Aussie cricketers are planning to rebrand international cricket as Australian Rules Cricket (ARC).

ARC will showcase the Australian dominance of the sport and is a total breakaway from the old-school dictates of the MCC and ineffective ICC.

With the IPL, ODIs and Twenty20 challenging Test cricket for a share of fans, the Aussies have come up with something new for the ballpark - ARC, or Test cricket with a bit of Aussie finesse.

'The Aussies are to trade in their green-and-gold strip for a black-and-white zebra-stripe outfit based on San Quentin Prison circa 1930'


The game's major features include Jerry Springer-like sledging with replays and a live broadcast daytime soap series called 'Judge 'n Jury', which delicately  brings out the convict in Aussie players.

And Ricky Ponting's boys are to trade in their green-and-gold strip for a black-and-white zebra-stripe outfit based on San Quentin Prison circa 1930.

Viewers at home are to be drawn into the game with live voting. The third umpire is to be replaced with a premium number line 0891 GIVE-DA-FINGA, and batsmen will also benefit from televison quiz-show technology as seen on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire with phone-a-friend options (that might be difficult for Matthew Hayden) to aggrieved batsmen.

The Aussie public will be able to manipulate fielding positions with live, real-time chats with Ponting and a new SMS (Sledging Messenger Service) will be providing the technology to permit spectators to sledge an opposing batsman.

The Aussie brains trust believes that ARC is the future of the cricket park and an effective knockout blow to IPL, BCCI, ICC and MCC (and of course CIA, FBI).

Cricket fans are unsure whether the Aussies are on the right track. But fools are often tolerated in April.