In that period Pakistan have won steadily away from home – the sure route to high points in

In that period Pakistan have won steadily away from home – the sure route to high points in the statistician’s formula (see table). In 1992 Pakistan beat England 2-1, then went to New Zealand and won 1-0. They lost 2-0 in the West Indies (as everybody did back then) but bounced back by winning 2- 0 in Zimbabwe, 2-1 in New Zealand, 2-0 in Sri Lanka and 2-1 in Zimbabwe again. But their record in recent years remains good enough to secure second place in the table. It does seem to be the case that cricket is, for the moment at least, an Australian game.Pakistan have had, by any standards, a rotten year: bribe allegations, walk-outs, official enquiries and a couple of heavy defeats Down Under. Also, Slater, Taylor and Mark Waugh also figure strongly in anyone’s list of top batsmen.There was much talk in England this summer about the success of the Australian method: the much vaunted Academy of Cricket, which embarrassed Atherton’s team a year ago and bowled out the West Indies for 92 last month.

If you are simply selling branded products from other manufacturers – Heinz tomato soup or Nescafe, to take two of the products on the Sainsbury 200 list – all you are selling on is price. You add nothing to the brand name, except to sell it in pleasant and convenient surroundings.So you make the serious money by doing things other people cannot. We have long had a tradition here of up-market own-label products, whereas in the US until recently these were rather tacky imitations of branded lines. The advantage of own-label is that stores can experiment, testing new products directly on customers and seeing which lines sell, rather than relying on the marketing departments of some distant food manufacturer. In Shane Warne they have the world’s least playable bowler – in the recent series against Pakistan he took 19 wickets in just two Tests, and was man of the series.

Their batting is enviably resourceful: Steve Waugh remains the world’s No 1 by carrying on from where he left off in the West Indies – his unbeaten century set up Australia’s victory in the first Test and set the tone for the whole series. They followed their triumph in the Caribbean by humbling Pakistan in the first two Tests of a grudge series inflamed by the bribery allegations between Salim Malik, Tim May and Shane Warne – and they have held on to their top place in the Independent Table of Test Cricket, with the West Indies dropping to third.
There is not much doubt that Australia deserve their top billing. For international cricket, 1995 was a year of revolutions. The West Indies, who for two decades have ruled the roost, were finally toppled: soundly beaten at home by Australia, and held to a humiliating draw by – if we are honest – one of cricket’s minnow nations: England. But at least one thing is certain: Australia remain the top dogs. He related how his daughter, Gianina, once asked him for a glass of water while he was lying on a bed and could not reach it.”I couldn’t get up I felt like I was stuck to the mattress And my hand shook,” he said.

“She asked me: ‘Well, Daddy, won’t you get me the water?’ and I just couldn’t do it The cocaine had numbed me completely.”. “I suffered a lot because of drugs, much more than anyone could believe, and I’m going to explain my suffering to the young people,” said Maradona, who underwent two 15- month playing suspensions, in 1991 and 1994, after positive drug tests.Maradona, who now plays for Boca Juniors in Argentina, said that he began using cocaine in 1982, at the age of 22, while playing in Europe. “My family suffered many painful experiences,” he told the magazine. Only that way can you fight and try to recover.”
The 35-year-old player was arrested in 1991 for drug possession and distribution and sentenced to court-supervised treatment. “I was, I am and I always will be a drug addict,” Maradona said in Gente, in which he discusses his drug problem for the first time “You can’t just get up and say: ‘I was an addict’,” he said. “You have to wake up and say: ‘Today, I’m going to continue my fight against the hell of drugs’. We won 1-0.”Omens being the pillars of football optimism, Docherty might also consider this: his father capped his contribution to Manchester United’s cause by winning the FA Cup in 1977.The opposition in the final? Liverpool, of course..