It’s been a while since old Cha Cha ji blabbered about this and that.....and things he ought not to be blabbering about, but who cares!

First up, tuneless trumpets I am afraid for World Record busting Muttiah Muralitharan, who has been in the news for all sorts of reasons lately. Tuneless because we have always been among those who have felt that though Muttiah is a thoroughly decent and likeable fellow, unfortunately birth defect or not, his bowling style contravenes the laws of the game of cricket and therefore he should never, ever have been allowed to bowl a single over (with that bowling action) in a proper school or university cricket match let alone a first class match or Test cricket. The ICC have been weak in taking a stand against Muralitharan's palpably illegal action and have now belatedly stirred a hornets nest of their own making by outlawing the bowlers "Doosra". What a fine mess it is! That Murali will always be remembered as the great world record busting off spinner is without doubt, yet he will also equally be remembered for his action and not because of its beauty. Anyway, three cheers for Murali, three cheers for the Asian cricketing brotherhood for supporting a brazenly illegal action and three cheers again to the same Asian lobby for backing Bangladesh's Test status which brings one to subject number two on today’s blabbering session.

Very soon something has to be done about the fact that Bangladesh and Zimbabwe (with or without Rebels) and arguably the West Indies are performing at such a abysmal level these days that they are simply serving as fodder for a host of World Records that are being set against them and will continue to be set against them unless this issue is addressed. Though this will create hideous logistical problems, perhaps it is time to create an Elite division of Test playing nations and a Second division which will be playing four day first class cricket rather than five day Tests. The champion team from the second division should be promoted to play Test cricket for a period of two years and the team that finishes at the bottom of the Elite division should be relegated to joining the lower rung until they might be promoted again two years later if they win the lower division title. On current form Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Kenya and if the ICC wants so desperately to broaden the games appeal, then they might include Canada, Namibia and Holland and Nepal to begin with. These teams ought to play each other to decide who gets the right to play Test cricket while the Elite group should start with the top eight which should consist of Australia, India, South Africa, England, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and the West Indies. This would put huge pressure upon teams like the West Indies and even Pakistan to perform to risk being relegated to two years without Test cricket. Also as basic criteria the ICC should not allow countries lacking a domestic first class structure to play Test Cricket and therefore Zimbabwe and Bangladesh would automatically be disqualified from the highest rung until they set up a domestic first class cricket infrastructure. This may sound radical, but at the moment there is an enormous yawning gulf between the better teams and the awful teams and it devalues Test cricket when Australia have to play against Bangladesh and all sorts of records are obliterated. Likewise who has got the time to invest six hours of watching Australia play Bangladesh, surely nobody but retired folks and most probably they would rather read a good book or snooze! And to pay to watch Bangladesh take on Australia.....now that is really does take the cake! To put it into a nutshell, by all means broaden the appeal of the game but by awarding Test cricket status to countries that lack a proper infrastructure all one is doing is devaluing the status of Test Match cricket which is sad as watching a bowler with a palpably illegal bowling action devouring all sorts of bowling records! Something must be done about both.

People will argue that once upon a time India, Pakistan and New Zealand were Test match pushovers and that is certainly true, but to counter that argument...each one had a first class structure in position and therefore (it can be counter argued) it didn't take them very long to start producing at least decent quality teams especially when playing in home conditions, these teams were capable of taking on the best. The same cannot be said of Zimbabwe well over a decade after playing Test cricket and also Bangladesh who continue to perform woefully.

The decline of the West Indies is also something that is tragic and seems a terminal case - there can be no turning back the clock it seems and the glories of the past will remain relegated to history books, anecdotes and fading video tapes. Other sports have sapped the talent that once would automatically be snapped up by cricket, and though the occasionally brilliant lad will still come through the ranks, it is with far less frequency than in days gone by. The other crippling problem seems to be one of attitude - the current West Indies team strut around like they are walking on water.......supreme world beaters from another planet with their heads so swollen that they are floating in the clouds rather than walking with their feet firmly on the ground. There is no will to improve......when was the last time you actually saw a West Indian cricketer improve his game?? There is also no will to fight and no collective pride. Gone are the days alas and very sadly it doesn't seem as though they will return in a big hurry either, if ever again. The demise of the West Indies has been a huge loss to the sport as their teams could be relied upon for exhilarating entertainment and skill year after year after year...The chapter is sadly closed.

