Shane Warne and Michael Clarke share a moment © Getty Images

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Alex Brown speaks to Michael Clarke about his role as a counsellor for Shane Warne during the 2005 Ashes.

"I had seen it at Hampshire, but during the Ashes it was a lot bigger," Clarke recalled, revealing for the first time his conversations with Warne. "No matter what he went through off the field, he never, ever let the team down on the field. He had nights when he slept two hours, and then we'd lose the toss and bowl and he'd be getting five wickets on the first day of a Test match. And then he'd make runs. Not many guys are that strong mentally. It's an unbelievable aspect that he brings to the team.

"For me, I was just there to listen about what was going on in his personal life. I was just there to be his friend. How could I give advice? I don't know the pain he's feeling. He's 36, 11 years older than me. It's probably something I learned from him. He's a great listener. If I go to him with a problem, he will sit for hours and not say a word. I didn't know the answers."

Only one of the teams refused to play on after the Right Reverend Geoffrey Creese gave a controversial LBW decision and went home (but not before offering to pay for the uneaten teas!). As the local Forester newspaper reports, it's not just Darrell Hair who has problems ... and at least he doesn't have to give the sermon the next day.

As the captain of the Rev Creese's side said:

"He doesn't always get it right, but he's not biased ... he calls it as he sees it."

Cardiff was very much under the spotlight last night as it hosted its first one-day international since the somewhat controversial decision to award it an Ashes Test in 2009. While the rain was out of the authorities control, several papers reported on things that were.

In The Times, Christopher Martin-Jenkins gave the venue a warm(ish) pass mark, while noting:

“It may be safely said that it will have the shortest straight boundary for any Test match on the river side. Sixty yards is barely over the internationally prescribed minimum and it will be no more than a forward push for six when the likes of Andrew Flintoff start to put bat to ball against Australia in 2009.”

Charles Randall in The Daily Telegraph was a bit more upbeat:

“Sophia Gardens has the advantage of close proximity to the city centre and a variety of transport options – not least the feet – allowing much easier access than, say, the isolated Rose Bowl at Southampton, where traffic jams and congestion have marred major occasions.”

Speaking of umpires and controversies, Judah Reuben, a former Indian umpire, recalls his moment in the spotlight, during the John Lever-Vaseline controversy in Madras in 1976-77. Reuben firmly beleives that Darrell Hair's actions were justified. Clayton Murzello of the Mid-Day caught up with him at his Pune home.

“I walked up to England captain Tony Greig and he argued that Lever used Vaseline to ward off perspiration. I said, ‘skip, he can wipe away the sweat after every ball.’

Kevin Pietersen could be in hot water for branding Graeme Smith, the South African captain, "an absolute muppet" in his new book, Crossing The Boundary, feels the Mirror's Mike Walters. With a poor run of form in recent one-day internationals, Pietersen's jibe at Smith looked ill-timed, believes the writer.

"Kermit, Miss Piggy and the Swedish chef have so far kept their counsel, but firebrand Smith is unlikely to let the matter rest if England cross paths with him at the World Cup in seven months."

If Munaf Patel could do it, so can Ishwar Choudhury. Also hailing from a village in Gujarat, the young fast bowler's selection for the Under-19 squad against Pakistan is a reward for his toil, overcoming financial hurdles and other difficulties. K Muralidharan of The Indian Express charts his rise.

Sent to Gandhinagar by his father—a debt-ridden farmer—to nurse his flailing academic when he was 12, this tall strapping lad’s cricket instincts drew him closer to the game at the Sports Authority of India.

	Big units: Glenn McGrath and Matthew Hayden © Getty Images

Glenn McGrath tells The Age’s Chloe Saltau he has bulked up to a career-high 100kg in preparation for his international return.

“In the gym I'm lifting a lot heavier weights than I've ever done in the past, which hopefully will mean I will maintain that strength longer through the year. I'm feeling really excited, actually, about how I'm going to put that in play in the middle, and hopefully that will make me even better than I have been in the past."

Simon Katich is featured in The Australian with an AAP report detailing his struggles last summer.

"I was so tense when I was playing last summer because I knew I couldn't afford to make a mistake. And that leads to less opportunities to take the bowlers on or to score and be more aggressive."

Derek Pringle, writing in the Daily Telegraph, believes that the first innings may point to ball suspicions.

One answer that has come to light, via the usual information creep, is that the ball Pakistan used in England's first innings displayed such obvious signs of tampering (much more than the ball the umpires eventually changed) that Hair, at least in his own mind, needed only slender evidence in the second innings to pounce.

... Asif's methods of polishing the ball, which he does with both hands on both thighs, though not at the same time. The mystery though is that a red stripe (the usual sign that a ball is being polished) appears only on his left thigh and not his right.

Hair’s career options seem to be widening, even if he is removed from the ICC’s elite panel. Alex Brown writes in the Sydney Morning Herald Hair could be appointed on the international panel, which is one step down, while Ivo Tennant says in The Times there is a chance of him being an assessor of first-class umpires in England.

Mike Anstead, writing in The Guardian, on why Ashes hero Gary Pratt has to start his career all over again:

I don't want to live off what happened last year. I want to be known as a county cricketer, possibly even as an international cricketer, not just someone who made one run out. That's something only I can put right. I've just got to go out and prove myself for another county.

Darrell Hair should never umpire another cricket match - even though there may be some truth in his claim that he was encouraged by the ICC to make an offer to quit as an umpire, writes Tony Becca in the Jamaica Gleaner.

Shane Warne has revealed what he and his team-mates have been up to at the boot camp - a John Buchanan concept - in the past week, including some tasks more associated with the military than sportsmen:

I was shattered. But just as the night went silent, voices screamed: "Go, go, go!". What on earth was going on? A stun-bomb had gone off, and we were told the area wasn't safe. We had to move. Now. There were no torches or directions.

All we had been given for dinner was half a can of chunky soup, so our energy reserves were low after pulling vans and carrying litres of water. But we had to go. It was time to prove our mental resolve and move to a different location.

Welcome to the Australian cricket squad's boot camp in regional Queensland, a time where we had only been referred to as numbers, not names, and weren't allowed to communicate with the outside world.

Despite voicing his indifference to the idea beforehand, Warne said "there's no doubt it brought the group closer together."

Read more at the Sydney Daily Telegraph

Alex Brown also writes about the camp in the Sydney Morning Herald while Warne is the focus of Malcolm Conn’s story in The Australian.

The Courier-Mail runs a strange piece about Jason Gillespie worrying about being accused of ball tampering if he wears zinc to protect his nose and lips.

In the Herald Chloe Saltau speaks to Glenn McGrath about ball tampering rules and her story about Michael Hussey appears in The Age.

Cricinfo’s coverage starts here.

He might have had a glittering career spanning three decades, during which time he played at some of the world's top cricket grounds, but Sir Viv Richards still has fond memories of hitting sixes towards ambulances watched by NHS staff when he played for Bath's Lansdown Cricket Club.

But Lansdown was always my favourite ground because we had the accident and emergency department of the (Royal United) hospital next door. We used to have quite a few people who were supposed to be taking care of others stopping and watching.

Read the full interview in The Bath Chronicle.

Percy Sonn’s first few weeks at the helm of the ICC has hardly seen him at his best, and now according to Mihir Bose in The Daily Telegraph, he is to blame for events surrounding the aborted executive board meeting of the ICC.

“Sonn has only himself to blame for this latest fiasco. He had called the meeting on Friday because, as he put it, he wanted ‘to seek legal advice concerning the executive board's powers.’

“But this set in motion a tide of intense speculation on whether the executive board have the authority to overturn a properly laid charge by the umpires. That speculation would only be sure to intensify ahead of the weekend, so cancelling the meeting will allow everyone to focus on the cricket instead.”

	Should we feel sorry for Hair? © Getty Images

The row between Darrell Hair and the ICC continues to rumble on after yesterday’s news that Hair “was encouraged to make the offer that was disclosed by ICC”. Hair’s latest revelations confuse and compound matters though; two days ago, he cited stress - or "a difficult time" - as the explanation for his inappropriate e-mail. The muddle continues.

Mark Nicholas, in the Daily Telegraph, rather sits on the fence but rightly points out that further judgement can only be made after the hearing, at the end of September.

Should we feel sorry for him? This depends on the outcome of the ball-tampering investigation, assuming there is one. If Pakistan are found guilty, then yes. If not, we can only reflect on a small, big man so hell bent on making an impact that it led to his downfall.

Richard Hobson, in the Daily Times, questions whether Hair will umpire in the forthcoming Champions Trophy:

Hair’s next international appointment is the Champions Trophy in India in October and November, but if the Oval affair and its fallout were not reason enough to step down or be removed, then his public conflict with the ICC makes his presence even less plausible.

The ICC are holding an executive board meeting in Dubai on Saturday, but the case of Inzamam-ul-Haq won’t be the only point of discussion for the board directors as Mihir Bose in the Telegraph points out:

Much time will be spent discussing how Malcolm Speed, the chief executive of the ICC, has handled this issue - and also whether Mike Procter, the match referee, could have overruled Hair and ensured that the final day's play at the Oval took place. One senior ICC source told me: "The match referee can do that. There were two other umpires if Hair was not amenable. They could have been brought in and we need to look at these powers, how they are used, and make sure nothing like this ever happens again."

Hair has clearly decided that he will fight the ICC's fire with his own fusillade of press releases, and there could be further exchanges before Saturday's meeting. His intention seems to be to raise questions about how the ICC have handled the issue.

Instead of providing a solution to a situation he genuinely believed was untenable, Hair has, foolishly undermined his own integrity, writes Paul Kent in The Courier Mail.

Player, coach, captain, selector, manager, administrator and unwavering defender of the game's great values, Sir Clyde Walcott was a cricketing giant in every way, writes Tony Cozier in Barbados-based The Daily Nation.

