Relive it below (or see a longer version in two parts with better picture quality, more inane commentary, but less annoying music):

Currently the rest of 2010 is dominated by 21 days of scheduled cricket against Sri Lanka. It also includes 2 ODIs against India, 1 T20i against Zimbabwe (with the tour to Zimbabwe itself has been canned) and warm up T20s against Ireland and the Windies.

In fact there is not any international cricket scheduled in New Zealand until February. The better part of summer will pass with no international cricket. The bold claim by New Zealand Cricket of this being a busy summer has a gaping hole in it, namely the month and a half gap between the Pakistan series and the Bangladesh series. When we did last have a summer that included over a month of no international cricket? Ever in the modern era?

Surely when the three possible evidences of an edge are negative, that is proof that there was no edge. The Roach situation is precisely the type of situation that the referral system was intended to fix.

Ah well. Australia probably would have won anyway. Great to see the Windies fighting hard though, both in this test and the 2nd. Very interesting also to see the Aussies get ugly under pressure.

Bit of a slap on the wrist for Shane Watson for his sending off of Gayle, 15% of his match fee.  But the fact that you can so easily link to a video of him being a dick is probably punishment enough. For as long as the video remains available at least. I see the the video of Benn, Haddin and Johnson pushing and swearing has been pulled from Youtube. It’s a pity, as it was interesting viewing. Watching the video it is hard to see why Benn got punished so severely. We see Benn serve up a lot of cursing, a shaping to throw and a lot of pointing. But the only deliberate forceful contact between players was Johnson pushing Benn away right at the end of the whole farrago.

This Ashes cricket however, I just can’t get a bead on. The state of the series see-saws from test to test. Innings to innings even. From delivery to delivery? How can you understand a series with innings scores ranging from 674/6 to 102? Where the momentum from a win only carries you to an innings defeat? A series where Michael Clarke and Stuart Broad are heroes?

There are only as many as two days left in this test series and Australia are chasing an indomitable 546 runs. But with all the twists and u-turns that have gone before in this series, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Australia rose up and won this test.

If this is how test cricket is supposed to be, then let’s see more of it!

(I was going to make this post yesterday based on the July ranking, which according to the 2009 archives actually showed that New Zealand’s rating had fallen from 82 points in May (don’t know what happened to June) to 78, despite not having played test cricket for months. The ICC updates their table every year at about this time, dropping off old results, which would explain this change. It’s good I waited for a day and managed to catch the update, as our rating has inexplicably jumped back up to 82 in August, again with no cricket played. I don’t know what the ICC are up to with their ratings as they don’t explain them to us any more.)

But anyway, leaving aside West Indies misfortune, we have a rating of 82 and we have upcoming test series against teams with ratings of 119 (Sri Lanka), 84 (Pakistan), 13 (Bangladesh) and 124 (Australia), spanning the whole spectrum of the rankings as they stand at the moment.

That the marquee tour of the summer will only have two tests is very disappointing. However, it seems that NZC just haven’t been given enough time by Cricket Australia to fit in a decent tour. Australia won’t be free from their home commitments against Pakistan and the West Indies until after 23 Feb. A realistic end to the tour would be the first week of April. However, Australian workload restrictions are a further bind and pretty much rule out the possibility of three tests. Cricket Australia require 10 days between the start of the second and third tests of a tour. This would have meant that with the second test ending on 31 March, any third test would not have been able start until about 6 April. In fact it’s hard to see how we’re going to fit in a good 5-ODI series in there as well.

A quick squiz at the Aussie home schedule shows that the reason they won’t make it to New Zealand until late is because they have two 3-test series (both with the luxurious breaks between the second and third tests) and two 5-ODI series scheduled against Pakistan and the West Indies. That’s some workload. Over the same time period, New Zealand will play a 2-test series and an ODI series against Bangladesh.

Ironically we have to squeeze our 3-test series against Pakistan around the Aussie home schedule.

A very interesting aspect of the Aussie schedule is that the Windies have a huge month and a half break between their test and ODI rubbers and apparently have no other international commitments in between. I wonder if anyone has given any though to inviting them to visit for some ODIs in January.

One bizarre consequence of this turn of events is that the Windies slip down in the official rankings, enough to push New Zealand up one place into 7th. That’s not the sort of promotion to feel proud of.

As I understand the ranking system, Bangladesh gained 3 points from their 2-0 series win. With their current rating of 0 points, this gives them 270 points, which when converted into points gives them 10. I imagine that is as many points has they have ever had. The West Indies gained 0 points, which actually gives them -15 points, or in terms of points: 78. A drop of 7 points.

Australia obviously played fantastically, getting 4 centuries in their one innings and ending up 1 wicket and a few runs away from a big win. England might have played poorly (particularly both of Pietersen’s dismissals), but playing out the draw showed character, and they should be more competitive in the rest of the series.

Half a world away in Kingstown, Bangladesh are fighting hard for their second ever test win, playing against a West Indian team so severely weakened by a strike due to a contract dispute that they have 7 uncapped players in the team.

The gulf that seperates the quality of these two pieces of cricket is as wide and as deep as the ocean that physically seperates the games.