The carnage taking place at the SSC reminds us that spectators don’t like fast scoring in Tests if it doesn’t lead to a result © AFP

Sometimes, even the cricket-fan-in-exile can be spoiled for choice when it comes to live cricket. Today, I was presented with the opportunity to watch not one, but two Test matches: India v Sri Lanka and Pakistan v England. So what’s an Indian fan like me to do? Watch Pakistan v England of course.

The reason for that goes back some thirty odd years to the late seventies. That’s when I became aware that there were an awful lot of drawn games played in India (they were also the years that India played host to a couple of promising, but severely World Series Cricket-weakened teams). But nothing quite drilled that message home like the snorefest of the 1981-82 series against England. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that something in me died that year.

Since then, the subcontinent has seen its share of exciting cricket but it’s also provided some of the most pointless and turgid games in the history of the game. While it might seem that there have been more of these in recent times (I’m thinking in particular of the India-Pakistan series of 2005-06), I suspect the proportion of drawn games has remained roughly the same over the years. It’s just that our collective patience has run out.

So this morning, there was little chance that I would tune in to the SSC Test. Why not watch a game instead where you could see the world’s most promising fast bowler in action, in conditions that might help him? A game where there promised to be some movement toward a result? (As I write, my pick has been an inspired one - Mohammed Aamer has put in a beautiful spell for three wickets, and Mohammad Asif has bowled Kevin Pietersen with a peach).

Meanwhile, the carnage taking place at the SSC reminds us that spectators don’t like fast scoring in Tests if it doesn’t lead to a result. India and Sri Lanka have combined to score at some 328 runs per day. But it all feels a little flat, doesn’t it?

No one, not us bloggers with too much time on our hands, or cricket fans the world over who vote with their feet, has tired of making the same point again and again: run-fests like the SSC one will kill Test cricket more surely than the IPL ever will. But there is little evidence that anyone is listening.

The most astonishing thing about the current state of affairs in Test cricket is that the world of cricket could have had it all. The way Test cricket had been played had changed for the better thanks to the influence of limited-overs cricket: the fielding was better; batsmen had a wider range of attacking strokes (and a slight concomitant loss of defensive technique); technology had aided in making more close-line decisions go the fielding side’s way. The balance of the game had the potential to tilt, finally, just a little away from the batsman. Test cricket could, and would have, settled into a more result-oriented trajectory had the last piece in the puzzle been taken care of: the pitches.

But, no, the urge to self-destruct lies deep within Test cricket. And so we find ourselves at this pass. Where even a devoted fan of Test cricket cannot bother himself to check the highlights of a game. (I haven’t done so for the SSC Test).

So, thank you, Aamer, Asif and Umar. And thank you gloomy English summer. It’s brightened up this day of mine in a way that the glaring sun at the SSC hasn’t been able to.

"If India lose at SSC, it won’t be because Virender Sehwag batted in the only way he knows" © Associated Press

On 26 December 2003, sitting high up in the stands of the still-under-construction MCG, I watched with dismay as Virender Sehwag, after having gone to 195 with a six off Simon Katich, holed out in an attempt to go for the double-century-clinching six. At that moment, I wasn’t sure what I was more upset about: an Indian batsman getting out, missing out on a chance to see a Boxing Day double-hundred scored by an Indian, or even more importantly, the anxiety over a possible collapse. India slid from 278 for 1 to 366 all out [India were 311 for 3 when Sehwag was dismissed]; Australia racked up a huge lead in response, and by the end of the match India had surrendered a precious 1-0 lead in the series. With that, India’s best chance of ever winning a series in Australia went down the proverbial drain.

This morning, I woke to find out that Sehwag had gone for 99, rushing out to a spinner to get a six and his ton, and merely earning himself a stumping in the process. India were 165 for no loss (in response to a Sri Lankan score of 642 for 4) and promptly subsided to 173 for 3). Thanks to the Tendulkar-Raina stand, all is not lost for India yet but there is still plenty of time left in this game. They could still go down 0-2 by the game’s end.

So, shall we all do a Boycott, and ask for a look at Viru’s cranium to see if there is anything in there? I might but if I did, my interests would lie in the direction of checking to see if there was anything in there that I could possibly emulate. I wouldn’t mind being in a position where I get to score Test centuries thrice in a row, and miss out on the fourth one by a solitary run.

Clichés about living and dying by swords, and about sticking to what works for you aside, it would be spectacularly churlish to blame Sehwag for the loss of the MCG Test (or the SSC Test if that is how things turn out). He made more than half the Indian total at the MCG; the game was lost because the remaining 10 men on the team failed to pull their weight. If India lose at SSC, it won’t be because Sehwag batted in the only way he knows; it will be because the Indian bowling had already allowed 600 runs on the board. Indeed, it is a singularly depressing fact to note that India have, by and large, wasted Sehwag’s tons. (The stats are worth looking at for the curious).

I suspect that once the disappointment of the missed ton faded, Sehwag was the first one to allow himself a chuckle at how things turned out. But I don’t think the frivolity will last long. Sehwag’s reaction to the MCG loss was, as he pointed out himself in interviews later, the spur to go on and make bigger scores (he went to a triple-ton with a six in Pakistan a few months later). Perhaps he will set himself some new target. Perhaps he will have his eye on Randiv for some special treatment in the next Test. All of which is only good news for those of us that like watching Sehwag bat.

Experience on the county circuit has definitely helped Andrew Strauss in his role as England captain © PA Photos

In the course of his entertaining tour round the captaincies of national cricket teams, Michael Jeh asked for my thoughts on the England captaincy, a request from my vulpine friend to which I'll gladly accede because I've been meaning to write a bit about Andrew Strauss for a couple of months.

One of the reasons I think Strauss has been quite a success is that he is in a way a traditionally-selected captain, which some of his immediate predecessors certainly were not.

The English view has always been that the captaincy is just as much a specialist position as opening the batting or bowling leg-spin, and that it makes more difference to the performance of the team to have the right man in place than for any of the other positions. With the possible exception of the mid-1950s, England have not had a team packed with superb players since before WW1. There have been times, though, when they have achieved much better results than they looked on paper to deserve - and those times have been when they have had fine captains.