In 44 Tests for the West Indies, he became one of the finest batsmen the game has known, forever linked with a triumvirate of Barbadian batsmen, born within a year and a mile of each other and everlastingly known as the 3Ws through the coincidence of the first letter of their surnames.

Read Sir Everton Weekes's tribute in The Nation, as told to Philip Spooner.

"It's not easy to accept what is inevitable, although we expect it sometimes, when it happens it still chokes you up inside."

Also read Walcott's obituary by BC Pires in The Guardian.

Australians often fall over themselves to defend a fellow countrymen irrespective of the evidence presented, or the lack of it - as in the recent ball-tampering controversy - writes Neil Manthorp in Supercricket. Barry Jarman's defence of Darrell Hair is one such example.

You have to admire the Australians for their sense of musketeerism. All for one and one for all. When a sporting colleague comes under fire, they rally around in defence. No matter what the circumstances or the validity of the arguments.

Malcolm Conn writes in The Australian how Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, has "burnt Darrell Hair at the stake".

Under unbearable pressure for simply enforcing the laws of the game after Pakistan was forced to forfeit the fourth Test against England for refusing to take the field in protest at a ball-tampering charge, Hair stupidly tried to end the grief for everyone by suggesting the International Cricket Council pay out his contract and he retire.

ABC Online runs a story with Ian Chappell saying Hair’s position is “untenable”.

Mark Nicholas, writing in the Daily Telegraph feels it's inconceivable that Darrell Hair can umpire at international level again.

Also read Tony Cozier's thoughts on the issue.

	© Getty Images

One of the main reasons cricket is so wonderful is its crowded cast of crackpot characters and rich history of skulduggery, the latter being an inevitable consequence of the dopey old game's beautifully intricate construction.

The Dawn's Kamran Abbasi minces no words in his column:

Hair has completely crippled his case. Not just the trumped up ball-tampering charge against Pakistan which only seemed to rest on Hair's ‘honourable’ interpretation of the condition of the ball — his honour is now dust — but also Inzamam's disrepute charge which any reasonable lawyer should be able to argue was a consequence of Hair's unwillingness to communicate fairly with the Pakistan captain.

Mike Atherton is surprised at how a small drama has turned into such a big crisis.

In time, people will look back in amazement at how one little pimple was allowed to grow and fester into a boil that finally burst at Friday's press conference, spreading puss all over the game.

Vic Marks wonders how Darrell Hair can possibly continue to officiate at the highest level of the game following his request for a secret pay-off.

The current laws governing action over suspected ball-tampering need to be redrawn to avoid the shambles that was the end of The Oval test match, argues Will Buckley.

"Whatever happens it is unlikely that Hair, 53, will stand in another international match. His relationships with Pakistan and Sri Lanka were already shot, and now he has shot himself in the foot," says an editorial in The Age.

Graham Halbish, the former Australian cricket chief, believes Hair's emails should not deter the ICC from thoroughly investigating the ball-tampering claims against Pakistan.

There's an Indian view as well. Writing in the Hindustan Times, Pradeep Magazine says Hair, who most in the sub-continent believe is prejudiced, has given them reasons to smile.

And, according to Chloe Saltau, Inzamam-ul-Haq was never a big hit among Australians.

One of his old adversaries, bowler Damien Fleming, believes there is hardly an Australian player who could say he knows Inzamam. He remembers dismissing him in a World Cup game at Headingley. "He was sort of looking for a bit of love. I yorked him, hit him on the toe, he ran, and then when he was about to get run out, he started limping. It was almost like, 'You guys shouldn't get me out because I'm hurt'," Fleming recalled. "Inzy is one of the better batsmen I ever bowled to, but as for his personality and emotions, I wouldn't have a clue."

Nirupama Subramanian, of The Hindu, tracks the Pakistani newspapers' strong reactions to Darrell Hair.

Neil Harvey has called the pre-Ashes boot camp as "absolute garbage" but Alan Davidson differs. Find out why in The Age.

"All it can do is get someone hurt. They call it a bonding exercise, but these guys have been playing together for 10 years. If they're not bonded by now, forget about it."

Writing in The Indian Express, S Santhanam relives some special moments with former Test opener and gentleman cricketer Vijay Mehra, who died of a heart attack yesterday.

Mehra always took keen interest in the domestic matches and would often ring this writer to get the scores of different teams and players. Those phones will no longer ring, I have lost a close guide and admirer.

Also read K Datta's obituary in the Times of India.

Tim de Lisle, writing in The Times, sees the current England and Australian teams on extreme ends of the age spectrum:

It used to be England whose players went on forever, while the Australians picked them young and sent them packing at about 32. Not any more.

Mike Selvey writes in the Guardian on the latest twist in the Darrell Hair saga:

Whatever his motive, Hair was unwise and naive to think that his suggested course of action was an easy way out. As far as the ICC is concerned, he is dispensable, and in disclosing his correspondence, they have all but cut off at the knees his career as an international umpire.

Also check out Richard Williams' piece in the same newspaper where he says, "Hair appears to have demolished his claim to moral authority. Whether he was being greedy or stupid, or even just pragmatic, will be of no importance."

The Daily Telegraph's Mihir Bose on how releasing the letter was part of ICC's strategy.

The Pakistani lawyers, headed by Mark Gay and Wasim Khohkar, thought they had come to be told the one-day series was going ahead. Instead, Speed handed them a copy of Hair's letter and told them that the advice they had received from David Pannick, the QC, was that if they had kept the letter secret and it had later emerged that it had existed then this would have jeopardised the hearings against Inzamam-ul-Haq.

Geoffrey Boycott feels all that Hair has done is make himself a laughing stock.

Also read Christopher Martin-Jenkins' piece in The Times:

His [Hair] own statement said that he wanted to continue as an umpire. No doubt he will, but he is unlikely to take charge of a game involving Pakistan, which makes it the more ironic that his demand for a payoff should so have prejudiced the ICC case and enhanced Pakistan’s.

In The Independent, David Llewellyn relates a brief but belligerent phone conversation with umpire Hair himself.

Not for the first time, you were left with the overriding impression that in Darrell Hair's world there is no middle ground, no grey area. Black, white, right, wrong, he could almost march to the monosyllabic, monotone rhythms that have directed him in his life.

Cricinfo's Andrew Miller comments on the issue here.

That was Dominic Cork's reaction when Brian Viner of The Independent asked if he ever raised the seam of a cricket ball. That was convincing enough. Looking ahead to the C&G Trophy final between Lancashire and Sussex, Cork looks ahead to the big match with all the downbeat insouciance of a child on Christmas Eve who suspects that Santa is bringing him a puppy. He also looks back at his career with England and his mood swings, which often hampered his progress. Read the full piece here.

I'm an aggressive cricketer, I like to get stuck in mentally, as well as physically, and there are 11 Australian cricketers very similar to me but nothing's ever said about them because they're very successful.

Geoff McClure remembers an interesting anecdote about Wasim Raja, who died recently, during his first meeting at Perth almost 25 years ago:

I challenged him to a wager involving the rest of the match. At odds of 2-1, Raja would win $100 if he took at least one wicket when Australia's second innings resumed next day and then score a half-century when Pakistan batted. But, on my insistence, part of the deal was that he also had to celebrate each achievement by standing in the middle of the pitch with his both arms facing towards the heavens.

Arjuna Ranatunga speaks to G Krishnan in The Hindustan Times regarding his stance on The Oval farce and his stint in Sri Lankan politics.

The ICC was wrong in having Hair in its panel. When teams had problems with him, he was kept out. By bringing him back in its panel, the ICC has rehabilitated him of sorts. It is very important for the ICC to get rid of people like Hair. By not doing that, not only teams but also countries get upset with each other.

	Harsha Bhogle: Inzamam is one of the game’s nice guys. He looks relaxed, at peace with the world, and is respected. Some of those are fine qualities for a leader but there are others too © Getty Images

The Pakistan Cricket Board has much to answer for writes Asif Iqbal in The News.

In this entire controversy, the relationship that Darrell Hair enjoys with other functionaries of the ICC has been a revelation. The match referee Mike Proctor wanted to restart the match but could not prevail upon Hair to do so; the ICC chief executive, who plays a rather bigger role than his position as a paid executive of the ICC would perhaps merit, is also reported to have spoken to Hair, but to no avail. One would have thought that in terms of the hierarchy of the ICC, both the match referee and certainly the chief executive are above the umpire but Hair could flout both.

When the dust settles on this one, Pakistan will have to find another leader and leave Inzamam alone to charm the world with the quality of his batting, writes Harsha Bhogle in The Indian Express.

There can be no more resounding victory than honour questioned and vindicated. But Pakistan chose to sit out and I’m afraid that was a huge failure of management. They needed a calm, shrewd mind in the dressing room and they were let down. The captain has to bear the brunt for that, but so must the manager.

Mark Nicholas writes in The Daily Telegraph that reverse swing will be forever clouded in suspicion.

What on earth has Billy Doctrove's agent been doing with himself this week? asks Harry Pearson in The Guardian.

There's his client at the centre of one of the biggest sports stories of the year and all we hear is Darrell Hair this and Darrell Hair that. If I were the Dominican umpire I would be seeking alternative representation. Unlike Umpire Doctrove, Umpire Hair seems unlikely to be forgotten in a hurry. Hair today, gone tomorrow - I think not.

Barry Jarman, the former match referee, says he confiscated a ball from the South African team, which was being coached by Bob Woolmer, when it was only 16 overs old because the seam had been lifted. He talks to Robert Craddock in The Courier-Mail about the 1997 incident.

Jarman kept the issue secret until yesterday, when he produced the ball which has been in his possession ever since he demanded it be replaced. Jarman, no longer on the refereeing panel, noticed the ball was being scratched by two fieldsmen who would then lift their shirts and rub sweat into one side of it, causing an imbalance that would make it swing at freakish angles.

