Nah mate - in 20 years time when all the current players are...

Nah mate - in 20 years time when all the current players are commentators they will still be talking about how your pommy-only test team got whupped in this Ashes series - whereas does anyone really take ODI's seriously anymore, it's hard to remember who won last week let alone last year. Your lot just need to do what you normally do when you want to produce world class performances - get a Scotsman or a West Indian or a South African or some other foreigner to play for you. Kevin Petierson is still around.

I've seen the business model being attempted by Metal Tiger in action before, both in mining and agriculture, Lion Selection and PrimeAg come to mind. The usual line is that some hotshot financial engineer decides to make his fortune by putting his "novel" theory into practice and manages to put together a portfolio of assets with prospects of neverending growth. The promotors of such schemes seem to do okay for a while but their vehicles are like shooting stars. To be fair, Glencore used a similar model and managed to go on with it. I'd say it is a fair bet that in a couple of years or so people will remember Metal Tiger like they do some ODI result: they won't.

The business model usually used in Australia for mining companies also has its fair percentage of failures but we have dozens of long-running successful operators that show the model works. Not too many of the successful ones work on a portfolio approach though.