It is the captain who decides what strategy is to be followed and what tactics to employ in carrying it out, and he needs to be given the kind of tools he is comfortable with using. The selectors therefore have to know what tools he wants, so it is pretty pointless deciding on what tools he is going to get before knowing who he is. That doesn't mean the selectors simply let the captain nominate his team, but if he says he intends to neutralise a certain left-handed batsman by bowling off-spin outside his leg stump, the selectors better provide him with an off-spinner or two.

The players also have to be enthusiastic about following their leader if the team is to get anywhere. He thus needs to command their respect, partly as a player and cricket tactician but much more as a man. Particularly on tour, a captain has a lot to do off the field, gauging morale and fitness and putting in train actions to improve both as well as dealing with a load of official nonsense.

It's quite a job description, and it's quite a gamble pitching someone into it unless you have strong evidence that he can fulfill it.

So the traditional way was to make sure that potential England captains spent a season or two as county captains, if necessary by leaning on certain counties to give them the job, which used to be fairly simple because it was quite possible to play two-thirds of a county season as well as playing for England until about the 1990s. Nowadays, however, becoming an England regular just about rules you out of county competition and therefore obviously out of county captaincy. In order to get county captaincy experience, you need to be at a county which has an urgent need for a captain but be a late enough bloomer or have enough competition as a player not to get picked up by England.

Strauss was a good county opener who had been made captain early by Middlesex in the wake of Mark Ramprakash flouncing off for more money south of the river. He was doing a pretty good job as captain as well as scoring quite a few runs as an opener but seemed unlikely to play for England other than very occasionally, given the obvious permanence of the new Vaughan-Trescothick pairing. Then an injury to Vaughan and a spectacular debut put him on the path to England regular-ship, and eventually the captaincy, for which his county captaincy had been useful preparation and shown him capable of the job – and he has had the success which largely eluded the two of his three predecessors with no previous experience of captaincy, let alone that of a county, Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen.

They were made captains mostly because they were the team's star player of the moment, and there were thoughts that they would get huffy if they didn't get the job and stop performing well. Duncan Fletcher has since admitted that he was quite wrong to push for Flintoff rather than Strauss on those grounds, and frankly I can't see it ever being right to confer the captaincy as some sort of reward for being the best player in the team.

There's nothing wrong with the team's best player being captain, but he has to possess both a cricket brain and a fair old ration of people-management skills to go with his playing ability. Flintoff could manage people but was as likely to lie awake at night thinking of field settings with which to dismiss Jacques Kallis as he was to refuse another beer. Pietersen thinks a lot more about the game than he's probably given credit for, but he is gauche and tactless and so desperate to be loved that being the kind of leader who can take hard decisions and have them willingly accepted is way beyond him. Both failings would have been exposed much earlier if they had attempted to captain counties.

As to the Australian perception that England are somehow weird because former captains regularly play under their successors, it is actually Australia who are the weird ones. I can't think of any other country where it isn't perfectly normal for ex-captains to play on: currently Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Mahela Jayawardene, Shoaib Malik and Shakib al Hasan are playing for their predecessors along with Pietersen. And Shaun Pollock played on for some time after the appointment of Graeme Smith. (I'm not going to rake through New Zealand history for an example, though there must be some, and there's little reason to suppose that Stephen Fleming would have had any difficulty playing under Daniel Vettori if he had wanted to carry on.)

Strauss will not be the last ex-county captain to get the England job: there will always be the odd county which has to appoint a promising young player, and the odd such captain will later make it as an international; currently Yorkshire's Andrew Gale is a Lions regular and must therefore be at least tapping on the selectors' door and Surrey have appointed Rory Hamilton-Brown, who is certainly a promising talent though not yet obviously destined for higher levels.

But more and more England are going to have to develop their captains in what ways they can, like Michael Vaughan, who captained the U-19s and then the Lions (in their former guise as England A). The selectors have twigged that Alastair Cook is probably going to be opening the innings for the next ten years and is likely to have to be captain at some point because there is no-one else with the seniority or experience, so they have been giving him as many opportunities as possible, including the recent tour of Bangladesh which Strauss sat out.

On the field, Cook's inexperience definitely showed – but with any luck he learned enough from his stint to have an idea of what he will have to improve on if he is to be a decent England captain. As always, though, experience will be the key.

"It increasingly appears that, more than anything, Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan are paying the price for having run afoul of the PCB bosses" © AFP

Only in Pakistan could you have the country’s two best batsmen sitting at home while the national side takes a beating. It’s really baffling when you consider that only four Pakistanis have ever attained a Test batting average over 50, and Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan happen to be two of them (the other two being Inzamam ul Haq and Javed Miandad). When Pakistan last toured England, Yousuf emerged as one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year, and Younis made 173 (run out) at Leeds. Batting together on the Headingley pitch, they compiled 363 for the third wicket.

Bewildered fans are now asking: what are these two doing sitting at home? Most perplexing is the absence of any coherent explanation for their exclusion. They have been cast as troublemakers, tarred and feathered, fined and sentenced – but for what? No one is quite sure.

Yousuf’s troubles started when he grumbled about his omission from Pakistan’s World Twenty20-bound squad in 2007. Soon afterwards, he joined the ill-fated Indian Cricket League and found himself tied up in legal and financial knots. Back in the Test squad last summer, he went on to captain Pakistan in New Zealand and Australia, but that didn’t turn out so well. There was an inquisition, and he was made out to be a criminal.

Younis’s trajectory has been even more Shakespearean. He appeared set to scale great heights after making a triple-hundred in Karachi and then pulling off a miracle by leading Pakistan to the World Twenty20 championship in June 2009, mere weeks after the terrorism in Lahore. But the tour to Sri Lanka that followed was a disaster and he was removed from the team. Younis was ensnared by an inquisition too. There was a lot of tut-tutting, and he too was made out to be a criminal.