"The ball is only 16 overs old, yet one side has been tampered with and you can see where they have run their thumbnails down the seam which opens up," he said. "The open seam [which caught the sweat] meant one side was heavier than the other ..."

Jarman told the umpires to immediately replace the ball, triggering a fiery exchange with Woolmer. "They all went berserk, including Bob Woolmer, who raced into my office and said 'what's going on?'," Jarman said. "I said 'your guys are stuffing around with the ball, mate'. I told him who it was and he went out with his tail between his legs.

Peter Whalley in The Zimbabwean looks at the effect that the recent one-day series win has had inside Zimbabwe and the cases for and against the country being kicked out of international cricket because of the deteriorating political situation.

Beating Bangladesh 3-2 was a much-needed fillip to morale inside the country.

“This feel good factor is likely to be swept away when the side faces stronger opposition, but a series win over an improving Bangladesh side cannot be ignored. It would suggest that the young team does have the potential to improve as long as it can continue to have international exposure even if the return to Test cricket is delayed.”

And Whalley makes a very valid point about the need to keep plugging away, regardless of the politics.

“It is important that the game continues and if that means working with the new dispensation, no matter how unpalatable to some, then so be it. There will come a time when the Zanu PF leviathan is no more and its fellow travellers on the cricket gravy train will disappear, so that genuine cricket-loving Zimbabweans can take the game to new heights from a position of growing strength. This is surely preferable to a situation of starting from scratch, which would be the case if those pressing for Zimbabwe's total isolation had their way.”

If Darrell Hair may be assured of anything in these difficult hours, it is that smirking, jaded telly executives are even now dreaming up vehicles for him, writes Marina Hyde

This day, 33 years ago, Garry Sobers produced his last Test hundred, an unbeaten 150, to charge West Indies to a massive win. Sobers later admitted that on the first evening (when he was 31 not out at the close), he had spent all night drinking port and brandy and was not in the best state when he resumed his innings. Click here to read an extract from the autobiography of Sobers, Garry Sobers: My Autobiography

I realised I had long gone past the need to sleep. “I have so much liquor in my head,” I said to Reg, “that if I go home to the hotel and go to bed, I’m not going to wake up.” He asked me what I wanted to do and I suggested that we go back to the Clarendon Court, where the team were staying, for a few more drinks and a little reminiscing about the good old days, and that’s exactly what we did. As morning dawned ...

The hostile response to the Hair drama has been pathetic and irrational, writes John Birmingham in The Australian.

But the real mystery of this teddy bears' picnic, the reason I cannot believe my eyes, is the spectacle of England's cricket writers dancing to Inzamam's tune down at the edge of the woods. Almost to a man they have hastily scribbled out some perfunctory criticism of the Pakistan skipper, before moving on to have at the umpire with almost insensate savagery.

Mihir Bose, writing in the Daily Telegraph, reports that Bob Woolmer is on the verge of resigning as Pakistan coach. He reveals further schisms in the Pakistan camp.

To add to the farce, 20,000 spectators at the Oval were looking on in bewilderment when the Pakistani dressing room door opened and out emerged Kamran Akmal, the wicketkeeper, without pads but with a copy of a newspaper, which he sat down and read on the balcony. Commentators have taken that as the Pakistan side showing disrespect to Hair, but I am told that is not the case. Inzamam did not even know Akmal was doing that. It was just a young player, who knew he had no part to play in Inzi's decision, deciding to leave an overheated dressing room and seek some peace on the balcony.

With a bit of statesmanship, it should be possible to make it plain to Inzamam-ul-Haq that he acted foolishly and that standing on national dignity is no excuse for a cavalier disregard for cricket’s laws and rules, without exacerbating the crisis unnecessarily and without any loss of dignity or appearance of weakness on the ICC’s behalf, writes Christopher Martin Jenkins in The Times.

Mike Selvey, in The Guardian, shares Bob Woolmer's opinion on Law 42.3. That it's an ass.

Allow bowlers and fielders to scratch, rub, scuff and pick the ball to their hearts content but to do so mindful that this is the only ball they will get inside 80 overs until they get another new one to desecrate.

Read Andrew Miller's piece on the same subject on Cricinfo.

Darrell Hair may not score a goodwill ambassador job in Pakistan anytime soon, but the Australian umpire has achieved something rare for cricket - front page news in the US.

Alex Brown says in the Sydney Morning Herald Shane Watson is ahead of Michael Clarke and Andrew Symonds for the No. 6 spot during the Ashes.

The 25-year-old all-rounder's recent performances for Queensland and Australia A have greatly impressed selectors, who feel Watson can provide batting insurance for Adam Gilchrist should he fail to rediscover his form of old, as well as bowling back-up for Glenn McGrath who is returning to action after an extended lay-off.

In The Age Chloe Saltau talks to Andrew Hilditch about the importance of team stability.

In The Daily Telegraph, Andrew Baker states that the reaction had the ball-tampering accusations been made against an English player would have been far less dramatic.

“Let us imagine that Sunday's alleged offence had been committed by an England player. This is not beyond the realms of possibility, as any Australian player from last summer's Ashes series might attest, and as the chortling former bowlers in the BBC's commentary box would confirm. Andrew Strauss would most likely have accepted the five-run penalty with a shrug and told his fielders to get on with it. Tony Blair would not have been contacted by mobile phone on his Caribbean holiday, images of Darrell Hair would not have burned on the streets of Stockwell, and ambassadors would have slept untroubled. Nobody, frankly, would have cared very much.”

Baker adds that the Pakistanis’ reaction is, nevertheless, understandable.

“It follows that for a Pakistani player to be accused of cheating, or condoning cheating, is not just a serious slur but a wearisomely familiar one. The response is passionate because it rejects the lazy lumping together of one people under one characteristic.”

In his article, Baker also refers to an editorial earlier this year in the Karachi-based News newspaper which is sure to ruffle many feathers. In it, broadcaster and foreign correspondent I Hassan, talking about a local festival, offers the following opinion:

"Regrettably, one has to say that our people cheat at every step in every walk of life. The concept of fair sport does not exist - be it getting a big contract or just a licence. Our people, unless vigilantly checked, will cheat. Even the fear of God does not prevent them from doing so."

Fazeer Mohammed believes that if the Pakistanis were really serious with all of the post-match comments about their country's honour being at stake, then they should not have returned to the field.

What is it about us former colonials that we feel compelled to measure ourselves by our one-time masters' yardstick of what constitutes civility and fair play? Giving up a Test match is as legitimate a protest as any other, especially if the degree of the perceived offence goes beyond issues of umpiring incompetence, or even bias. Those strident defenders of Victorian values, who will tut-tut and mutter disapprovingly about such behaviour being just not cricket, need to come to terms with the reality that this is only a game, and if it means being disrespected and insulted - as the Pakistanis claim - then it isn't a game worth playing.

For an outsider's account of the crisis, read Aakash Chopra's England diary in The Hindustan Times.

Even as I write, I am idly surfing the internet and hearing of mini-rallies and demonstrations around Pakistan in support of their beleaguered captain and team. I can see an outpouring of emotion on the British websites.

To blame Hair for not having the perfect response to an unprecedented event or to play down the seriousness of Inzamam’s behaviour is fatuous, says Martin Samuel in The Times.

As one of the ten best umpires in the world, we presume that he knows the difference between balls weathered by play and one that has been altered artificially. Ian Botham, Nasser Hussain, Michael Atherton and the many others queueing up to argue that something is only true if it is captured for action replay have lost sight of the primary issue. No incontrovertible proof is required beyond the belief of the umpire that cheating has taken place. Everything else is chatter

Andrew Baker, writing in the Daily Telegraph, sees it as a clash of cultures.

The patronising explanation is that Pakistan is a young nation with comparatively few cultural, economic or sporting achievements to boast of. Cricket therefore assumes an iconic importance, and the players assume the mantles of heroes. Accuse a Pakistani cricketer of cheating and you accuse the nation.

The ECB's cloak-and-dagger approach to the ball-tampering furore has obscured the affair's central issues, says Mike Selvey.

ICC clowning around is no joke for Inzamam, writes Martin Johnson in the Daily Telegraph.

The answer to all this would be for the ICC to downgrade ball-tampering from its hanging offence category, but you have to wonder about common sense being embraced by any ruling body that can clamp down on an umpire for wearing two sun hats [ Neil Mallender was the official punished]. In the meantime, Hair resumes his umpiring in a second XI game at Chesterfield next Wednesday, and Derbyshire's bowlers will doubtless be preparing for the game - behind locked bathroom doors - with a pair of nail clippers

Should coaches be allowed to talk to officials during Tests? Yes, says Micky Stewart, former England team manager, while Stephen Moss, Editor of Wisden's new anthology of modern cricket, says an emphatic no. Click here to read The Guardian article.

Zaheer Abbas refused to take the field on the last day during the 1983-84 Bangalore Test. Mid-day, the Mumbai-based tabloid, gives the inside dope, courtesy extracts from the autobiography of Madhav Gothaskar, who officiated in that match.

After 14 mandatory overs were bowled, he {Zaheer} along with his team walked off the field without the umpires declaring the close of the play.We maintained that if his team did not complete six more overs, India would be declared as winners. The ruse worked. The Pakistani team returned to the field. Gavaskar duly completed his 28th Test hundred, but it was an inconsequential century. After the Pakistanis left the field, Gavaskar refused to leave the ground and dissuaded his partner Gaekwad from leaving the field, despite the repeated entreaties of his skipper Kapil Dev.

Harbhajan Singh takes pride in the fact that he has mastered a craft which is by no means easy in the modern game. In an interview to S Dinakar of The Hindu, Harbhajan firmly believes that he is at a stage where he needn't listen to experts.

Harbhajan Singh still carries that maroon wallet. It's battered and torn, but it stays with him, reminding him of his humble beginning, his roots

Peter Roebuck breaks away from the Australia media pack to attack Darrell Hair for his decision at The Oval. After the local columnists backed the umpire's courage yesterday, Roebuck writes in The Age “cricket has been reduced to a state of high farce by a bone-headed umpire and an impetuous touring team".

