Your Mate … (10/12)

Australian Cricket fans

A “Bring Back Warne” website (www.bringbackwarne.com) has been created and are taking donations from the public, which they will then present to Warne in order to entice him to return to test cricket.

Donations have already topped $4,000 but as “The Daily Telegraph” reported, a group of Queensland businessmen are said to tempt to Warne with a whopping $1 million carrot.

The concern for Australian cricket is that by using Warne to regenerate interest, they are not making it sustainable for the future. At some stage, cricket must identify new heroes to market and follow in the shadow of Shane, now matter how hard the job may seem.

What message does it send the rest of the team? Are we in that bad a state that we have to call on a 41 year old who hasn't bowled in a creditable match since 2007?

This would be nothing more than a sideshow distraction, a marketing ploy, attempting to ease the decline of arguably the greatest cricketing team ever seen.

It's time for the Australian media and Australian sporting fans to stop clinging to the past and embrace the future of cricket in this country.


Anthony Mundine

In what may be the first of many appearances for ‘The Man’ in this column, Anthony Mundine may have just been served his first reality check.

Anthony Mundine was planning to head to the US with bigger plans in mind, but after suffering a shock fifth round knockout at the hands of little known Garth Wood in their middleweight bout on Wednesday night, those US dreams are shot.

In typical Mundine fashion before the bout he spruiked, “Kessler couldn't do it (knock Mundine out), Green couldn't do it… he (Wood) ain't got it”, but Wood did knock Mundine out, maybe finally knocking some sense into him...

...maybe...

Mundine had planned to use this fight, Wood's reward for winning 'The Contender' television series, as his final stepping stone before heading overseas, but admitted everything was now up in the air after Wood left him sprawling on the canvas 58 seconds into the fifth round.

Maybe this fight proved it's time for Mundine to hang up the gloves and close his mouth, because 'The Man has finally become 'The Myth'.