How could we have come to this impasse? There is good reason to believe that much of it has to do with an inept, moody, and vindictive PCB administration. The charges against Yousuf and Younis haven’t matured beyond innuendo, and it increasingly appears that, more than anything, they are paying the price for having run afoul of the PCB bosses. It could have been something as trifling as a heated exchange of words, a glare and stare, a sneer and a jeer – and here we are.

In all the political infighting, interpersonal friction, media frenzy, and gossip mongering, it is easy to lose sight of what Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan truly represent. The bare fact is that they are batting legends. Yousuf is nothing less than a torchbearer for Asia’s wristy batting esthetic that drives fans into rapture. Younis is a tenacious fighter who has repeatedly played his heart out for his country. Neither is over the hill: Yousuf is not yet 36 and Younis not yet 33.

As things now stand, there are two schools of thought on their recall. One view is that these players were responsible for politics and disarray within the team, and we should forget about them and look ahead; this will undoubtedly mean continued batting embarrassments out in the middle, but will be good for the team in the long run. The competing view is that one must do whatever is necessary to strengthen the spine of the middle order. If that means recalling Yousuf and Younis, then let us not delay.

The PCB’s visible stance on this issue remains tentative. Meanwhile, the public mood is split and you can find opinions on both sides of the divide. The fan base ultimately just wants runs, and won’t quibble over who makes them and how. All it takes to change the prevailing sentiment is one influential innings. If either Younis or Yousuf is given the opportunity and makes a hundred, all will be forgotten. Perhaps that is what the PCB is afraid of.

India's team culture must be pretty strong to allow so many great players to finish their captaincy stints and return to the ranks © Getty Images

In my last post, I touched briefly on the traditional Australian way of selecting captains. The captaincy issue has now come into even sharper focus with the Shahid Afridi situation. Mike Holmans has written an excellent piece on that.

It might be interesting to buy a Round The World ticket and look at the cricketing world to see if we can explain (or hypothesise) why different countries have their own unique way of choosing captains and whether this reflects something about the culture of that country.

Starting with Australia, it's pretty much accepted that it's always been the Australian way to select the best 11 players and the captain usually emerges from that lot. There haven't been too many cases where a captain was brought into the team purely for leadership purposes. Bob Simpson did that in the late 1970's during the height of the World Series Cricket crisis but his performances did him no shame, despite being an old man. Mark Taylor's loss of form around the 1996-97 period presented a conundrum - had he not scored that career-saving century in the second innings at Edgbaston in 1997, he might have become a victim of that tradition. It's generally a pretty ruthless (and readily-accepted) practice so most Australian captains actually jump before they're pushed anyway. Even the great Allan Border was given a polite nudge when it looked like he wanted to hang on for a little bit longer. That's why Michael Clarke's position as T20 captain must be under severe threat - he's got the weight of history and tradition against him if he continues to fail.

I'm no expert on New Zealand but they seem to have a similar attitude to Australia. Most of their captains are chosen from amongst the ranks of the better players and they tend to enjoy relatively stable captaincy careers with loyalty and support from the troops. The only exception that readily comes to mind is in the mid 1990s when Lee Germon made his Test debut as captain! Otherwise, recent captains like Martin Crowe, Stephen Fleming and Daniel Vettori have all come from common ancestry; as the best players in the team, their leadership credentials are unquestioned by the rank and file. Again, this seems to be a very ANZ philosophy (apart from politics which recent history has shown to be anything but!). Leaders generally enjoy loyal service from the troops and if the leader senses that he is not amongst the best performing members of that team, he rarely hangs around long enough to feel the knives in his back. What do you reckon? Is that fair comment?

South Africa, since their re-introduction to cricket in 1992, seem to have enjoyed a similarly stable captaincy regime too. In almost 20 years, we've only had Kepler Wessels, Hansie Cronje, Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith as long-term captains. There may have been the odd game here or there with another temporary captain but I can't think of too many. Again, that notion of clearly being amongst the first-picked in the starting XI is a South African tradition too. SA legends rarely seem to hang around until they get dropped. It seems to be a cultural norm that allows them to sense when the mood for change is ripe and they prefer to go of their own accord rather than being dropped at the end of a distinguished career. I've spent a bit of time in South Africa and have gained a bit of an understanding of their complex cultures so I'm going to suggest that it might have something to do with the 'olde worlde' attitudes and even the compulsory military service discipline that may contribute to this pattern. In general, I've found most South Africans extremely polite, well-mannered and disciplined, almost old fashioned in that sense. I'd be interested to hear from our South African friends on this issue of captaincy accession.

Zimbabwe is a difficult case to consider in the current climate but when they were a lot stronger in the 1990s, they too usually picked one of their best players as captain. There was usually little dissension in the ranks when Andy Flower, Alastair Campbell or Heath Streak ran the show. Strong characters, running a young cricketing nation with a frontier-style leadership theme.

Bangladesh is probably too young to comment on. I'm certainly not knowledgeable enough about their cricketing history to offer any educated guesses. Is it a pure meritocracy where the best player (or undisputed selection in the team) gets the captaincy or is there more to it in Bangladesh? If anyone with a knowledge of the politics and history of Bangladesh cricket can shed light on that, it would be interesting.

Speaking of politics, we move then to Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan. Like it or not, it is undeniable that captaincy issues are inextricably linked with politics and relatively unstable captaincy regimes. That's not necessarily to say that it's a bad thing. It just may be the style of that system.

Sri Lanka is clearly a cricket system that has significant political involvement but to be fair, the captains themselves have almost always commanded a place in the team without question. Recent memory fails to bring up too many captains who have failed to hold down a place in the team in their own right. The turnover has been reasonable but it's not the long reigns that Australia, NZ or SA tend to have. I can think of Arjuna Ranatunga, Aravinda De Silva (actually, was he ever captain?), Hashan Tillekeratne, Sanath Jayasuriya, Mahela Jayawardene and now Kumar Sangakkara in the last 15 years. That's not a ridiculous list of short dynasties but there has been some chopping and changing. Interestingly, the culture of all these South Asian countries allows ex-captains to keep playing in the team, even after they are deposed (or resign) as leader. This is an interesting phenomenon because it's generally something that the Aussies and New Zealanders are uncomfortable with. It's a bit like the leader of a pride of lions - once the big male gets deposed, he disappears into the sunset and is not tolerated in the new pride. You rarely see them hanging around for too long, skulking on the fringes.

