Mohammad Yousuf stands now having broken one record and on the verge of another two © Getty Images

Much in the manner of the previous seven hundreds he has constructed this calendar year, so too was Mohammad Yousuf's record-breaking eighth century a thing of some beauty, writes Osman Samiuddin in The Age.

Yousuf Youhana averaged nearly 48 in his 59 Tests. He crossed himself for each of his 13 hundreds and couldn't quite shake off the tag that he was a rascally drifter, capable of composing dreams (such as his hundred at Melbourne in December 2004: "my best innings as you have to score against the best to prove yourself") but also prone to flimsiness and gifting wickets.

Mohammad Yousuf averages nearly 92 from 14 Tests, he has performed the sajda (act of kneeling in Islamic prayer) for each of his nine hundreds and, at no expense to his artistry, has acquired the skills of graft and run-gathering. His hundreds are bigger (two doubles and three 190s) and his conversion rate, since his conversion, is remarkable (only four 50s to his nine 100s).

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Brett Lee lifts the lid on Australia’s subdued celebrations after the first Test in his News Ltd column.

Had our first Test celebrations been shown to the world, you might have been surprised by what you saw. Sure, there were a few cold beers being swilled in the dressing room but there were also players drinking Gatorade. Others were drinking water. Others interrupted their celebrations to get ice treatment on their sore spots.

Martin Johnson, appearing in The Age, says there’s a hint of Allan Border’s 1989 team in the current outfit.

When Border brought the 1989 Australians to England, Ian Chappell had told him to stop being matey with the opposition, and Border soon demonstrated that he'd digested this advice when Robin Smith was incapacitated by a blow to the midriff.

Michael Clarke tells the Sydney Morning Herald’s Trevor Marshallsea he’s happy with his batting, but would have liked more than his 56 in Brisbane.

	And that's certainly not allowed © Getty Images

The Gabba resembled Stalag 13, complete with bumbling, over-zealous officials who have turned a day at the cricket for many into a survival test. More than 200 spectators were ejected from the ground and there were nine arrests over the first four days of the Test.

People were thrown out for a whole range of sins, including blowing their own trumpet, waving the Aussie flag, trying to start a Mexican wave and even, dare we say it, inciting an 'Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi' chant. A Gold Coast cricket fan was told by police to leave his seat because he was sneezing too much. True story.

In this new world order of terrorism, police and security have a difficult job to do at major sporting events. But Cricket Australia's heavy-handed approach will turn fans away. The Gabba needs to be more spectator-friendly. Right now, it's just not cricket.

Possibly conscious of the deep sense of ill feeling caused by the Queensland authorities, the South Australia authorities today issued a statement asking fans to act responsibly, while having fun at this year’s Test.

Nearly all the players in the England squad have columns (or blogs, or video diaries) with various media outlets. Occasionally they are worth reading, often they are not, but in his latest entry with The Guardian Sajid Mahmood was revealed he was subjected to abuse during the Brisbane Test despite not even being in the team.

It was just a shame that one member of the crowd took the verbals too far. I was carrying a drink round the boundary to Harmy when the first thing I heard was a voice from the crowd saying: "You can't be English." You're going to get stuff like that out here and you've just got to learn to ignore it.

Virender Sehwag continues to confound the pundits and frustrate the layman by flitting between the ordinary and the unacceptable, writes R Kaushik in the Deccan Herald.

Meanwhile the Times of India writes on how certain sections of the team were particularly displeased that Sehwag withdrew from the Durban game at virtually the last second.

Sehwag was ready and willing to play in the first match at Johannesburg despite the stitches on his finger. So his decision to pull out just three days later has raised more than a few eyebrows.

Peter Roebuck says in the Sydney Morning Herald Australia, who won the first Test in Brisbane easily, have some problems too.

