.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Britain and the Kashmir banana skin
Memories seem to be short in the British government when it comes to Kashmir. Foreign Secretary David Miliband stirred up a diplomatic row over the region during his visit to India earlier this month. As this piece in The Times says, Miliband angered Indian officials by giving what they described as "unsolicited advice" on Kashmir, over which India has three times gone to war with Pakistan since independence from Britain in 1947 and over which it is in no mood to be lectured by outsiders, let alone the former colonial power.
It was on a visit to Pakistan and India in 1997 to mark the 50th anniversary of those two countries' independence that the then British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, also got into trouble over Kashmir. Cook, who also served the Labour government, was forced to row back from suggestions that Britain might help resolve the long-running dispute. His intervention cast a serious shadow over the visit by Queen Elizabeth, who was at one point forced to cancel a long-planned speech.
The visit, during which the queen was accompanied by Cook, went downhill after that, and at one point a senior British diplomat was seen sitting, head in hands in despair, on the pavement outside Chennai airport. There were even suggestions, denied of course, that the British High Commissioner might be recalled. Tony Blair, then prime minister, had to patch up ties by assuring his Indian counterpart, Inder Kumar Gujral, that London would not meddle in Delhi's dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir.
One wonders whether Miliband was reminded of all this before he went to India, and if he was, why did he walk into the Kashmir minefield once again. Or maybe he wasn't, which poses a different set of questions about competence and institutional memory at the Foreign Office.
from DealZone:
Tata’s likely infusion into Jag, Rover, bad news for sellers
Tata Motors, which bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford earlier this year, may now have to pump at least $1 billion into the brands to keep them alive. That's bad news for U.S. automakers trying to sell brands.
While auto assets up for sale by U.S. automakers were expected to linger for a while, Tata's rough road with Jag and Land Rover are likely to keep those assets on the block for much longer.
-
The Wall