In pure leadership theory terms, it has two possible interpretations. Firstly, you can lose a lot of knowledge and experience when the former leader walks away but perhaps they leave a strong legacy behind them. On the plus side, it tends to eliminate the 'bad feeling' of having a (possibly) disgruntled ex-captain still causing dissent in the background. To be fair to India and Sri Lanka, their team culture must be pretty strong to allow so many great players to finish their captaincy stints and return to the ranks for long and successful periods. The new captain seems to have the maturity and self-esteem to not feel threatened by a former leader. Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Kumble, Jayasuriya, Jayawardene - in their country's ranks, these guys are All-Time Greats and yet, they seem to be able to slip seamlessly back into the team without necessarily (or openly) causing any bad feeling. Perhaps that is a very 'Eastern' thing where old folk are venerated for their wisdom and knowledge and are therefore (rarely) cast aside in old age. Certainly in Sri Lankan culture, an old person is still seen as a figure of respect and the keeper of a store of wisdom. Until their death (literally or figuratively), they are still seen as the ceremonial head of the family even if they are no longer useful on a day-to-day basis. On the other hand, the Pakistani situation is less fluid in this respect.

I'm fascinated by the dressing room dynamics in the Indian team for example. So many great players, many of them ex-captains, and yet; they seem to operate as a relatively peaceful unit. Perhaps our Indian friends with 'inside knowledge' can shed more light on this. Is that really the case or is it a case of a duck swimming smoothly on the surface with the legs going madly under the surface?

Pakistan of course has no such mystery about their captaincy methods. I can't really figure it out myself because it seems to be such a tumultuous and dramatic process. Since Imran Khan finished his career, I've lost count of the number of captains and coups. Perhaps the Pakistani players are used to it and can put it behind them when play begins but I think their erratic performances have everything to do with the uncertainty of the captain's leadership tenure. They can be brilliant and awful in the space of a single session of play but it happens all too often to be purely coincidence. I know that the PCB is an overtly political organisation and perhaps this, more than any other reason, is responsible for the constant shift in loyalties and plans. Again, looking from the outside, it doesn't seem to be a particularly harmonious environment but that doesn't seem to get in the way of individual brilliance on a stunning scale. I've played against Pakistan twice in first-class matches and both times, it was hard to get a sense of who the captain was in the field. Everyone seemed to be having their say and it was a tense environment but perhaps organised chaos is just their way. For what it's worth, I think Pakistan play best under a very strong leader who almost rules with an iron fist. Imran is the obvious candidate but there were brief periods under Wasim Akram and Inzamam-ul-Haq when you got that sense of unity. What do our Pakistani friends think about this?

Moving north to England - that becomes a terribly interesting case study. I'm hoping Mike Holmans will post a rejoinder to provide a British perspective on this. From my perspective, England have almost been the mirror opposite of Australia. Or perhaps Australia deliberately tried to be the mirror opposite of the mother country, just to be perverse! England, until recently, have long enjoyed a tradition of picking a captain first and then crafting a team around him. And they've had great success stories to justify that too. Mike Brearley's 1981 Ashes triumph was a stunning case in point, ironically, inspiring the deposed Ian Botham to heroic deeds. There have been other cases too. The Cowdrey family feature in that list. Also, England teams don't seem to have much of a problem with ex-captains still continuing to play their role, long after their captaincy ambitions have been extinguished. Mike Gatting, David Gower, Botham, Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff and Graham Gooch are ready examples that come to mind. Again, that may have something to do with the County cricket system where it's almost seen as a job and players just slip into and out of teams on a daily basis. The bigger issue of selecting the captain first may come from the old Gentleman vs Players legacy or it may even hark back to the military where Generals and Admirals were chosen by the aristocracy and were "born to lead", so to speak. Looking forward to hearing a local perspective on that.

The West Indies is our final destination. I deliberately chose to finish my journey there. What better place to end this odyssey? Clearly, up until their recent demise as the cricketing superpower, the West Indies always thrived under a talismanic leader. Frank Worrell, Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards and Richie Richardson were undisputed legends in the dressing room, able to exert their charisma on a dressing room that was made up of many island kingdoms. It seems like a team made up of members from these tiny islands need a strong and inspirational leader. In more recent times, their choice of captain has still (generally) been one of the best players but even these guys find it difficult to shake off the yoke of their superpower history. Carl Hooper, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Courtney Walsh and now Chris Gayle are fabulous cricketers in their own right but I keep waiting for another leadership coup (or voluntary resignation). Perhaps that's being a bit unfair on Walsh who was probably a benevolent and popular leader but because his reign coincided with the West Indies' fall from grace, he gets lumped in with that lot. I can't see the situation improving in the immediate term, not with the lack of depth, the inter-island rivalries and the constant battles between the governing body and the Players' Association. When you add the lure of the IPL to this mix, I can't see the leadership issues getting fixed anytime soon. Perhaps Gayle has the "cool" to pull it off but I remain unconvinced. Lloyd and Viv were as cool as they come but for some reason, they were cool because they weren't trying to be. They just exuded 'Lion King' status every time they took to the field. Mind you, that's a lot easier with a quartet of seriously fast bowlers at your disposal!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the responses and learning a bit more about the cultural tendencies that govern cricket leadership. These are all just theories so in the absence of anything scientific, it's all we've got to have fun with. For a day, we can all pretend to be philosophers!

Shahid Afridi has had enough of Test cricket © Getty Images

I am sorry that Shahid Afridi will not be appearing in the Test series against England which starts next month. He is one of those players who lights up a cricket field and guarantees that a match will not be dull, at least when he is taking an active part. He himself had not really wanted to come back to Test cricket, but he was prepared to give it a go when pleaded with by the folks back home. Having given it a go, he has shown that his original view was right.