Hair and Inzamam-ul-Haq should both be removed from their posts. A plague on both their houses. Actually, Hair should have been sacked years ago because he is an erratic and headstrong umpire whose time has passed. His conduct at The Oval was merely the latest episode in a notably contentious career. Once again, he chose the path of confrontation, throwing his weight around, asserting his authority without much thought about the consequences. Certainly, he did not hesitate to accuse a touring team of cheating. He is not so much a bull in a china shop as a dinosaur in a delicatessen.

Richard Boock of The New Zealand Herald too agrees that Hair and Inzamam were at fault, but makes a valid point that the idea of an umpire taking a unilateral action against one team on the basis of a hunch, in the process provoking an unprecedented forfeiture and tarnishing the reputation of an entire team, isn't likely to go down well at ICC level.

Phil Wilkins remembers England’s walk-off and walk-back-on at the SCG in 1971.

The England fast bowler John Snow never knew how close he came to rewriting Ashes history 35 years ago when he swaggered back to the fence below the Paddington Hill at the SCG in 1971,” Wilkins writes in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Tony Cozier remembers some acrimonious incidents involving umpires from the past.

At a crucial stage on the last day of the first Test [West Indies' tour of New Zealand in February 1980], which they lost by one wicket, fast bowler Michael Holding vented his frustration by kicking over the stumps with a full, graceful swing of his right foot after yet another appeal, this for a wicketkeeper's catch, had been turned down. When what they felt were several obvious decisions again went against them in the second Test, West Indies delayed their return to the field after tea on the second day for 12 minutes as a mark of protest.

Dan Koch reports in The Australian about Australia’s pre-season bootcamp, which is the idea of John Buchanan and will be supervised by a former SAS soldier.

Australia’s elite players will be deprived of food, sleep and water and put under severe stress on a torturous military-style boot camp starting today to kick off their preparations for the Ashes series. Reputations will count for nothing, as some of the biggest names in world cricket are pushed to their physical and mental limits and beyond. The camp, which will operate for four to six days, will be run by a former member of the SAS regiment, Eben Jefford, who developed the punishing program in conjunction with Chris Haseman, a former tactical operations instructor with the Queensland police force.

Alex Brown writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about Glenn McGrath’s longest trip away from his wife Jane since she was re-diagnosed with cancer.

	© Getty Images

“No one is bigger than the game. Cricket if nothing else is a game built on rules, pages and pages of them. A player if feeling aggrieved about a ruling can sound off about it, but the game must go on. To withdraw from the contest is to abandon the principles of the game. It also achieves nothing in winning the contest against your opponent.”

The article goes on to slam remarks attributed to senior Pakistan officials that they would not play were Darrell Hair to be appointed to matches involving them in the future.

“Pakistan, in a burst of petulant indignation, said they would not play any more matches if Darrell Hair was the umpire. First, no team has the right, nor should it be able, to dictate who the ICC appoints to officiate a match. Pakistan say they have had "problems with Darrell Hair before". Last year Pakistan took umbrage at several Hair decisions, yet in 2003 Pakistan were the beneficiaries when decisions by the same man upset South Africa in a series against them. Pakistan are guilty of playing the man. Darrell Hair did not make up the rules, he just applied them as he saw right and proper to do (and we would argue this whatever his nationality).”

While the very suggestion that anyone might have been ball tampering causes outrage, Darren Berry in The Age says that it is rife - and what is more, that it could even enhance the game.

"A few months ago NSW fast bowler Nathan Bracken was censured after his comments about ball tampering. But what he said was absolutely true. Bracken said that during his time in English county cricket, his team, Gloucestershire, loaded one side of the ball with saliva that was thickened and sugary after sucking on mints. The result was for the ball to start moving through the air in an unnatural manner. The sexy term for this is reverse swing. This practice and others go on in most matches around the world."

While Berry does not advocate the use of industrial sanding machines to scuff up the ball, he raises some intersting points.

"What does it matter if the ball is thrown into the ground early to rough it up? Let the bowlers scratch the ball with their fingers if they wish; it is a skill that arguably adds to the game."

He concludes that with the game so heavily biased in favour of the batsmen, with limits on bouncers per over and improved bat technology, why not even the battle.

"Ball-tampering is rife in world cricket and the easy way to fix it is to loosen the law."

Writing in Hindustan Times, Pradeep Magazine asks if cricket world in danger of getting torn asunder by a new global order that is increasingly getting polarised in stark shades of black and white?

While it seems that the world is queuing up to have a pop at Darrell Hair, Pat Gibson in The Times has highlighted that the job of being one of the ICC's elite umpires is not all that it is cracked up to be:

It sounds like a life of glamour, flying business class around the world, staying in the best hotels, watching the greatest cricketers of the day from the best vantage point, but for the members of the Emirates elite panel of umpires, it can be a lonely, stressful existence.

Gibson says that the rewards are decent – they are believed to earn between $75,000 (about £40,000) and $100,000 a year, plus a match fee of about $5,000 for Tests and $2,000 for one-day games – but on average they are abroad for up to 240 days a year.

Small wonder that three of England’s top umpires — Peter Willey, Neil Mallender and Jeremy Lloyds — have recently declined the invitation to join the elite list.

David Frith, writing in the Daily Telegraph, sympathises with the man in the middle.

Simon Barnes, in The Times, writes a passionate piece about the "vanity" of Darrell Hair and "how a single man’s pigheadedness was allowed to disrupt the fun of millions, to give cricket a terrible, gaping wound and to add to the tensions between Muslims and white Westerners at this, of all moments in history."

So now we know it. Officials are more important than players, laws are more important than people, one man’s vanity is more important than the pleasure of millions, principles are more important than common sense, intransigence is better than decency, vindictiveness is better than compromise, trouble is much more fun than peaceful co-operation and a fat man’s dignity is more important than mutual understanding between nations.

	© The Daily Telegraph

A spokesman for the England and Wales Cricket Board, James Avery, admitted Fletcher spoke with Procter before play but denied he had made a 'specific complaint about the state of the ball'. Yet sources close to the team have revealed that Fletcher did play agent provocateur, a role that probably influenced Darrell Hair's decision to pull Pakistan up for ball-tampering in the 56th over of England's second innings.

The Guardian's Mike Selvey fears the Anglo-Pakistan relations could be hit if it turns out that Fletcher had indeed alerted the officials.

If it was established that England had indeed prompted the umpires' investigation, it would throw back Anglo-Pakistan relations by a decade. It might further draw comment on whether they themselves were speaking from the high moral ground when it was their mastery of reverse swing, often as early as the 30th over of an innings, which helped win the Ashes and drew admiration. Suggestions that this was aided by the use of sugar-infused saliva from sweets has not been proved, but it is a wonder that a number of England players still have their own teeth.

Mike Marqusee feels that Pakistan's stand at the Oval is a salutary reminder that cricket is a game stamped by empire - and resistance to it.

Simon Barnes, of the Times, has ripped into Darrell Hair, saying a series that had exemplified all that is good about cricket was ended by one man’s vanity.

He will also argue that he was standing up for the laws of cricket when he stopped the match and refused to restart it. If you read the laws, you will find that he is right. If you park on a double yellow line for two minutes outside the chemist to get some urgent medication for your dying wife, the policeman who fines you is also acting according to the law. He is also acting without humanity and common sense.

Ted Corbett, writing in The Hindu, desribes how Bob Woolmer made his players swear on Koran that they had not indulged in ball-tampering.

John Woodcock says Hair lost the plot at the Brit Oval on Sunday.

Roy Hattersley's editorial in the Daily Times comes down heavily on the commentators:

... they take refuge in talk about sensitivity and obligations to the paying public. Their response to Monday’s events at the Oval was demeaning because it lacked courage as well as logic.

Steve Waugh: 'The laws are there for a reason' © Getty Images

Steve Waugh, the former Australian captain, has come out strongly in favour of Darrell Hair's decision at The Oval, which received scathing criticism in the English and Pakistani media yesterday. Waugh's sentiment is echoed in the Australian papers as well, with most journalists and former cricketers backing Hair.

Waugh felt that Hair did the right thing by abandoning the Test. "I definitely agree with that [Pakistan forfeiting] - if they don't go back on the field the Test is over," Waugh said in News Ltd papers. "That's quite simple. Sunil Gavaskar tried that one on the umpires in Australia [in 1981]. No-one is bigger than the game. The laws are there for a reason."

Javed Miandad was one of the few Pakistani voices that came out against Inzamam-ul-Haq's decision. "Pakistan committed mistake after mistake and put themselves in a no-win situation," Miandad told AFP. "[Irrespective of] whoever has taken the decision but it's the skipper who will face the punishment. Either he should have taken the decision immediately or have played the match under protest. Pakistan has not only lost the match, but also lost the sympathy with the crowd, who came to see the game."

Mark Taylor, Waugh's predecessor as Australian Test captain, rejected claims that Hair was biased against Asian teams. "I'm sure he's just doing what he thinks is right," Taylor told Channel Nine television.

Hair also won praise for his decision from Robert Craddock in Queensland’s The Courier-Mail. "To his great credit Darrell Hair is prepared to poke his nose into grubby corners of the cricket world where most of his fellow umpires refuse to go. Over the years he's been called dictatorial and officious and both accusations have at times been correct. But they should never overshadow the one great strength of his decision-making - the courage to back his opinion even when the protesting millions disagree with it."

Malcolm Conn takes a similar stance in The Australian. "Cricket is once again on the verge of disgracing itself by failing to support an umpire who has the courage to uphold the laws of the game," he wrote. "Darrell Hair's decision to award the fourth Test at The Oval to England after Pakistan refused to take the field in protest could cost him his international career. That the Pakistan cricket community and the British media have turned on Hair comes as no surprise. Pakistan has always played its cricket that way, and the English press knows a soft target when it see one - it has been watching plenty play for England over much of the past two decades.