Churlish as it might seem to find flaws with a team that romped home by 277 runs, and 10 wickets, Australia periodically frayed at the edges. Certainly the batting was superb ... Australia's bowling was less convincing. Admittedly, the Gabba surface was slower than usual and Australia had a few hundred runs to spare.

Greg Baum writes in The Age about Kevin Pietersen’s Monday at the Gabba and in The Australian Andrew Ramsey looks at how Kevin Shine, the England bowling coach, has a tough couple of days with Stephen Harmison.

The incident in question came at The Oval in August when Pakistan were accused of ball tampering and then refused to resume after tea, eventually forfeiting the match. Wilby was unimpressed with Sky’s main men:

They proved themselves utterly inadequate. They lacked even one person, a Benaud, an Arlott, even a Christopher Martin-Jenkins, who could bring journalistic qualities - an inquiring mind, a hunger for information, a desire to explain - to the occasion. They could tell us next to nothing about what was happening behind the closed dressing-room doors. More seriously, they failed to give the events any wider context.

Why were they so impotent? Wilby reckons that it was because they were all former players. Instead of drawing on their rich experience – and remember that the Sky team included several players who had first-hand exposure to ball tampering (witnesses to rather than perpetrators of, it should be said!) - they played safe.

As former star players, still deeply embedded in the game's culture, the Sky commentators rigidly observed its codes of omertà during that dramatic day at The Oval. In so doing, they failed their viewers.

	Billy Birmingham relaxes © SMH

The Sydney Morning Herald caught up with Birmingham as he put the finishing touches to the double CD.

Here's the drum on the new 12th Man album. Richie Benaud is so peeved with Eddie McGuire's cost-cutting decision to sack the entire Channel Nine commentary team - and hire Billy Birmingham to do all their voices and cover the Ashes series himself - that he forms a band called Richie and Da Boyz who do a remake of Birmingham's song Marvellous in a bid to get their own back against a man who has forged a career out of taking the piss out of them.

And it’s apparent that Birmingham in the flesh is as irreverent as his characters.

I'm all over the place like a suicide bomber's sandshoe … There's so much material. The drama has been trying to cut it all down so it fits onto a double album … It couldn't have happened in any other country. We're a nation of sports nuts and piss-takers and all I've done is combine the two.

A common theory to explain England's poor showing at Brisbane has been their lack of meaningful preparation ahead of the first Test and the English Sunday papers reflect this in a number of pieces. In the The Sunday Times, Simon Wilde says that Michael Vaughan's absence has also been crucial and he would have handled Steve Harmison's situation differently.

If Vaughan had been captain here, things would have been done rather differently. Harmison, who was given a rocket by Vaughan during last year’s Oval Test when he needed fire-and-brimstone from his fast bowler on the third afternoon, would not have enjoyed the licence he has.

In The Observer, Rod Marsh takes a swipe at Duncan Fletcher's tactics and selection for the first Test. Marsh is a known fan of Chris Read and also says that Monty Panesar's exclusion sent out poor signals.

At present there is a crazy situation since it is obvious that the England selectors disagree fundamentally. There are players chosen by those selectors who know that once they get on the plane they will be dropped. No prizes for guessing who that refers to on this England tour.

As usual, Michael Atherton has been busy in The Sunday Telegraph and has also followed the theme of England been under-cooked alongside a piece on Shane Warne

India are in serious trouble, and it's going to take more than Sachin's magic to turn things around for them, writes Barry Richards in The Hindu.

The players seem almost resigned to the fact that it is all too tough, and appear to be waiting for easier pickups later in the year. No one, not even Sachin, has that competitive aura, that defiant glare that can put bowlers on the back foot. Senior players are your core strength when the going gets tough and you need, as a unit, to be committed to working together to blunt South Africa's arsenal.

It is because we, as a people, get our priorities wrong that the men and women we elect get theirs wrong, writes Nirmal Shekar after Indian politicians debated the Durban drubbing.

Australia’s newspapers have been less than complimentary about England’s
playing style but what goes on off the field has come in for criticism as
well. Or rather, who goes on and off the field, as Andrew Ramsey explained
in The Australian.