I was sceptical of the view that he only knows one way to bat, but he has proved it correct. That it's a way which has its place in Test cricket there is no doubt, as my defence of his second-afternoon assault attempted to show, but there are plenty of times when it is highly inappropriate, such as on the fourth afternoon. The situation when he came to the crease for the second time was again not at all good for Pakistan, but after he had holed out it was considerably worse, which had not been the case on Wednesday.

I did not think Wednesday's innings was stupid, reckless or irresponsible in the circumstances, but Friday's was utterly gormless.

It won't stop me being a fan, though, especially as he has taught me the true meaning of “larger-than-life”. I happened to be walking through the Long Room when he went out to bat on Wednesday. As we passed, I murmured “good luck” to him, then while I carried on to my seat, it struck me that he was a couple of inches shorter and rather slenderer, particularly in the arms, than I had thought he was. Perhaps he inflates as he crosses the boundary rope, but he does look bigger out there (to me, anyway) than he is in real life.

Since Afridi had only been brought back because the Test team needed a captain, his departure means someone else will have to don the fireproof suit and learn to swim through the oceans of ordure which are the sorry lot of any Pakistan skipper. The rumours suggest it will be Salman Butt, though the fact that he is currently the vice-captain means it will probably be someone else. Nothing is ever as it seems where the PCB is involved.

I have no idea whether he would make a good captain, but Butt was the only Pakistani batsman to emerge from the Test with real credit. He kept his cool in the first innings while the wickets cascaded at the other end. In the second innings he set about the task of building the kind of platform from which a victory push could be made with considerable skill. He really ought to have had a ton, but he made a rare mistake when within sight of it. The idea of his shot was sound but he messed up the execution, which is a pity, but not worthy of criticism. It was not a failure of temperament, since he has amply demonstrated his credentials as a Test match opener in challenging situations.

The rest were awful in the first innings but mostly adequate the second time round – though nothing more than adequate.

What did for Pakistan was being the team who were batting when conditions were at their worst. The way the Pakistani pacemen bowled, Australia would have been all out for under 100 if they had been in on Wednesday. After that calamitous session it was always going to be incredibly difficult to get back into the game but they did not give up until Umar Akmal had his Ian Bell moment, lazily gifting his wicket to the nondescript spinner on the stroke of lunch.

The limp subsidence to defeat after lunch was a depressing anti-climax after what had been a fascinating and highly enjoyable Test. If this is what we are going to get from neutral Tests at Lord's, I for one, want more.

Attack is often the best form of defense © Getty Images

The Pakistan v Australia Test has confirmed that I live in a different universe to the one Henry Blofeld inhabits. As I sat atop the Pavilion on Wednesday evening with the radio commentary on my earpiece, I heard him describe Shahid Afridi's cameo earlier on as “a quite disgraceful innings.”

In my world, “disgraceful” implies some breach of decency or morality, and I fail to see how an innings of thirty in ten minutes is a breach of either. Had he cover-driven the bowler rather than the ball or spent ten minutes audibly and obscenely haranguing the umpire, “disgraceful” would certainly be appropriate, but there is no moral turpitude in hitting sixes or holing out at mid-off. Anyone who thinks there is has, at least in my view, a badly malfunctioning moral compass. Where I come from, the worst you can say of Afridi's innings is that it was stupid or reckless or irresponsible.

Not that I would, as a matter of fact. I have already pleaded guilty to holding Shahid Afridi in high esteem – I am, if you like, a Boom Boom Boy biased towards seeing his actions in the best light – but I thought his innings an entirely rational choice in the circumstances obtaining at the time. I am perfectly willing to listen to an argument that it wasn't, but it had better be a convincing one.

When he came in, Pakistan were still 170 behind with only the tail to come. Five out of the top six had already failed. While Kamran Akmal's dismissal in particular was down to total incompetence on his part, two or three of the others had certainly succumbed to balls which were almost unplayable. The ball was swinging around and seaming, so that good balls were made dangerous and excellent balls close to lethal. Survival for any length of time demanded a solid defensive technique and a decent helping of luck (both of which Salman Butt had displayed).

Knowing that he is not a defensive batsman in the Rahul-Dravid class, Afridi would surely have realised that it was likely to be less than an hour before some holy terror of a ball arrived to end his innings. The question for him, therefore, was how best to use what little time he had.

Presumably the morally-approved choice on Planet Blofeld would have been to attempt to dig in and play cautiously, blocking here, nudging there and hitting the odd, very bad ball for four. If he did well, he could have hung around and scored 25 off 60 before the inevitable jaffa sprayed its juice over him. For most batsmen, it might well have been the only sound option.

But Boom Boom Afridi had another course open to him. He is one of the very few people who could try mounting an all-out assault like Ian Botham's at Headingley in 1981 or Nathan Astle's at Christchurch in 2002, and have a modest chance of success. Granted, reaching a hundred or two as they did was very unlikely, but in the circumstances Afridi was facing, where he could expect to score no more than about 25 anyway, reaching even 20 would leave his team no worse off. And if he could get 70 or more, he would have changed the game's momentum. Only if he failed completely would he have done real damage to his side's cause.

Had things been different, I might have much more reason to criticise. Were he batting ahead of the English or South African tails which contain the likes of Swann, Steyn, Morkel or Bresnan, there could well have been more mileage in trying to hang around. If Pakistan had been 17 behind rather than 170, digging in until they were about 20 ahead and then launching an assault would have been my recommendation.

But things were not different, and so I am entirely content with his choice.

And that, my friends, concludes the case for the attack.

Monday's innings against Bangladesh gives us a strong clue about how Strauss is reinventing himself © PA Photos

“I guess how Strauss reinvents himself for 50-overs ODI will decide how compelling a case England makes for World Cup glory. Right now, it is hard to see the purist shine in a difficult ODI situation … Strauss will need to go the Martin Crowe way (1992 World Cup) to take this side all the way," says Kunal Tageri, commenting on my piece "The joke's no longer on England"

Monday's innings against Bangladesh gives us a strong clue about how Strauss is reinventing himself. In posting the third-highest individual score by an England player in an ODI, he surpassed his own 152 against the same opponents five years ago. He actually scored slightly faster in that 2005 game as England rattled up 391, but the big statistical difference is in the sixes column: none in 2005 and five in 2010. And it's not just against weak Bangladeshi bowling that he's been doing it: he cleared the ropes a few times during the recent series against Australia too.

