That he did not sir. No.

But did Sami ever win a test in Adelaide? Or hit a 100 at Lord’s?

Did he? DID HE?

Apologies for the seriousness, but that original story stuck in my craw. Even the way it is presented on Wikipedia – someone needs to edit that page to include the word “rape”.

No doubt all of what you say is true, Ged, but at the time he was picked (and allowed to play) he had a standing accusation of rape on him. To me the affront is less about the specifics of this case, or its outcome, more about the general acceptance that cricket was more important than giving women genuine legal protection from “hardcore love”. Hossain was released purely because he was a cricketer, not because the case had mitigating circumstances. It would appear that the same would have happened no matter what the nature of the alleged crime (presumably as long as it was against a woman).

England dropped a player accused of punching some bigots in a nightclub. While that seems somewhat on the harsh side, I’d rather err that way than the other. As for the ICC, sport does not exist in a vacuum, and cricket has a decent history of non-neutrality (its stance on apartheid). There are cases when the morality of a choice is entirely obvious. When you stage a grand prix in Bahrain or a world cup in Qatar, you are part of the problem.

I will lighten the tone a bit though. The accusatory team in this case were called Happy – Day. It would be a crime against everything I hold dear if the judge had not set aside Sunday and Monday for their evidence.

Our favourite part of the international list is Fidel Edwards who constitutes additional evidence in the “at what exact number of wickets do they become good?” debate.

I feel a sense of trepidation responding to this point, as there is a risk that I will be perceived to be condoning rape and or misogynistic behaviour which I most certainly do not condone…

…but…

…the case in question (from the little we know of the facts) resembles more closely, in English law terms, the now defunct Victorian concept of “breach of promise of marriage” than it does that of rape.

Further, the accused at the time of the world cup selection was merely “accused” – he certainly had not been convicted and possibly (again to use English law terms) not even charged with a specific offence.

Naznin Akter Happy, the actress who made the accusation, declined the cloak of anonymity which Bangladeshi law allowed her (and would have been the norm), subsequently withdrew the accusation and instead married Rubel. I therefore think we can entertain the possibility that the Bangladeshi judicial and cricketing authorities made the right call to release Rubel from custody and allow both the domestic and the cricketing drama to play out. I’m not sure the ICC would have had any say in the matter once the Bangladesh cricket board decided to proceed with selecting Rubel in such circumstances.

This is not to defend the ICC and/or the Bangladesh Cricket Board unequivocally – both might be capable of making loathsome decisions on such matters; but on this particular matter I think they exercised their judgment correctly.

As for the true facts of the domestic conflict between the married-couple-to-be prior to their reconciliation and marriage…that is a matter solely for them once the accusation was withdrawn.

21% of those on the England list learnt their filth trade at Middlesex, which is a bit of a worry, although I do think that 3 of the 4 will have been declaration bowling for the most part and the fourth is Embers, who really was pretty good.

And here is the England list

RS Bopara 1@290
MA Atherton 2@155
MR Ramprakash 4@119
M Leyland 6@97.5
KP Pietersen 10@88.6
IDK Salisbury 20@77
GA Hick 23@56.8
DCS Compton 25@56.4
JW Hearne 30@48.7
PI Pocock 67@44.4
AF Giles 143@40.6
JE Emburey 147@38.4
MM Ali 181@36.6
A Flintoff 219@33.3
SJ Harmison 222@31.9
MJ Hoggard 248@30.5
GP Swann 255@30
SCJ Broad 467@28.7
JM Anderson 575@26.9

Naeem Islam BDESH 1 303
CS Nayudu INDIA 2 179.5
EAR de Silva SL 8 129
S Chanderpaul WI 9 98.1
KP Pietersen ENG 10 88.6
Rubel Hossain BDESH 33 80.33
MN Samuels WI 41 59.6
SR Tendulkar INDIA 46 54.2
Mohammad Sami PAK 85 52.7
CL Hooper WI 114 49.4
RJ Shastri INDIA 151 41
FH Edwards WI 165 37.9
MM Ali ENG 181 36.6
Danish Kaneria PAK 261 34.8
DL Vettori NZ 362 34.4
Harbhajan Singh INDIA 417 32.5
A Kumble INDIA 619 29.7
SK Warne AUS 708 25.4
M Muralitharan SL 800 22.7

Nasser Hussain. He may know and he also may be the answer.