Stock photography's useless

We've been thinking about how we use lots of photographs on the site with pretty much no regard as to where they're from. The only rule we have is 'no Cricinfo photos' because we once described their airtight warnings about image theft.

This is what we'd be reduced to if we obeyed 'the law' and only used stock photography. We'd have to lie to you and reuse the same four pictures. The other alternative, paying for photos, is too horrific to even contemplate. Who says that crime's a bad thing. Just think how rubbish the site would be without the crime of stealing.

For some reason a search for 'cricket' in stock image libraries produced lots of pictures of lemurs, which we were quite pleased about - but it is irrelevant. This, as we're sure you're aware, is a cricket ball. This is pretty much the high water mark for stock images. We'd use this on just about every post.

We'd probably have to pretend that this was Brian Lara getting 'done' by a Glenn McGrath in-ducker.


This is Sachin Tendulkar going for 103 against Sri Lanka at Mohali...


And this is the new scoreboard at the MCG. In black and white. Even though things haven't been black and white since we were taught right and wrong.

To stealing! [Raises glass of booze, even though it's a weekday morning]