“Hair’s action in awarding the fourth Test to England at The Oval in London is unprecedented in Test cricket, and, predictably, for his courage he is facing the firing squad,” writes Phil Wilkins in the Sydney Morning Herald.

However, Ian Chappell, writing in Mumbai-based Mid-Day, comes down heavily on the ball-tampering law.

Mukul Kesavan, writing in the Hindustan Times, looks back at the Dean Jones controversy and advocates a policy of zero tolerance.

The reason ‘kike’, ‘faggot’ and ‘nigger’ are taboo today is because public opinion backed up by social sanction made them unsayable ... Roebuck and Border and cricket’s commentariat seem to think calling a bearded Muslim a ‘terrorist’ doesn’t belong in the same category of proscribed words. Well, it’s up to us to persuade them that it does, through a policy of zero tolerance.

	© The Daily Telegraph

Ted Corbett, writing in The Hindu, tries to track where it all began:

The whole affair began, according to tales sweeping the Oval ground, when an England and Wales Cricket Board official went to the umpires' dressing room in the morning and asked them to watch out for ball tampering by the Pakistan players.

Geoffrey Boycott, writing in The Daily Telegraph describes the events as “farcical and reflected little credit on the England and Wales Cricket Board or the International Cricket Council”.

The ICC must be blind or stupid not to have realised that there is history between Darrell Hair, the umpire who accused them of changing the nature of the ball, and Pakistan. There were mutterings after the Headingley Test that Pakistan didn't like Hair's attitude.

Mihir Bose, cricket historian, feels the attack on Inzy's 'izzat' (honour) was the final straw.

Inzamam is one of those Pakistanis who passionately believes that a man can lose everything he has, including his life - but not his izzat. For him, the manner in which Hair took the decision as much as the decision itself meant that Inzamam's personal izzat, and that of his beloved Pakistan, had been besmirched.

Derek Pringle, Daily Telegraph's cricket correspondent, says pride, principle and prejudice replaced runs, wickets and catches.

"Everyone who follows the game, and has its interests at heart, needs a full explanation now, not least from the umpires and match referee," writes Mike Selvey in The Guardian.

In the same paper Lawrence Booth writes how Hair’s future is in doubt.

Simon Barnes writes in The Times “a small judgment about a small infringement of the laws created a day of outrage, distress and fury”.

Pakistan were not accused of ball-tampering yesterday. They were judged and found guilty by the umpire, Darrell Hair, as they sought to halt England’s second-innings resurgence. This is a profoundly serious business in cricketing terms. It is not like calling a woman a tease. It is like calling her a whore. Well, there are women who are whores, but you’d better be bloody sure of your facts before making the accusation.

Ian Botham, writing in the Daily Mirror, blames ICC for the chaos that enveloped The Oval.

Kamran Abbasi, writing in the Dawn, the Pakistan daily, writes that Hair has a track record of poor decisions and sparking controversy in matches involving Asian teams and feels that Pakistan would have been as mightily offended if the umpire involved had not been Hair. .

The Sun's John Etheridge writes on how an 18-stone Aussie called Darrell Hair trampled his feet all over the name of cricket with an astonishing display of pig-headedness.

James Lawton says in The Independent “a Test match died at the Oval yesterday for a lack of trust between those who play cricket and those who administer it”.

The Telegraph, the Kolkata-based daily, tracks Sky Sports’ live coverage during the choatic unfolding of the events and records what the star commentators had to say. Click here to read.

Cricinfo’s coverage starts here.

Kevin Mitchell, writing in The Observer, believes that the Australians are worried. And as an Anglo-Australian himself, he is better placed than most to judge. The training camps, the barrage of bombastic statements, the average age of the side, it all adds up to a picture of insecurity.

What England will provide this winter will be a side considerably more able and confident than the one Hussain took there to be barbecued four years ago. It is not yet firing consistently, but the signs are mildly encouraging. They will take comfort from their elevation to number two in the world after securing the current series 2-0 at Headingley, although will be disappointed they have not been able to consolidate that supremacy here in the fourth Test

Mike Atherton, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, feels that there is only one consolation England can take from their insipid performance at The Oval. The fact that they've succumbed to the death-rubber syndrome.

With Monty Panesar and Sajid Mahmood in the current England side and Yorkshire teenager Adil Rashid provoking great excitement, the profile of British Asians in cricket has never been higher. But is the game as free from racism as it appears? Kamran Abbasi reports

Thirty years on from his destruction of England, Michael Holding is less than impressed with the stamina of the latest generation of fast bowlers, writes Simon Wilde

“I’ve studied footage of Harmison over recent years and I can’t detect any technical glitches, so I can only assume the reason he has bowled at 81mph on Friday, which is 9mph down on his usual level, is lack of fitness. That, or he has a mental problem. But I can’t comment on that because I don’t know the man.”

Scyld Berry, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, feels Stuart Broad can solve England's one-day fast-bowling problem.

Broad turned 20 only two months ago, and the one way to spoil him would be over-bowling him and provoking stress fractures. But a few one-dayers for England would round off the season nicely for this wonderful prospect, and would allow Steve Harmison to enjoy a few championship games for Durham.

With England struggling for one-day bowlers, John Stern assesses their fast bowling reserves in the Sunday Times.

In a freewheeling interview to The Indian Express Harbhajan Singh tells Ajay S Shankar about the journey so far and his dream to become India captain.

I always stick with what I feel is right, what I feel is the truth. The effect, later on, may be bad for me, as it has happened a lot of times. And I know there’s a lot of lies going around these days, and there are many times when you are cheated. But that’s the way I have grown up, that’s the way I was taught to be. To speak the truth, stand with the truth.

If cricket has changed over the decades, so have the flashy wheels the players drive. Mike Selvey compares the eras with some hilarious examples. Read the full piece in The Guardian

Nowadays, players - or at least the big guns - drive their sponsored vehicles largely in anonymity. In the days when suppliers insisted on making the cars into billboards, there was something slightly demeaning in sitting at the lights with a large sticker on the driver's door saying Howzat!!!!

Even when they've been on the field in this match, England have remained mentally out to lunch. Quite what this means when it comes to choosing a captain for Australia remains to be seen, but England have been so flat here that it can't have done much to advance the case for Andrew Strauss, writes Martin Johnson in The Daily Telegraph.

Much more of this and the Australians will be downgrading their Ashes alert from critical to something a good deal less than severe. The commando camp they've set up in Queensland will have to be replaced by more traditional methods of preparing for the Poms. "Now then lads, we'll all meet up in the pub the day before the first Test, and drinking is strictly limited to 12 large tinnies per player."

Read Simon Barnes in The Times who says that England yesterday reminded him of the saddest, bravest, most pathetic sight in sport: that of the plucky British female figure skater who finishes a promising 23rd.

S Singh, writing in Mid-Day, a Mumbai-based tabloid, tells the story of Dmitry Ratnayake, forced to return to South Africa midway through a special Sri Lankan tour

Simon Barnes finds sporting values to the fore despite supposed tensions at The Oval:

It was Pakistan’s day and if the England supporters were disappointed, they didn’t seek to assault the opposition in revenge. And across the country, as people watched on television or listened to the radio, the match was enjoyed in a way that was - almost certainly - cheerful, enthusiastic, appreciative and utterly without fanaticism.

The Daily Telegraph's Martin Johnson writes on Kevin Pietersen's dismissal at The Oval and casts a funny look at the rest of the happenings on the first day:

On a day when it was announced that Marston's Pedigree were the team's "official" beer, Pietersen's decision to dispense with any kind of initial reconnaisance made you wonder whether he'd also been appointed as the beer's official taster.

Sandeep Patil, former India dasher, turns 50 today. Patil is currently coaching the Oman team towards a World Cup dream. In a chat with Mid-Day, the Mumbai-based daily, he talks about his life, cricket and his hopes for the future.

You can’t forget the sacking [from the post of Indian team coach in 1996], can you?

It was a rude blow. My reaction was similar when they dropped me from the team on December 17, 1984. It was in Delhi and Sunil [Gavaskar] told me in the hotel lift that I will not play the next Test in Calcutta.

In 1996 too, Sunil gave me a hint in Sri Lanka. We were staying at Lanka Oberoi. Sunil, Sachin Tendulkar, Mohammed Azharuddin and I were to meet Jagmohan Dalmiya in his room. I met Sunil in the lobby. He told me, ‘Patlya, I think tula goli deli’ (I think they’ve sacked you).

Also, read Patil's interview with Cricinfo's Nagraj Gollapudi.

Interested in a few details about Australia’s secret training exercise next week? In The Courier-Mail Ben Dorries writes Reg Dickason, the long-term security guard of the team, will be overseeing the four-day “bootcamp”.

Ricky Ponting and the rest of Cricket Australia's 25 contracted players will arrive in Brisbane next Tuesday night and be herded to an undisclosed location under the cover of dawn the following morning. It is believed Survivor-style food-gathering exercises will be among the tasks. John Buchanan is the brainchild behind the back-to-basics camp that has been organised by Dickason, a former undercover policeman who hides behind dark sunglasses and a bristling moustache.

The acknowledgements section in John Wright's book John Wright's Indian Summers has a curious mention - Cafe Mondegar, a well-known joint in Mumbai, and one which he frequented often. This is where Wright broke bread, sliced butter and sipped tea or beer on happy and gloomy days whenever he was in town. Clayton Murzello of the Mid-Day finds out why Wright and his support staff could never resist this place.

Wright relished the Mango lassi and remembers Ramesh, who never failed to make him comfortable and offer him a seat by the window. It appears the window seat is special to many and the ‘Reserved’ sign says it all.

Alastair Cook, the England batsman, talks about his real passion: firing darts. "I have always loved watching darts on TV. I know some people think it is not a sport but I defy anyone to watch it for an hour and not get into it."