"The regularity with which Flintoff's team shuttles players on and off the field has reached an even more farcical level than when it first came to Australia's attention during last year's Ashes series in England. On that occasion, Australia captain Ricky Ponting accused England of acting outside the spirit of the game by rotating their bowlers to rest, freshen up and be treated to a quick rub down. England countered by claiming the dizzying regularity with which players appeared and disappeared into the dressing rooms was to grant them toilet breaks. If that's the same case over the first two days of this series, then incontinence looms as a far greater issue for Flintoff than the fact his fellow seamers and top-order batsmen are not up to it."

Robert Craddock in The Courier Mail had his thoughts more firmly on the Australia team
and suggested that in fact the line-up facing England in the first Test
might not be the best 11 Australia could field. He argued that the time
has come for Shane Watson and Michael Clarke to both be in the team.

"One of them, almost inevitably Clarke, will miss out on next week's second Test in Adelaide because Australia has them bracketed for the same position. In time, Australia will need both and would do well to give them as much experience as possible before a generational change sweeps the Test side."

Despite all the hype generated by Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV before the start of the Ashes, they managed a spectacular cock-up before the series had started. As Chris Maume in the Independent points out, it all went wrong from the toss:

It was purportedly transmitted live - though that pretence was punctured by David Gower's revelation beforehand that Australia had won it.

It transpired that Mark Nicholas, working for the Aussie TV station Channel 9, was in shot, and because he also fronts Five's coverage over here it was considered necessary to edit him out. Pathetic, really. Except it seems to me that it almost certainly had nothing to do with rival channels. I mean, we are talking Mark Nicholas here. Wouldn't you edit him out of your shot if it was humanly possible?

The Australian newspapers were – understandably – delighted with the second day at Brisbane, and it was Glenn McGrath who attracted the most column inches. Written off by many, he bounced back with two wickets in the final hour to leave England on the ropes.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Roebuck reckoned McGrath's wickets were down to England as much as his own bowling.

Almost as much as his batsmen, McGrath was helped by the profligacy of his opponents. His opening overs had been undistinguished. Probably he was trying too hard to make things happen, searching for swing and cut, anything to take a reassuring wicket.

McGrath's contest with Steve Harmison was bound to be pivotal to the outcome. Suffice it to say that the local has prevailed by a country mile. Where the Englishman has hesitated, the veteran has attacked. Where the younger man has been inhibited, the old-stager has cut loose. Great sportsmen know a thing or two about the forces at work on a field.

And bad news for those who were quick to label McGrath and his colleagues “old men”. The Herald called in people who know about such matters. Damian Farrow, who holds a doctorate in motor expertise and works on skills acquisition at the Australian Institute of Sport, told the paper;

Middle age to me is probably 10 years older than the Australian cricket team From my point of view, from the skills side, there's not really any reason to suggest they will decline to a point where they can't do what they've got to do - make runs and take wickets.

In The Australian, Peter Lalor enjoyed some good old-fashioned gloating.

Did the earth move for you too? Australian cricket could have leant back on its elbow last night and had a languid cigarette.

Wandering to the ground this morning England fans muttered and moaned and talked in frustrated terms. If one were to extend the sexual metaphor beyond decency one might suggest they’d been struck by projectile dysfunction when the big moment arrived.

Here's something a little different to break up all the Ashes talk. It's an interesting piece from The Australian which talks about cricket's role in the development of rugby league in Australia.

Australia's top cricketers were reduced to receiving allowances, while the ABC began to build up financial reserves from Test match income. The change left cricket in a similar situation to rugby union, which was experiencing a groundswell of discontent over the fact the NSW Rugby Union was raking in large profits through gate-receipts from the unpaid labour of their footballers.

	McGrath: Planning England's downfall © Getty Images

In The Independent, James Lawton examines the performance of Ricky Ponting on the first day, and the contrasts with the fortunes of Andrew Flintoff as England struggled.

