Cricket: Australia's woes

As bad as England have been on their current tour of New Zealand, Australia have been worse on their tour of India. This does not mean that England have bragging rights, especially if they lose the test and the series in Auckland tonight. However as Greg Baum of The Age runs the rule over Australia's tour and analyses their problems, England are at least clear of many of the uncertainties that are plaguing their rivals. Nonetheless, both teams' struggles, in a double Ashes year, suggest that they will not be vintage series, at least as far as the standard of cricket goes, although that does preclude them from being exciting.

Kits: The Adidas archive

Adidas have lauched a project, opening up their archive of historic sporting equipment to be explored via their website. For fans of design and sport, it's well worth a look.

Olympics: Wrestling with the political game

For wrestling to get back into the Olympics, it must win the vote against new contenders: rollers sports, karate, wushu, baseball and softball, squash, climbing and wakeboarding. Some, such as roller sports, don't have the history that wrestling does, but others, such as wushu and karate, have extensive histories, and international appeal. It would therefore be a mistake to rely on sentimental arguments.

These are also sports that have been lobbying for years and are used to the campaigning involved. A failure to recognise the need for lobbying, was a factor in Wrestling being voted out, as shown by its defeat by modern pentathlon, a fair less popular sport, but one with a similar sentimental claim, and a powerful lobby behind it, led by Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr, the son of the former IOC President.

The first item on the agenda should be finding powerful and persuasive figureheads to offset the lack of countries with a strong wrestling tradition on the executive committee. The IOC have a history of being won over by international leaders (see Tony Blair's influence on winning London the 2012 games), so public shows of support for wrestling from Vladimir Putin and Donald Rumsfeld should be used to open doors and persuade voters. Putin could be especially influential, as the IOC executive committee is meeting in St Petersburg in May, and Russia is a traditional Olympic powerhouse. Similarly, wrestling is a national pastime in a number of populous nations that may become future powerhouses, such as Turkey (a possible host in 2020), and Iran.

Next, FILA (wrestling's governing body) needs to recognise that gender equality is one of the driving forces in recent IOC decision making. The committee has been looking to equalise the number of sports and events open to each gender, hence the opening up of female boxing, and the inclusion of sports such as trampoline gymnastics and synchronised swimming can be seen as a part of the same movement. Although Olympic wrestling opened up to female competitors in 2004, it has four weight classes, as opposed to 14 for men. Were a female only sport, such as netball, added to the games, that might offset the imbalance, but none are up for inclusion at the moment. Instead, the rise of female competition in the United States and Japan offers a blueprint for the future. Reduce or eliminate the imbalance, and committee members will have one less reason to drop the sport. This is a move that FILA should be making regardless. As boxing and weightlifting have shown, the days of male-only disciplines are rightly dying out.

Finally, the wrestling campaigners need to tackle some of the IOC's views on their sport. Wrestling may be old, but has a great deal of participants, with more medal winners at London 2012, than the modern pentathlon had participants (29 and 26, respectively). If modern pentathlon, invented by the father of the modern games Pierre de Coubertin, is being retained for historical reasons, then wrestling has a stronger claim on those grounds. It has also improved its record on doping, and was popular in attendance and televisual terms in London.

Perhaps IOC's real intention is not to drop wrestling, but to fire a shot across its bows. FILA was warned in 2002 that the sport needed to change, and appears to have failed to heed those warnings. Early indications would suggest that there is plenty of introspection in wrestling circles at the moment, so perhaps the IOC has succeeded in persuading FILA to reform. Perhaps the committee will also be chastened enough by the bad publicity following their decision, that some members waver. Others may be willing to ride it out though.

There is a wider question about what should be an Olympic sport. A gold medal should be the pinnacle of each sport that is part of the games, and the record of the likes of tennis and football is poor in this regard. Many remain unconvinced that golfers will ever value a medal over winning a major. For wrestling, the Olympic Games is the pinnacle, and the battle is persuading the executive committee that both parties need each other. In truth though, wrestling needs the Olympics, far more than the Olympics need wrestling, at least for now.