The wagon wheel of his innings yesterday is revelatory. In his early years, fielding captains could leave the arc from extra-cover round behind the bowler to midwicket completely empty and have nothing to worry about because Strauss so rarely played in the traditional V. Yesterday, the sixes were all in that area, and a good fifth of his other scoring shots were down the ground too. Captains are going to have to think harder about how to contain and dismiss him. Strauss was already a successful Test player, so it shows that the good can get better by assiduous practice and working on things in the nets.

Even the excellent can do it: eight or so years ago, Muttiah Muralitharan made right-handed batsmen lie awake all night worrying about how to deal with him, but left-handers like Brian Lara and Marcus Trescothick could pick him off with relative ease since he always bowled over the wicket and lbw was not a consideration. Then, after some unknown time in rehearsals, he unveiled his doosra and started bowling round the wicket as well. Right-handers who had difficulty before were now totally lost while the Laras and Trescothicks could manage only modest scores before perishing. The superb had become supreme.

While Strauss the Test expert has made himself a proper ODI player, the next couple of weeks will show something of whether Shahid Afridi has managed the reverse.

Where Strauss and Murali expanded their technical skills to become better players, “Boom Boom” will have to develop his mental arsenal. There were signs of it in the World Twenty20 Final (of all events) last summer. Afridi played one of the most measured and responsible innings you could wish for; it was calculated and controlled in a way which one had never previously associated with the flamboyant slogger who first burst on the scene.

We have always known that he possesses talent in abundance. Time has meant that he has grown up somewhat – though I hope he never loses his impish streak – and being given the responsibility of captaincy demands that he grows up even more. It is important to any team's success that the captain sets an example of commitment and focus, but when it comes to Pakistan, it is probably the single most important factor in which of their various teams turns up on the day.

If he can discipline himself to be a Test player, Afridi has the talent for eventual greatness. He is the kind of player whose good performances are majestically inspirational, and his on-field demeanour suggests the generosity of spirit shown by Fred Flintoff or Adam Gilchrist.

It may be apparent that I am something of an Afridi fan. Well, your Honour, I'll plead guilty to that: I've always liked watching him. What I would like to do by the end of his career is admire him.

Michael Clarke needs to rediscover his form in the shortest version of the game © Getty Images

Whichever way you look at it, Michael Clarke's reign as captain of Australia's T20 outfit must be under serious consideration. Let's look at it from a numbers perspective. Since his early days as a flamboyant strokeplayer, he has now modified his technique somewhat which has perhaps made him more reliable in the longer formats but has come at the expense of his strike-rate. His rate of scoring has dropped markedly in the last few years, despite predominantly starting his innings whilst some of the Powerplay overs are available to him. His highest score in a winning cause is just 37, and even that was chasing a mere 75 posted by India at the MCG in 2008.

What's also interesting is that he actually scores faster in games that Australia have lost. His overall strike-rate in losing causes is greater than in winning ones. I wonder how many other top-order players from the stronger teams score faster in games that their team lost. I can understand why lower-order sloggers may end up with that sort of anomaly, often not batting in comfortable victories but swinging blindly when the team is under the kosh.

It's dangerous to surmise too much from that sort of statistic because Clarke could argue that when there is less of a need for him to score quickly (i.e. winning), he eases off the accelerator, but when his team is up against it, he scores faster. His detractors however could counter that by pointing out that his average is almost 5 runs per innings lower in games Australia loses, which is quite a significant difference in a shortened innings.

In ODI cricket, he averages about 50 with the bat in games Australia wins but that drops to 29 when he's on the losing side. That sort of difference is probably consistent with most cricketers, unless they are from teams that lose much more often than they win or if they have a reputation (like Michael Hussey) for being good in a crisis. Actually, even that seems a bit too much of a chasm - I haven't got the time to do a comparison with other cricketers of Clarke's era but I'd be surprised if the gap was as much as 20 runs per innings.

The reason for this drop in scoring rate and boundary-hitting ability is probably part-technique related and partly attributable to a change in mindset. Without pretending to be an expert in the art of batting, just from looking at him on the TV, it seems like he's choking the bat a lot more these days, is a lot more hunched at the point of delivery with an upraised bat and most importantly, he seems to exclusively commit to the front foot. It means that teams can choke him up with the short ball and not being a natural hooker or puller, the boundaries are then that much harder to find.

Even in ODI cricket, I seem to recall him getting out caught at mid-on, mid-off and midwicket, choking that front foot swat that is more like a cross court tennis shot than a genuine pull. By restricting himself to looking for boundaries in the “V”, he's also hitting to the areas that are usually most protected. Unless he can find the beef to take on the boundary riders and clear them comfortably, like David Hussey, who also camps on that front foot, he will often find his hardest hits get picked up by the sweepers. Leaving aside the six hitters, if he needs to find boundaries, he'll probably need to hit the ball with power through point, square leg, midwicket etc. Someone like Mahela Jayawardene or Salman Butt comes to mind - they don't trade in sixes as much as the Chris Gayles and Cameron Whites of this world (to name but a few) but their boundary ratio is much higher than Clarke's.

But what might actually seal Clarke's fate quicker than any statistical analysis or amateur coaching assessment (mine) is history/tradition/custom. You see, it has always been the Australian way to pick the best team first and then find a captain from amongst that lot. Different countries, most notably England, have had different philosophies to this issue, but Australians have always prided themselves on the leader having to earn his place in the team without question. Even reading through accounts of war journals from World War 1 & World War 2, the Australian troops appeared to have less of an inclination to allow their leaders to direct operations from afar. It may just be the romanticism of war writings but you generally get the feel that the soldiers and their leaders would always be in the trenches together.

