Land of confusion It appears what is banned in one place isn't in another. Wisden Cricketer editor John Stern, watching for the magazine and Cricinfo in Mumbai, noticed that Owais Shah used a Kookabura "Beast" in making his fifty on the first day of the Test. John thought the bat was banned, but he checked with press-box colleague and ICC arbitrator Gus Fraser who found out from Dubai that the bat was not so much banned as not wanted, and batsmen had been given time to sort out replacements. So John called his deputy editor, Ed Craig, who was in Johannesburg (our globetrotting knows no bounds) who in turn asked Ricky Ponting, whose use of the Beast started the whole thing off, for his views. "He can't use it he'll be suspended," Ponting replied. When told Shah had wielded it to good effect, Ponting chirped: "He scored 50 today using that bat, really? Guess what I'm using in Durban then!" Well, at least that's clear.