Forget the bomb, the perceived threat to security and the kith and kin concerned for their husbands, fathers and brothers. Elmo Rodrigopulle in The Daily News tells us why he thinks South Africa were unjustified in pulling out of the Untitech Cup and what he feels were the real reasons behind the departure.

One cannot understand the South Africans indecent hurry to skip the tournament, considering the fact the Interim Committee, even bent backwards to promise them the best of security.

Osman Samiuddin, Cricinfo's Pakistan editor, offers a different point of view.

Any criticism of South Africa's decision should also be tempered, to an extent, by the understanding that safety is a very personal concept. They are not used to such incidents on as regular a scale and thus likely to react differently.

Cricket Australia officials hope to announce a new coach in February to ensure a smooth transition after the World Cup, Jon Pierik reports in the Herald Sun.

The search for John Buchanan's replacement as Australian cricket coach will begin in the next month, with Tim Nielsen and Tom Moody emerging as favourites. A Cricket Australia sub-committee, which includes former captains Mark Taylor and Allan Border, will discuss who should guide Australia through a major rebuilding era.

Australian captain Ricky Ponting will have a crucial vote, with whoever he favours expected to get the job. While Nielsen and Moody are the favourites, CA is expected to sound out the likes of other Australian coaches working abroad including Greg Chappell (India), Bennett King (West Indies) and Dav Whatmore (Bangladesh).

In The Courier-Mail Ben Dorries claims England will send a shadow squad to Australia to support the first-choice Ashes outfit.

Amid the tension in Sri Lanka, Neil Manthorp writes on the security situation:

... the problem with an 'upgrade' of security for the team to 'presidential' level is that presidential security is reliant on the military which is, of course, not just a target for the Tamils, but the primary target. So does surrounding the South African team with high numbers of primary Tamil targets constitute an increase in their safety, or a significant decrease?

Simon Hattenstone writes on his love affair with the great great, Graeme Hick:

I used to play a step-counting game when I was walking home from the bus stop - one run for every step. I was batting for England and every time a car passed I lost a wicket. Of course, I manipulated it, so the likes of Athers and Nasser were batting when I was on the main road (they were frequently out for ducks), and Hicky came in when I was on the quiet side streets so there was no chance of him getting out cheaply.

The predicted poor treatment of Australian crowds towards Monty Panesar and Sajid Mahmood has become a popular topic for the UK’s newspapers. Greg Baum responds with a view from Australia in The Age.

If there is racial abuse, it will, of course, be Australia's undying shame. But it hasn't happened yet. The judgement on Australian sports fans is not just pre-emptive, but runs counter to indications. Panesar already has developed a cult status here, before setting foot on Australian soil. The fascination is redoubled by the fact that he is from the old school of tailenders, incompetent in all the game's disciplines except that one at which he is a master. As such, he is bound to be the butt of many jokes. But the fun that is made of his cricketing competence will, or ought not be, of itself racist. To the extent that a man can laugh at himself, surely so can others.

Baum also writes that “England ought not be too righteous.”

Unlike in Australia, its migrant communities arrived as ready-made, even fanatical, cricket players and fans. But it has taken generations for them to emerge in the Test team. Now, suddenly, they are cherished. As much as history bears on this issue, England has one, too. I was in the outer at the MCG when Bay 13 bombarded Gladstone Small with fruit and monkey chants. But it was 1986. Around then, Ian Botham declared Pakistan a place fit only to send a mother-in-law. There was no suggestion of sanction then, either for racism or for tired humour.

In the same paper Chloe Saltau writes about the countdown to the Ashes being interrupted by a string of one-day fixtures.

Kevin Pietersen is selling his Porsche 911. It's done 5000 miles and is yours for just £63,995.

More details at The Corridor

In The Guardian, Frank Keating writes on Monty Panesar and other great sporting Sikhs.

If Panesar has, of a sudden, so delighted English cricket, he has warmed, too, the proud community of some half a million fellow Sikhs in Britain.

The prospect of inviting foreign players to particiapte in India's domestic circuit will certainly raise the standards and not jeopardise the local talent, feels Makarand Waingankar. The success of the English football clubs is one such example. Read the full piece in The Hindu.

Four West Indies fast bowlers Roy Gilchrist, Lester King, Chester Watson and Sven Conrad `Charlie' Stayers were invited to play in different zones in 1962 and it had a tremendous impact on youngsters watching those bowlers.

There is a bush cricket tournament on this weekend: the Reedybrook Ashes:

The Reedybrook Ashes, the bush cricket tournament to end all bush cricket tournaments, is on this weekend and should be a beauty. Greenvale's Tropical Cowboys, led by James and Tim Atkinson, have been in training and our spies tell us they are in top form and going all out to topple premiers the Gum Flat team led by cricketing legend George 'Killer' Harriman. They reckon George has been getting in shape by belting basalt rocks around the flat with an ironbark stick. This is a camp-out weekend and it's been down to three degrees up there in the basalt. It'll be cold, so take the windbreak. She'll enjoy the outing.

More at the Townsville Bulletin

As England women take on India at Lord's today in the first of their five one-dayers, a storm is raging on the other side of the world. In Australia, The Age are asking do women sports stars deserve media coverage?

Greg Baum kicked off the debate a few weeks ago, with the rather contentious line: “If women insist on playing sport at all, it should be beach volleyball.” And a week later, his colleague Natalie Craig regretfully finds herself agreeing.

The debate came about because of a public inquiry in Sydney which, as ABC Sport reports, is considering the suggestion
that the media could be compelled to carry regular coverage of women's sport.

What do you think? Email us with your thoughts.

Thanks to Dan Roesler for the links

Sajid Mahmood: sterner tests await © Getty Images

Amir Khan, the English boxer, has condemned the abuse of his cricketing cousin Sajid Mahmood, claiming: "He's no traitor, he's our hero." Read the interview in the Daily Mirror here.

Also check out Kevin Mitchell's piece in the Observer where he says that if both Monty Panesar and Mahmood make it to the Ashes squad, they will be plunged into an examination of their character considerably tougher than anything they have so far experienced.

Stephen Brenkley, writing in the Independent on Sunday, feels that both Panesar and Mahmood resist the notion that they are role models, or that their presence in England's team can play some small part in helping society progress.

Ten years ago there were few Asians in the upper levels of the English game, but times are changing, says Lawrence Booth in the Sunday Times.

The secret of England's famous Ashes coup last year was attention to detail, which was missing in South Africa's defeat in the two Tests against Sri Lanka, feels Ray White. The writer also laments the decline of Shaun Pollock.

The margin between victory and defeat is often tiny but regular winners make a habit of getting past the post first even in the tightest of finishes.

Read the full piece in The Witness.

VVS Laxman tells VV Subrahmanyam that the current phase was the most decisive one in his one-day career.

"I have not done that badly in one-dayers. But, it could have been better. Being a stroke-player, my strike-rate is neither poor. It is only a matter of time before I rediscover my one-day form."

Dean Jones's remark was uncalled for, even by his standards, but Peter Roebuck feels strongly that while Jones needs to serve his punishment, he should be welcomed back to the community. Roebuck argues that people should direct their anger against oppression of more harmful proportions.

Headstrong but fundamentally generous, the tone of his remark was out of character.But it was a momentary lapse. Let anger be reserved for the violence that destroys lives, and for words intended to hurt.

Read the full piece in The Hindu

	Dravid at nine was just as focussed on cricket as Dravid at 33 is © Getty Images

At nine, Rahul Dravid, like any other kid his age, chased cricket icons for autographs, a collection of which - mainly comprising bats and stumps - he has tucked away among his cricket memorabilia

... Dravid would seek autographs. And he would be excited, recalling how he had convinced players to sign. On a couple of occasions, he asked the player's name after getting his signature. It was embarrassing.

Read The Times of India for more

The Times' chief sportswriter, Simon Barnes, can always be relied upon to wax lyrical on a chosen topic. And his take on Monty-mania is no exception.

A Sikh playing for the England cricket team, with the Kesh or uncut hair, was always going to stand out from the rest. I saw him step into Test-match cricket this spring, in India, of all places, the place of his ancestors for all that he is Luton-bred. And at once, two things were apparent about him. He couldn’t field but he couldn’t half bowl

	The genius of Monty © Getty Images

Fletcher is a fellow who by habit will look on a glass as half-empty rather than half-full and, since Panesar's elevation to the England side, it is the spinner's shortcomings with bat and in the field, rather than potential with the ball, that have occupied the coach's attention.

A brilliant performance...in the past week appears to have swayed the hangdog coach towards the view that he might just have a genius on his hands.

But can Panesar play Warne's role in England's four-man attack for the Ashes? Read Mike Selvey's piece in The Guardian for more.

	Langer after being hit by Makhaya Ntini © Getty Images

Despite being forced to consider retiring after being hit in the head in his previous Test, Justin Langer has told England’s bowlers to bounce him during the Ashes. However, AAP reported he quickly wished he hadn’t opened his mouth.

"I'd be staggered if I don't cop more bumpers in the next summer than I have through my whole career. If I was the England bowlers I'd be bowling short to me. If I was the England bowlers - look out!"

Langer then laughed as he added an afterthought: "I knew I shouldn't have said that."

Ryan Patrick, who runs CaribbeanCricket.com, wrote in to point out his interview with Ken Gordon, president of the West Indies Cricket Board. It's worth a read.

But, you had a January deadline. Then another deadline in March. Then another. And another. And they all come and go without agreement. Why should anyone believe that August 31 will be different?

You need not believe it. You have two weeks to wait to find out. Insofar as the ongoing problems that arise with the players, as long as they remain, we'll continue to have serious gaps in acceptance by the fans. We have an understanding with WIPA that these [public] conflicts are not in the best interest of West Indies cricket and we've resolved to honour all agreements. We have to give ourselves some time to go through everything in detail and work [with WIPA] to get everything signed and implemented.