Clearly, if the Australian selectors are fair dinkum about pure performances and remain true to that long-established tradition, Clarke's future in international T20 cricket must be in severe doubt. I can think of at least one player in each State team whose domestic numbers would seriously challenge Clarke's record, although in fairness to Clarke, he has barely played any T20 cricket at domestic level. This is where not playing IPL might hurt his chances to improve his skills although it might now be the case that his asking price will be much lower at IPL auctions. And if he loses the captaincy, it's hard to see how he can then justify holding his spot on his pure batting numbers alone.

I've long been a fan of the way Clarke conducts himself with dignity and poise, through the Lara Bingle episode and then with his self-effacing comments after the T20 World Cup. Despite that, I must confess that watching Michael Clarke “Mark II” (since he returned to the side after he got dropped) playing limited-overs cricket is no longer the same pleasurable experience as watching the young dasher who debuted in 2003. His Test match batting is still very attractive, as evidenced by his excellent recent record and a couple of sparkling knocks on the 2009 Ashes Tour.

In ODI or T20 cricket though, his method seems to be very formulaic: chipping down the ground for one, nerdling it down to fine leg, pushing to the sweeper cover and occasionally going inside out over extra cover for the boundary. Yes, he bats in that middle period when that is what tends to happen in modern ODI cricket but so do AB De Villiers and Umar Akmal and Kevin Pietersen. When Clarke walks out to bat, I'm not expecting boundaries whereas if Ross Taylor or even Scott Styris for that matter, is at the crease, I may rely on them a bit less but you get the sense that anything might happen.

Clarke will have plenty of time now to put away his T20 strategies and focus on what he does best - playing Test matches. But it's only going to be a matter of time before that question has to be answered. I'm prepared to go out on a limb now and predict that he won't be in Australia's next T20 World Cup squad, as captain or player. Not unless the man can once more become a boy!

Bangladesh beat England for the first time in any format on July 10 © Getty Images

Congratulations to Bangladesh on their first win against England! Now they have completed the set by beating all the top eight teams; presumably they can take their stamped bingo card to the prize counter in Dubai and get a lifetime supply of falafel or a giant fluffy rabbit.

As with their previous wins against the senior teams, the Tigers caught their opponents having a bad day (I was going to say “caught them on the hop”, but that would have been in poor taste given Ian Bell's unlucky injury). England's catching was poor, their bowling lacklustre and their batting as ghastly as it's been in quite a while, and Bangladesh were competent and cool-headed enough to capitalise. But it's a measure of how far they haven't come that their celebrations were so ecstatic: they will have truly advanced only when they are merely quite pleased rather than flabbergasted when they win.

Bangladeshi ODI wins are still rare enough that each prompts the odd reflection on their previous ones. I immediately recalled their last victory on a tour of England and Wales, when they beat Australia at Cardiff in 2005. That was based around a magnificent hundred by Mohammed Ashraful, who then seemed on the road to stardom.

As we now know, though, Ashraful has hardly scored an international run in ages and is one of the biggest disappointments of the last decade. The moaners who insist on disputing the Tigers' credentials will no doubt suggest that one couldn't expect anything better, but I doubt that it has anything to do with him being Bangladeshi and everything to do with him being a cricketer. If anything, the decline of Ashraful is an indicator of progress, albeit somewhat perverse. The growing chorus that he should be dropped because Bangladesh now have better batsmen who don't fail all the time is what you don't hear from emerging nations with no self-confidence.

Every country brings forward the odd player who has a spectacular rise and looks like a potential world-beater but fades almost as fast, for reasons no one actually understands although they spend forever debating them. Vinod Kambli and Steve Harmison were both going to become legends, and are now only legendary for their failures. Though they are obviously young enough to come again as Ricky Ponting did, JP Duminy and Ajantha Mendis have lost places which seemed to be theirs for the next decade and are nowhere near their predicted superstardom. These at least put Ashraful in reasonable company.

It underlines how uncertain sporting predictions are, and that the only sensible advice about them is contained in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: “Expect the unexpected”.

Which is what I was driving at in my last piece when suggesting it plausible that England could win the ICC World Cup final in a few months' time. I am thoroughly convinced by Michael Jeh's view that although West Indies are probably outsiders and New Zealand would have to undergo their customary World Cup transformation, any of the other six top teams can win without it being a huge surprise. Those commenters who earnestly mounted elaborate arguments to show my suggestion was utterly silly because of how marvellous other teams were are invited to consider how well similar pre-tournament punditry panned out with regard to the FIFA World Cup, in which England were supposed to lose their semi-final to Brazil.

However, despite their win yesterday, I am pretty confident that Bangladesh will not be a finalist: the interesting question is which of the fancied outfits they will fell.

England have improved enough to be taken seriously as ODI competitors © Getty Images

Despite the strenuous efforts of those who have to find something to say or write every day to convince me that the ODIs between England and Australia had some relevance to the Ashes this winter, I remain firmly of the belief that the series was largely superfluous and meant very little beyond avenging the 6-1 result last summer.

Half of the England side will have very little to do with the Test series in a few months time, after all. Neither Luke Wright nor Mike Yardy have any business near a Test squad and Craig Kieswetter's wicketkeeping is not good enough to recommend him as the backup to Matt Prior. Eoin Morgan will almost certainly be in the squad but will only get to play if there are injuries to the specialist batsmen, and Tim Bresnan has no obvious qualifications to be in the first-choice XI. If there was one thing we learned from the series against Bangladesh, it was that Bresnan is not a Test-class new-ball bowler, and that Ajmal Shazad is a better old-ball bowler to boot. Bresnan may be a marginally better bowler than Jacques Kallis, but Kallis doesn't get into the South African side on the strength of his bowling, and Bresnan offers rather less than Kallis with the bat.

Admittedly, most of the Australian ODI XI would be in serious contention for places in the Test team but the one who would be of most significance is Shaun Tait, who doesn't play first-class cricket.