At home the PCB boss has made several changes about making changes but his words have yet to be followed up by substantial actions. The Indian series is over now and the house needs mending! Money shouldn't be a constraint after the windfall of the Indian series. Meanwhile it is nothing short of sickening when the Chairman of the PCB is "summoned" like a criminal to explain the debacle of the national teams loss to India recently.......sickening because the politicians of a country beset with social, economic and political problems should have little time for such relatively trivial matters and secondly everyone with half a wit knows that India won the series because they had a far superior team that performed in a far more professional manner than the Pakistan team. However what the senate no doubt wants to hear is that there was a Zionist plot to discredit Pakistan or that huge amounts of money were paid under the table to unscrupulous PCB members and the cricketers to under perform etc etc etc. The usual conspiracy theory monkey on the back that this country is afflicted by. What utter hogwash.........the politicians should feel insulted that they are expected to spend valuable time discussing "why we lost the cricket series" and not try to grapple with issues that actually make a difference to the quality of people’s lives. Isn't that after all what the politicians are voted in to do?

This whole thing about the PCB chairman chasing after naughty boy Shoaib Akhtar is now bordering on the comical. Shoaiby, realizing that the bossman was not too happy with his antics at the end of the Pindi match raced off to India and made sure that shots of his visiting sick children in hospitals made the press! He has toured with Khan on two previous occasions and has learned exactly which strings to pull and by appearing at hospitals he showed that at least his brain still ticks over when it needs to. Meanwhile he also managed to somehow make sure that pictures of his partying with Bollywood starlets and the like didn't leak. The PCB went belatedly ahead with their medical tests to find that Shoaib was indeed injured.......and so public opinion turned against the villainous PCB for supposedly persecuting the only match winner that the team has! However things seemed to be sorted out in an amicable meeting between Khan and Shoaib when Shoaib supposedly promised former that he would not play for Durham for a couple of weeks upon reaching England, but before you could say Muttiah Muralitharan, Shoaib is out on the field for Durham not weeks but a mere day or two after reaching England. Khan raises his eyebrows and asks for an explanation.....the world waits with baited breath for the next move!!!

What else is there to blab about........the upcoming Tennis Grand Slam summer....well, we are famously known for being utterly wrong about all our tennis predictions and in fact whenever a player is tipped, he or she usually ends up going out in the very next round. However it is just so much fun to play armchair mastermind and so here goes the predictions for the French Open Tennis Championships just around the corner. Firstly, Agassi surely doesn't stand a chance. He has slowed down half a step in the last nine months or so and will continue to do so. When he lost to Coria at last years Open it suggested that his number was up on clay and now he will probably be a fraction slower still. However much he fights it, age will take its toll and amazing though he is for a man his early 30's, he is going to find it very tough competing with younger, fitter and faster players. The obvious favourite is Roger Federer who has recently put all his serious challengers (on clay) to the sword including a pasting for Carlos Moya followed by a pasting of a resurgent Lleyton Hewitt and an easy stroll in the park against nearest competitor Guillermo Coria. So, it seems as though Federer is indeed in a class of his own. It just remains to be seen if he can produce seven matches of high quality in a row as clearly when he is on song, currently there is nobody who can live with him. Unfortunate that Juan Carlos Ferrerro seems to have fallen away lately but the progress of David Nalbandian is exciting and surely it is a matter of time before he wins his first breakthrough Grand Slam title. Andy Roddick may not be considered a serious clay court contender but he should not be underestimated either. Marat Safin...well he can be utterly brilliant one day and utterly horrendous the other - the volatility hasn't changed much even though he has been putting together some pretty decent results of late.

The women’s event appears to be a little more open this year because defending champion Justine Henin cannot surely be considered a major title threat due to the fact that she lacks match practice and has been out of the game for weeks with a virus. Though she is an incredibly tough nut as one has seen time and again, surely even she cannot come out as champion after a considerable lay off as she has suffered. Meanwhile the usual competitors also have question marks against them. Serena Williams herself hasn't been back too long and there have to be serious doubts about whether she is yet on song enough to start reaching Grand Slam finals again. The same can be said of older sister Venus but one player who might be considered a warmish favourite is Amelie Mauresmo on the basis of two very fine wins in consecutive tournaments leading up to Paris. However Mauresmo has her own injury problem to conquer and it remains to be seen if she can last a tough two week tournament without breaking down once again. This does look as though it could be Mauresmo's finest chance to become the newest French hero. Capriati is stringing some decent results together as well though it seems Anastasia Myskina has gone off the boil. The dark horse has to be Lindsey Davenport who nobody talks about as being a serious contender any longer. But she has also put some solid results behind her recently and stands a good chance of going into the later stages of the show. The tournament usually throws up a couple of surprises, who will it be this year? Will it be one of the Russian girls, at least two of whom made the late stages of the tourney last year? I wouldn't count against it.