If by any chance you should find yourself in Canada this weekend, and more specifically in Toronto at 4.30pm on Sunday, then head down to the South Asian film festival at the NFB who are screening the film Cricket and the Meaning of Life.

The film was voted the winner at the Reel-to-Reel Ontario festival and, as the name suggests, it’s not just a film about cricket – it’s about life itself.

	Should Andrew Strauss take over from Michael Vaughan? © Getty Images

In less time than it takes to make a decent cricket bat, England seem to have fashioned a 'new' team capable of contesting this autumn's Ashes, writes Derek Pringle in The Telegraph.

While England have wrapped up a fine series win against Pakistan, their last Test-match challenge before heading to Australia, the captaincy debate lingers on. Writing in The Independent, Angus Fraser offers food for thought: is Andrew Flintoff still the right man to lead England against Australia...or should it be Andrew Strauss? Who does the big man favour? Read on to find out.

With Monty Panesar''s rise from cult hero to national hero and Sajid Mahmood's welcome confidence in his last Test being two prime examples, The Times' Patrick Kidd observes a growing trend in the national side - that England are all too happy to home in on an Asian revolution.

And in The Guardian, Mike Selvey reflects that Duncan Fletcher must have passed through Damascus on his way home from Headingley, so dramatic has been the transformation of his opinion of Panesar.

As an unlikely expression of sentiment it is up there with Tony Blair apologising. The conversion from doubter to Monty maniac is almost complete

There were many aspects to admire about England's victory over Pakistan at Headingley, but one of the most notable changes since earlier in the summer - especially the Lord's Test against Sri Lanka when they shelled nine catches - was the quality of the fielding. There were four run-outs (three from direct hits) and some fine catching. Steve James, in the Guardian, pinpoints this improvement as the key to England's series win.

England always want three wickets per Test courtesy of their fielding unit, so that group is in credit by one here; maybe two if you include Collingwood's stunning low catch at third slip to get rid of Umar Gul yesterday.

Simon Hughes takes a similar theme in The Daily Telegraph and says it helped to make up for the loss of Andrew Flintoff.

With England's attack being understrength, possessing a collection of fast, agile fielders with a deadly aim is the equivalent of having an extra bowler. Don't forget the catching either. Marcus Trescothick put in extra slip-catching practice yesterday morning, as usual wearing weightlifter mitts, and it was he who snaffled the first chance just before midday, a low catch off Matthew Hoggard which had taken an irritating time to materialise.

The “terrorist” outburst of Dean Jones is analysed heavily in Australian papers, with Alex Brown writing in the Sydney Morning Herald that the incident hints at a national problem.

Yet again a racism controversy has rattled international cricket. And, yet again, an Australian is at its epicentre. When Dean Jones labelled Hashim Amla, a coloured South African batsman and devout Muslim, a "terrorist" on air this week, he not only lost his tax-free $US2000 ($2615)-a-day contract with his Dubai-based employer but hinted at a national problem - one that will further deteriorate unless it is acknowledged and acted upon.

Racial insensitivity is real and a serious issue in Australian sport. Unsavoury? Perhaps. But it's better to be stung by the truth than appeased by a distortion of it.

In the Herald Sun Ron Reed defends Dean Jones, who he has known since he was a 17-year-old.

It's not hard to find people in the game who dislike his loud and proud, super-confident and sometimes abrasive style. There has been no shortage of friction along the way. But never before has he been accused of racism.

Or if he has, it's completely escaped me - and I've known him well and watched his highly successful international career from close quarters since he was a 17-year-old batting prodigy at the Carlton Cricket Club.

Neil Manthorp, writing on the Super Cricket site,
has this to say.

	John Arlott - the first name in cricket radio commentary © Getty Images

Speaking of commentary, it's time to focus on those who said the right things at the right time. Ted Corbett remembers John Arlott, the man chiefly responsible for young schoolboys cycling home furiously to grab the radio and listen to his analysis and curse if the batteries went dead. Arlott will always be a hard man to emulate. Read the full piece in Sportstar.

His Hampshire burr had become compulsory material for every mimic good or bad and round the world — in those days BBC could be heard everywhere — those in love with cricket arranged their lives around their need to hear him speak.

	The Full Monty © Getty Images

Following another superb performance from Monty Panesar, William Hill, the bookmarkers, have slashed his odds to win the BBC's annual Sports Personality of the Year Award:

Monty Panesar has been slashed from 5/1 to 7/2 favourite with William Hill to win the BBC TV Sports Personality of the Year Award after his latest three wicket haul as England dismissed Pakistan to win the Test Match. Hills also make comic/swimmer David Walliams 7/2 joint favourite and then offer Steven Gerrard at 9/2 third favourite for the Award, and also offer 8/1 Jenson Button; 10/1 Ricky Hatton; 12/1 Joe Calzaghe; Dean Macey; 16/1 Andy Murray; 20/1 Kevin Pietersen; Colin Montgomerie.

Andrew Flintoff won it in 2005 following his heroics in the Ashes. Never before have two cricketers won the award in successive years.

Surrey have been doing a good line in England's forgotten men recently - with Rikki Clarke overlooked for the one-dayers and Mark Ramprakash still busting his guts at county level (OK, OK, he's had his chances...) But the man who's got the most claims for a recall to the international arena is Mark Butcher. And, he tells Donald McRae in The Guardian, he's not given up hope of being on the Ashes plane.

It was inevitable that the rather comical dismissal of Inzamam, in which he tumbled over his stumps flicking off the bails with his arm, would appear as a video on the internet somewhere. And it has. Worth a look.

Criticising the Indian selectors and the selection process without analysing the system was unfair on John Wright's part, writes Makarand Waingankar in The Hindu. Interestingly, another New Zealander, Glenn Turner, highlighted his displeasure of the selection process in print.

And since John Wright has captained New Zealand, we recommend him and his friends to read another former New Zealand skipper Glenn Turner's book Lifting the Covers which has exposed the New Zealand Cricket Board's machinations.

John Pierik writes in the Herald Sun that Australia’s contracted players will be warned at a pre-season camp of the “staggering upsurge in illegal betting”.

While the International Cricket Council claims match-fixing may no longer be a threat, anti-corruption chief Lord Paul Condon says players are still susceptible to "micro betting" - accepting bribes to under-perform during match stages. Condon said although it was less likely players would throw a match, micro betting, or betting on incidents or a particular session within a match, was rampant.

Pakistan have to bat last and could yet be beaten themselves, but their resilience and skill, aided by badly mistaken England tactics, have set up an intriguing last two days, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins in The Times.

Superbly though both [Younis and Yousuf] of them played, they were helped immeasurably by the dressing-room decision to abandon far too soon the old Headingley principle of bowling on a length around the line of off stump in sure and certain hope of eventual edges to normally positioned slips and gullies. The pitch, it is true, lost pace much more quickly than had seemed likely on Saturday, rather vindicating Inzamam’s judgment that the first day was the best for the fast bowlers. England, however, simply played into their opponents’ hands, first by trying to bounce them into submission, as to some extent they had on the bonier Old Trafford pitch, then by losing patience and attempting instead to bore them out.

Inzy is cricket's guilty pleasure; the ultimate schaudenfraude cricketer, says David Hopps in The Guardian.

Panesar beat an attempted sweep with a ball that not only spun back but seemed to give Inzy an electric shock. Then began the Inzy heptathlon. His first event was the shot putt as he lumbered round, virtually bent double, only for it to metamorphosise into the high jump as he tried to clear the stumps - a leap of 27 inches, nearly six feet below the world record - flicked off the bail with his glove and finished straddled and confused, as if looking for the landing mat.

It's not uncommon to see a legendary swinger of the cricket bat grab the nearest golf club and spend time on the greens. Kapil Dev and Brian Lara come to mind. Now it's the turn of Virender Sehwag. His technical skills were so impressive that he couldn't resist calling his former cricket coach for a crash course in golf. Read about his latest addiction in Indiatimes.

Sehwag connects with the ball perfectly, making it sail high, straight out of the field and on to the terrace of a flat at a distance. The sound of the ball hitting a green fibre sheet on the terrace was clearly audible. Even the woman of the house heard it and quickly came out to see if nothing was broken, before returning the ball.

Young spinners are all the rage around England at the moment with the Test-match success of Monty Panesar and emergence of Adil Rashid, a legspinner, at Yorkshire. In The Observer, Vic Marks, cautions against getting too over excited and says that both spinners need time to develop.

At least Panesar has been around for a while now. Adil Rashid has not, zooming into prominence only two weeks ago when he became the first home-bred Asian to represent Yorkshire in a Championship match and bowled the Tykes to victory over Warwickshire. Again this watershed was well worth highlighting. But let's allow him to develop without too much hullabaloo.

To learn more about Monty, have a read of Simon Wilde's extensive feature in The Sunday Times.

This autumn, while wealthier, brasher teammates may race off to luxury apartments in the sun, Panesar plans to travel to a farm run by a Sikh guru near Edmonton, Canada, for a spell of voluntary work, just as he did last year before many cricket followers even knew his name. He will help with the harvest, mix cement to repair the temple and generally spend time with friends, doing what he calls “normal things and getting away from cricket altogether”.

Are you a traditionalist or a moderniser?, asks Mike Atherton in The Sunday Telegraph. Do you believe a wicketkeeper is there to catch the ball, tidily and unobtrusively, or do you believe that he also has to score Test match centuries? Were you a Jack Russell or an Alec Stewart supporter? Your answers to these questions will depend on whether you believe Geraint Jones or Chris Read should walk out at the Gabba in three months' time.

While Read's selection was surprising to me in its timing - a Test match had just been won but the series not yet secured - it demonstrated absolutely where the selectors' priorities lie. By dropping Jones at a time when his keeping had improved immeasurably, the message is as clear to Read this time around as it was when he last felt the selectors' axe in the West Indies three years ago: runs are essential.