Lawrence Booth in The Guardian admires the efficiency of Glenn McGrath after his perfectly executed plans accounted for Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook, while Richard Williams feels that England's Ashes defence is in deep trouble.

England's poor start to the Brisbane Test has prompted Sir Elton John to ditch plans to watch the action at the Gabba, according to ninemsn.

Elton starts his 12th Australian tour at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Sunday night and was expected to attend some of the opening Test of England's Ashes defence. Sources close to the tour said any interest Sir Elton had in going to the Gabba had been "diluted" by Australia's first innings batting dominance.

Irfan Pathan needs to work on his wrist position, says South Africa's bowling coach Vincent Barnes © Getty Images

He calls his dog Sachin after his favourite batsman, he says he knows what's wrong with Irfan Pathan and wants India to go for a bowling coach. The Indian Express catches up with Vincent Barnes.

I just saw from those few balls he [Irfan Pathan] bowled to me that his wrist wasn't in a good position. If I was the bowler, I would want to know why. If the wrist is not in a good position, I would go from his wrist down to his feet, his run-up, his action.

In the same paper, Harsha Bhogle writes India’s batsmen are showing the same aptitude to batting in South Africa as a newborn would to walking.

Meanwhile the Daily News and Analysis speaks to former South African offspinner Pat Symcox, who gives Rahul Dravid's men not a chance in this series.

They were overtures to a century as telling as any he has made, as flawless as anyone has made. He played and missed twice, hit one ball uppishly through point, might have been leg before once when sweeping, but was master of every other delivery he faced.

In the same paper, John Huxley talks about the contrasting starts made by the two teams

As early as the drinks break, with Australia 0-57, even grizzled English commentators were preparing to unfurl the white flag. As former captain Waugh explained, the first day sets the tone for the series.

And in the Sydney Morning Herald Peter Roebuck looks at the tussle between the two captains and concludes Andrew Flintoff is going to find it very hard to come out on top.

Flintoff did everything in his power to stem the tide. Put in charge of a team shorn of two senior batsmen and burdened with a lacklustre attack, he took the ball in his beefy hands and unleashed several confronting bursts.

	Has Steve Harmison's wayward opening delivery set the tone for the Ashes? © Getty Images

Richard Williams kicks off the debate in The Guardian with his piece on Steve Harmison. Harmison’s limp performance was embryonic of the whole day for England, and Williams points out that if they go on to lose the Ashes, then Harmison’s disastrous first ball will be seen to have set the tone. He believes that at 28 Harmison is now too old to acquire the mental toughness that brings consistency of performance, and concludes that the best England can now hope from their principle weapon is that he has more good days than bad.

Steve Harmison's opening delivery, the first of an over that brought Australia nine runs, exposed England's insecurities. At these moments it would take some kind of encephalogram to expose the thoughts that pass through the Durham bowler's mind in his delivery stride. What image does he see?

Also in the Guardian, Lawrence Booth compares the opening day of the current series unfavourably with that of 2005, while David Hopps talks us through his underwhelming Ashes all-nighter.

In the Independent Angus Fraser shares his experiences of touring Australia and speculates as to what Andrew Flintoff and company can expect in coming weeks.

	Boycott: Flintoff will know that he has to be fully fit, bowling flat out, being fast, aggressive and nasty. Can he get to that level in time to make an impact? ' © Getty Images

Deep in the bowels of the Gabba, the cricketers of England and Australia quietly completed their final preparations. Their waiting was nearly over, the hour of battle was at hand. Surely they felt mixed emotions. What might the next day hold? Triumph or despair?, asks Peter Roebuck in in The Sydney Morning Herald.

Also in The Sydney Morning Herald, Geoffrey Boycott writes that there is no pressure on Andrew Flintoff. He just needs to "needs to bowl well, bat brilliantly and lead superbly".