Tait's opening spell at Lord's was a fearsome piece of fast bowling in any type of cricket, and one can easily see why people will be trying to persuade him to change his mind and make himself available. I'd like to join those efforts, although perhaps not with the best of motives. I'd strongly urge Australia to build him up as their talismanic match-winner and get him fit and firing for the first Test, so that he can break down mid-Test and Australia can spend the rest of the series dithering about their selections and eagerly scrutinising fitness reports, just as England spent a good couple of years hoping that Fred Flintoff would turn up fit for a match or two, thus destabilising the team and making life difficult for themselves.

What the series was more relevant to was my colleague Michael Jeh's piece about prospects for the World Cup. Fully embroiled in the English season myself, the World Cup is a long way down my list of things to think about but Fox has made me sit up and realise that something extremely weird has happened.

At this stage in a World Cup cycle, it is traditional for England to be wringing their hands and wondering where they are going to get eleven convincing 50-over practitioners, let alone a complete squad. The summer's ODIs and the series following the Ashes see a parade of unlikely candidates with strangely impressive domestic records getting runs in the side which they use to prove their mediocrity, and we end up going into the tournament without much clue as to what side we will pick or what they will do on the field.

Today, though, and barring a string of major injuries between now and then, England have no such uncertainty. It is quite conceivable that the England XI which just played against Australia could turn out in the World Cup final, and they would stand a reasonable chance of winning it. And on the evidence of the series we have just had, it is entirely possible that their opponents would not be Australia.

Those are not predictions, of course. It is merely an arresting way of saying that England have improved enough to be taken seriously as ODI competitors instead of being regarded as jokes, only there to make up the numbers and that Australia have declined sufficiently that they aren't the white-hot favourites they have been for the last two.

The world has been turned on its head. I think I need a lie-down.

Certainly, it seems true enough that there's a good deal of irony in the world ... I mean, if you live in a world full of politicians and advertising, there's obviously a lot of deception.- Kenneth Koch

Watching the John Howard ICC fiasco from a neutral distance, one cannot help but marvel at the beautiful irony of it all. From the moment his nomination was canvassed a few months ago, it was almost inevitable that this was unlikely to be an election without controversy; nothing about Howard, overtly political and divisive figure that he is, love him, hate him, or in my case, utterly indifferent to him, was likely to result in a smooth succession to the ICC throne.

The ensuing debate in Australia has been even more ironic. Those in the pro-Howard camp have cried foul about the way in which his nomination has been derailed, bemoaning the fact that no valid reasons have been proffered, claiming some sort of national insult, even going so far as to claim hurt on behalf of our NZ cousins. As if the sensitivities of our neighbours across the Tasman have always been something we have keenly sympathised with! More irony.

The anti-Howard brigade have brought up his past, replete with references to past policies and personal views that he espoused when he was still a mere politician. They counter-accusations of a subcontinental power bloc against Howard by reminding the ‘old powers’ that they ran the game for nigh on a century and it is only fitting that the new economic powerhouses now control the sport. It is a valid enough argument but can we please then dispense with any
notions of good governance, best candidate, cricket's greater good etc and just accept that this is about who holds the balance of power. No shame in that - it's just a fact of life in the corporate jungle.

Howard himself, canny political beast that he is, must surely understand this better than anyone else. He must know that this entire affair has very little to do with what is best for cricket but is purely about boardroom games played by powerful men with self-important agenda. To the average cricket-fan, the real differences are made by the likes of committees comprising Michel Holding, Michael Atherton, Mark Taylor et al – decent men who understand the game intimately and try to legislate changes that actually change the game for the
better. This boardroom stoush is more about deciding which person presides over the regime that decides on billion dollar TV rights, World Cup bids and which committee men (and I presume it is mostly 'men') will sample the delights of the next corporate box. The ICC’s travel department are kept busy enough with booking first-class flights and six-star hotels without having to unduly trouble themselves with mere trifling on-field matters.

Of course this is nothing more than a political fight. Howard understands that. You win some, you lose some. Just be patient and wait for the next gravy train. NZ, gracious loser in the initial battle, swallowed their disappointment after losing the bitter nomination battle between Howard and Sir John Anderson and are now playing the game like grown-ups. Yes, they got rolled
by the Howard Team in the pre-selection but that’s history now. They have since backed Howard’s nomination but politics being politics, they themselves got rolled at the next stage of the political process. That's life. That's irony. Some would say...that's justice!

Surely Howard and his backers always knew this was likely to happen. Since when did the opposition ever have an obligation to telegraph their punches, provide valid reasons or keep pre-election promises? Howard himself carved out a great career doing just that. That’s politics. It’s not about right or wrong – life at the top cannot afford such ethical luxuries – this is about expediency, power and winning. This time, he's rolled the dice and lost but he's a hardened old warrior who'll move on to his next project soon. Perhaps a diplomatic posting in Antigua will still give him enough scope to watch a bit of cricket in comfort.

We’ve seen it just last week in Australian politics, on the opposite side to Howard’s former team. Kevin Rudd, supposedly the most popular PM in decades, could not even get through one term in office before he was rolled by his own deputies (one can hardly call them 'mates'). Shakespeare coined the famous “et tu Brute” to reflect the reality of all political battles, regardless of whether it applies to wars, famines, WMD’s or ICC elections. Deep down, why would Howard and Cricket Australia be so surprised by last week’s result? Surely they must have counted their numbers, kept an eye out for knives in the back and realised that it was no sure thing? NZ Cricket could have told them how it felt!

All this talk about needing valid reasons for Howard’s rejection and national insults and due process not being followed; that's just for the benefit of us cricket fans who honestly don’t really understand or care what happens in those ivory towers in Dubai. The reality is that new alliances will be formed, hatchets will be retrieved from shoulder blades and buried in Dubai's desert sands. There will be a few ruffled egos and talk of looking for scapegoats but the post-mortems won’t dare look too deep. No WMDs will be found here either!

My seven year-old son just walked into my office, read this essay over my shoulder and promptly asked me why politicians are the only people in society with the title of ‘Honourable’. Now that's irony!