Marcus Trescothick had to abandon England's winter tour and is still looking for top form. But the man with the unlikely nickname tells Kevin Mitchell that it is just a question of time before he is back to his very best.

'You're never far away. You can just be one innings away from clicking back into form. That could be 30, then you're away. You might start with a hundred, who knows. It's a feeling, very much so with my game. I can feel when it's about to go. You start picking the ball up easily and early, your feet get in the right place, your head's still to watch it nicely, then you click. The concentration kicks in after that.'

The general assumption after Monty Panesar's demolition job in the second Test at Old Trafford was that Headingley would be filled to the brim with local Asians eager to catch a glimpse of England's new hero. But, as Owen Slot reports in The Times, the influx has been nothing of the sort.

Like a certain village in Gaul with an Asterix against its name, the stands at Headingley Carnegie seem immune to any invasion. We may have had Pakistan in the field and a Monty and a Sajid in the England dressing-room, but out there in the crowd, multi-culturalism has yet to catch on

	Chris Read made 38 in his first innings back in Test cricket © Getty Images

Although Kevin Pietersen took the headlines on the opening day at Headingley, one of more interesting passages of play came during the final session after he had retired hurt with cramp. It brought in Chris Read for his first Test inning since 2004. He played a few handsome shots, but also showed his nerves and Simon Hughes, in the Daily Telegraph, says his 38 raised as many questions as it answered.

His attempts to convert himself into a serious runmaker have been admirable, but, on yesterday's evidence, Read is still a jaunty short story rather than a more substantial tome. It is seven years since he made his Test debut, and the memory of him being bowled bobbing under a Chris Cairns slower ball, which prompted the newspaper headline, 'You Silly Ducker' hangs around like a dark cloud and refuses to budge.

However, in the Guardian, Lawrence Booth says that Read's 38 suggests he has the ability to succeed in Test cricket.

If the tension was getting to him, he did not let it show too much after his account-opening Chinese cut. There was a nervy cut at Nazir but shortly afterwards Read went on tiptoes to time the same bowler through the covers. It was mischievously tempting to see something of Jones in the stroke. Then, when Danish Kaneria dropped short he rocked back and cut him for four more. He was on his way.

Read was helped in his innings by Pakistan's use of their opening batsmen - Salman Butt and Taufeeq Umar - for six overs of part-time spin and Geoff Boycott, also in the Daily Telegraph, says it was one of the worst periods of bowling he has watched.

Shortly after Pietersen went off, having done all the hard work, Pakistan lost the plot altogether.
It was almost as if they said, 'We've been unlucky with the umpiring, we can't get these guys out, so we will just sit back and wait for the new ball'. Their two opening batsmen bowled absolute rubbish. It wouldn't have been decent bowling at me in the back garden when I was nine.

It all happened too fast for Sadanand Vishwanath. His lightning reflexes in the 1985 Benson and Hedges World Championship promised a long career but sadly, he faded away, after his form deserted him. In an interview to K. C. Vijaya Kumar of The Sportstar, Vishwanath reveals his emotional and financial struggles over the last two decades and how things are finally looking up for him in his new career in coaching and umpiring.

"I was young, popular but feeling lonely and insecure. I would never blame my parents' demise for the way my career shaped up. In fact, on the field, I gave my best but at that young age I wish I had some guidance. May be, if we had a Sandy Gordon then, things would have been different."

Monty Panesar has a real chance of being successful in international cricket, and by that I mean consistently over a long period, not just in the odd game here and there, writes Shane Warne.

Brian Lara has apologised. The question, though, according to Tony Becca, is what next?

What next? As far as appropriate action is concerned, nothing, it seems. As far as Lara is concerned, however, it could be that he is on the verge of getting what he has always wanted, of getting whatever he wants, and to becoming El Numero Uno in West Indies cricket.

Harsha Bhogle laments the fact that newspapers are increasingly surrendering to the instant quote brand of journalism with the very active support of people who will say anything to be in the news.

I fail to understand how a one-sentence quote with a minute and-a-half of thought behind it can be useful unless of course the objective is to be provocative. It tells you a thing or two about the sense of perspective going around.

Also check out Sambit Bal's column in Cricinfo, where he writes about lack of cricket causing the focus to shift to controversies.

In selecting Chris Read ahead of Geraint Jones for tomorrow's third Test against Pakistan, England have given him his third, and probably final, chance to prove that he can become an international cricketer, writes Angus Fraser in The Independent.

The omission of Jones does not signify that his time with England has come to an end. Far from it. Jones is not the first England player to be given a timely kick up the backside by the selectors and he will not be the last.

Also read David Hopps's piece in The Guardian where he says Jones has not only handed over the wicketkeeping gloves to Read, but also the pressure.

The tactic to practise batting against short-pitched bowling on a slab of marble is still a sound one and we shall continue to do so, writes Bob Woolmer in The Times.

It is a misconception that the best way to combat steep bounce is to get behind the line. One alternative method is to leave more balls outside off stump, and another, when attacking Harmison and others, is to play more “high shots” such as cutting over the slips, as John Edrich, Alan Knott and Tony Greig did on fast, bouncy surfaces in the 1970s, and hooking.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Alex Brown watches Glenn McGrath and Stuart Clark go almost unnoticed during a night fitness session.

The idea of Glenn McGrath and Stuart Clark running in together might strike fear into the hearts of English batsmen but, apparently, not Sylvania schoolgirls. “Who is that dude?" a young girl asked her friends as McGrath sprinted by. "That's, that's … what's his name?" That, m'dear, is the most anticipated comeback in Australian sport playing out before you.

In The Guardian Mike Selvey looks at the "blathering", "drivel" and "banalities" of McGrath's pre-series predictions.

This is intended to be oh so scary, which once, when he was in his pomp, it might have been, but now, coming from a fellow rising 37 who won't have bowled for the best part of a year and when he does will do so at around Paul Collingwood's pace, carries the physical and mental threat of Private Pike. Perhaps he realises that actually England's batsmen will be targeting him and is just getting his retaliation in first.

Despite criticism of the selection process by former coach John Wright in his recently released book Indian Summers, the National cricket selector from South Zone, VB Chandrasekhar, believes the five-man selection panel is a time-tested method that has produced results. Read S Dinakar's interview with VB Chandrasekhar in The Hindu.

"He [Wright] has the right to say what he has said. He has not named anyone and I respect him for that. We had long meetings, but I never had a problem working or interacting with him. There were no major arguments."

Why are we damning Wright for no reason? asks Rohit Brijnath also in The Hindu.

Fact is, throughout his reign as Indian coach, Wright showed a sincerity and humility and restraint that was edifying. The man's no buddy of mine, and his monkish vows of silence used to annoy me, but he showed fine judgment and a notable control of ego in ensuring the focus was always on the team not on him. You could get to like a man like that.

With the Headingley Test starting on Friday, Rick Broadbent recalls the heroic events of 25 years ago in The Times.

The Headingley Test of August 1981 was sporting alchemy as England turned three days of the meek and middling into a win that upset Australia, the applecart and Ladbrokes, who were taking bets at 500-1 on a home miracle by the fourth day. At least Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh could take solace in their winnings. “I’ve met 500,000 people who were there that last day,” Botham says.

It's hardly headline making, but The Cricketer Cup, which started back in 1967 and features 32 of England's top public schools, stages its 40th final on August 13 at Richmond in Surrey. This year's final features Old Malvernians, who defeated Eton Ramblers, and Old Tonbridgians, who beat Repton Pilgrims.

Ivo Tennant in The Times reports that Tonbridgians, the most successful old boys side in the 40-year history of the competition, will be seeking their 13th victory.

And in a seismic shock, for the first time the 2007 competition will feature a new side. Next year Old Blundellians will not take part in the competition, having struggled to raise competitive teams, and their place will be taken by the thriving Old Cranleighans from Surrey.

Sanjay Manjrekar's comments on Sachin Tendulkar created a furore. Ian Chappell, writing in Mid-Day, finds the reactions immature and says that Manjrekar is entitled to give his opinion.

Manjrekar doesn’t have a duty to check with Tendulkar before passing comment on the little maestro’s current mental state. He also doesn’t need to be in the dressing room to make this observation, as his years of playing cricket (many of them as a team-mate of Tendulkar) provide him with an insight into how a player’s mind works

David Foot in The Guardian takes a look at the long-established Cheltenham cricket festival, which has seen some remarkable matches in its long history.

But, as Foot points out, it's no longer the domain of colonels and clergymen as it once was:

"Those long flowery dresses of officers' wives have given way to bare midriffs of nubile wine-bar girls not long out of one of the local young ladies' colleges. In early evening, too, throaty male decibels increase - belonging more to Kingsholm than this ground's Gothic chapel."

Pradeep Magazine applauds John Wright for his forthright comments about India's selection system.

John Wright, by focusing on this issue, has merely pointed out what is seriously wrong in Indian cricket. For us to react and say that this “foreigner was here to make money and is now going to make more money through his book” is a churlish reaction that misses the point completely.

Only one achievement stands between Monty Panesar and the status of bona fide, gilt-edged English Test star: a long-term injury, writes Gideon Haigh

The Indian captaincy is often a thankless job, and Rahul Dravid has observed its harsh realities from the background over the years. His stint has seen more success than failiure, establishing his own style in leadership, which has set him apart from the rest. Dravid reflected on the toughest decisions he has had to make, and what also what it takes to propel India to the top. He spoke to Ashish Magotra in an interview to Daily News and Analysis.

At various stages, there are various 'go-to' people. Viru is my vice-captain, so obviously I value his thought process, his line of thinking is important to me — he has been a big support to me. Anil Kumble is another one who I constantly seek advice from and Sachin is the other. He has been hugely influential and his opinion is valued. Laxman speaks out in the meetings, Harbhajan Singh is someone who can speak for the bowlers.