I love the first morning of the Gabba Test. Especially when it's the first Test. Especially when it's an Ashes Test, says John Harms in The Sydney Morning Herald.

The Gabba was magnificently eccentric in those days. In the old wooden Queenslander that was the Queensland Cricketer's Club, shorts and long socks were de rigueur. The dining room underneath, where the only entree you could get, thanks to ex-wicketkeeper-cum-provedore Lew Cooper, was Moreton Bay bugs. The various stands which were added on bit by bit. The Don Tallon Bar, where you could only get a beer if you looked like Mr Fourex himself. The dog track (need I say more).

There has been almost as much written about the England players who won't be at the Ashes as those who will. Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick won't play any part in the series but perhaps the biggest loss to England is Simon Jones who tormented Australia with reverse swing in 2005. He is finding it difficult to accept that he won't have a role Down Under and in an interview with the Western Mail says he can't bring himself to watch the first Test.

It's not the same when you're not involved in the squad, it really hurts. I haven't played a full Ashes series out there, obviously I started the last one but didn't finish it. And I felt sick when I knew I wouldn't be playing a part in it. I had visions of playing this winter and going through the same emotions I did last summer.

	There won't be many smiles went the action starts for real © Getty Images

No more practice sessions and no more build-up press conferences, the Ashes are almost upon us. The newspapers are filled with the final round of hype-building talk but all agree that what has been said over the last year will count for nothing come the first morning at Brisbane. Martin Johnson, in the Daily Telegraph says that Australia's bullish mood is only to be expected but and the most important factor is how England manage to ignore it.

Magnificent bowler though he's been, it's a legitimate query as to how many of his Test wickets Warne has taken through advance publicity alone. If he's not talking about the flipper it's the zooter, the slider, or the wrong 'un. He'll shortly start working on a ball that loops the loop, disappears down his trouser leg, and whistles Waltzing Matilda before rattling into the stumps.

The last Ashes introduced a whole new breed of cricket fans to the game and the hope is that this series will do the same. Lawrence Booth, in The Guardian, gives a guide to some of the phrases you'll be hearing plenty of over the coming weeks.

Are the Aussies running scared? Their latest idea would indicate perhaps – they have commissioned a series of giant photos featuring eleven members of the Australian team alongside Australian supporters in a sea of green and gold.

“They are essentially the thirteenth man out there every time we take the field,” said Ricky Ponting, with no trace of media-massaging in his message. “These team photos will be a great opportunity for the players to acknowledge the important role that the fans play in our success.”

A statement from Cricket Australia said the campaign was aimed at “getting Aussie fans to ‘go off in green and gold’ this summer and create an intimidating sea of green and gold at every match to combat the invading Barmy Army.” It smacks more of a marketing wheeze to shift more shirts – but the picture could still make a nice souvenir. And the images taken at the event will be available free to participants on-line after the event.

Anyone who owns a replica of the new 2006-2007 Aussie one-dayer shirt can be captured in the photo. But don’t worry if you’ve not pre-registered; if you arrive at the Gabba by 1.30pm in your shirt you can still get in the frame. And if you’ve not even got a shirt, you can buy one on the day. Registration starts at 12.30pm.

Thanks to their Ashes success in 2005, England's cricketers are now more attractive to sponsors than ever before and with that comes new-found wealth. At the top of the list are Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen, but coming up on the blindside is Monty Panesar who has huge untapped potential. In The Times, Kevin Eason takes a look at what another Ashes victory could mean to the bank balances of England's leading players.

Another Ashes victory Down Under will only add to the astonishing new financial drawing power of England’s cricketing elite. Sponsors are queueing to put millions more into the England pot so that they can grab their slice of players who, for the first time in a generation, have become household names.

