ICC aims for the star with a million dollar game

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has agreed in principle to hold $ 1 million “Best vs The Rest” Super Series pitting the top Test team against the rest of the world’s best players. Australian newspapers and Wisden Online today quoted an ICC spokesman in London as saying under the plan the top-ranked Test and one-day teams — currently Australia — would play an All-Star World XI in one Test and three one-day games next year in South Africa for $1 million in prize money. But the ICC plan looked likely to run into opposition from some players who have already been complaining about the heavy workload they face.

It was not immediately clear how the ICC would pick its World XI, with options being an international selection panel or using player rankings as a guide. Using the current Price Waterhouse Coopers rankings the team would be: Herschelle Gibbs, Mark Richardson, Rahul Dravid, Brian Lara, Inzamam ul-Haq, Jacques Kallis, Sachin Tendulkar, Muttiah Muralitharan, Shoaib Akhtar, Shaun Pollock and Makhaya Ntini.

Wisden said its dream team would be:

Michael Vaughan, Kallis, Dravid, Lara, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman , Mark Boucher, Pollock, Shane Bond , Muralitharan and Akhtar.

— (Reuters)