	Shane Watson's injury has forced Australia to rethink their combination for Brisbane © Getty Images

After a lamentable start in Canberra, where Andrew Flintoff's side were thrashed by the Prime Minister's XI, England supporters would have feared the worst, but the team has performed admirably in its final two warm-up matches, against New South Wales and South Australia, and fans can now look forward to the Ashes with optimism, writes Angus Fraser in The Independent.

After all the selectorial upheavals on both sides over the past 14 months, it is amazing to see players such as Damien Martyn, Michael Clarke and Ashley Giles all back in the running for Brisbane. The first Test of 2006-7 is in danger of turning into a 2005 reunion, says Simon Briggs in The Daily Telegraph.

Given the choice, Australia's selectors would have preferred to steal England's clothes by deploying Shane Watson as a sort of mini-Flintoff at No 6. That, in turn, would have cleared a place for Shaun Tait, who works best as a shock weapon, hurling down his 95mph yorkers and bouncers in short, furious bursts. But all these plans have been redrawn since Watson picked up a hamstring strain on Friday. While the Australians are still claiming that Watson has a chance of recovering in time, the truth is that no one outside the X-Men movies heals that fast.

	Strauss: 'We have got better with each game we have played, with batsmen and bowlers both beginning to adapt to the differing conditions' © Getty Images

It has been a traumatic opening week or so: humiliated in Canberra; savaged in the local media, and even before a first-class ball has been bowled there is an England career lying in tatters, writes Mike Atherton in The Sunday Telegraph. However, he means Chris Read and not Marcus Trescothick.

Also in The Sunday Telegraph, Andrew Strauss says that overcoming the jitters could give England a crucial advantage.

The onset of this Ashes series can't come quickly enough. The past two weeks have been the phoney war. Spectators, journalists and players have been searching for every imaginable clue as to how the series is going to play out. Of course, most of it means very little. We have got better with each game we have played, with batsmen and bowlers both beginning to adapt to the differing conditions, but the key lies with recreating that form in the cauldron of that opening Test match, and that is why we cannot wait to get going.

Much has been made of how 'matey' the England and Australia players became during the last Ashes series, especially Kevin Pietersen, Shane Warne, Andrew Flintoff and Brett Lee. Former Australian players have told the team to stop being so friendly so listening to the stump microphones could be an interesting part of the next six weeks. Stephen Brenkley, in The Independent on Sunday takes a look at the possible sledging battles and picks out some classic lines from the past.

The cordial relations between the sides in the previous Ashes have been cited as a contributory factor in Australia's defeat. "We didn't have an edge to our game," said Allan Border, under whose stewardship Australia were zealous in trying to undermine opponents with a verbal volley.

	'Revive school cricket, university cricket and club cricket... that is where the strength is' © Getty Images

It has never come to fruition and it may never yet come off any better. These summits summoned by every new chairman taking over the reins of the PCB have so far turned out to be an absolute waste of time, money and energy and nothing more than an exercise to announce that they exist and know better than their predecessors.

In good times no one cares. I, however, find it glaringly distasteful that every time the graph goes downhill of a Pakistan team they become a laughing stock. The players, the officials and those responsible for it are then summoned for explanation.

I think the most comical of all is the Senate Standing Committee on Sports which I feel is no more than a bunch of publicity seeking individuals, hungry for seeking attention and spotlight without much to show for.

Scroll further down the page and read Sohaib Alvi's account of the Multan Test of 1980 where Sylvester Clarke, hit by an orange thrown by spectators, replied with a brick.

Mark Richardson says that "a tour of Australia is no place to be for someone suffering from depression" in The New Zealand Herald.

I wish Trescothick - an opening batsman whom I've always held in the utmost admiration, the best in overcoming this illness and hope he returns to the international level. Now, speaking of things mental, has anyone else noticed that in a game between Auckland and Northern Districts, last week Hamish Marshall made 170 not out?

	Phil Jaques had a chance to play for England, but he'd rather wait his turn in Australia © Getty Images

Jaques, who travels on a British passport, scored 1409 runs for Northants in his debut season that year, more than enough you might imagine for the English selectors to sound him out. "It was pointed out to me I could become a part of the English system because of my British passport and because I was playing over there...

"Had I decided to go for it, I would've needed to sit out a four-year qualifying period to be allowed to play for them. That period would have lapsed at the end of last (season)."

Read The Sunday Age for more

The opening day of the first-class cricket season is like stepping back 30 years to when towelling hats were de rigueur. A quick inventory read: thermos flasks, three; field glasses lovingly protected in leather cases, four; tartan blankets, eight; chilly bins, two; fold-out chairs, six (one in camouflage colours); cricketers on field, 13, (plus two umpires).

There's few under 40 here. It feels like a Stephen King novel where an unknown force has stolen the young and deposited them in a cornfield north of Rangiora.

No, it’s not a County Championship match in England in April, it’s a State Championship match in New Zealand in November. And, as Dylan Cleaver finds in The Herald on Sunday as he watches Canterbury take on Otago, it can be a chilly, isolated affair. But it’s not all bad:

Most people involved in the game are quick to tell you how much superior the State Championship is now compared to the old Shell Trophy and Plunket Shield days - better cricket, better pitches, better facilities, better player welfare etc.

The photographers amassed at Heathrow airport to try and snap a picture of Marcus Trescothick arriving back in England following his depature from the Ashes tour. They were looking for a man in a brown jacket with a blue shirt and sure enough he walked through the arrivals door and the flash blubs started going. Only, it wasn't the man they wanted. The Times has spoken to Justin O'Sullivan, the man who has had his 15 minutes of fame.

“Those pictures have gone around the world,” O’Sullivan said. “I got calls from Australia and even India. My family and friends have had a great time making fun of it. I realised they were taking pictures when I got off, but I thought they were of someone behind me.”

Meanwhile Mark Lathwell, the former Somerset opening batsman who played two Tests for England during the 1993 Ashes series, has spoken of his sympathy for Trescothick. The two started their careers together at Taunton before Lathwell retired in 2001.

Lathwell has lost touch with Trescothick, as he has with everybody in the first-class game — “there is no point in clinging on to something that is not yours” — but he will be contacting Somerset for Trescothick’s phone number to express his sympathy.

It isn't only the players and supporters who are eagerly awaiting the Ashes re-match, those in charge of the corporate side are in line for a huge windfall with unprecedented interest in the series leading to a big pay day for the host venues. Lachlan Begg, the sales manager for Queensland Cricket, has been working flat out for more than a year as the Gabba prepares to host the opening clash. Read the piece from the Courier Mail.

Already, without a ball yet bowled, Queensland Cricket is guaranteed a cash bonanza. For Begg and other employees at QC's Albion headquarters, crossing the t's and dotting the i's before Thursday's series opener, it is like filling out a Lotto form knowing the winning numbers.

After his early promise, Australia believe Shane Watson's Test career is ready to bloom, writes Trevor Marshallsea in The Age.

When I won the Bradman young-cricketer-of-the-year award [in 2002], Richie Benaud said, 'People should give this kid some time to develop', because it does take a while to develop all aspects of an all-rounder's game," Watson said. "I didn't think too much of it but now I see he was dead right. I've just read Keith Miller's biography, and he took a while to develop, as well."

Ricky Ponting has overcome his immaturity to steadily grow into the Australian captaincy, writes Peter Roebuck in The Sydney Morning Herald.

	Shaun Tait: international bowler of mystery © Getty Images

Malcolm Conn writes in The Australian how Shaun Tait is keeping both batsmen and selectors guessing.

The broad South Australian speedster was not in the frame for a Test recall until he demolished England with an inspired spell of fast bowling for the Prime Minister's XI a week ago at Manuka Oval. Now the selectors have taken the unusual step of choosing a 13-man squad for next week's first Test in Brisbane, in case Tait skittles England when he lines up for South Australia in a three-day match, beginning today in Adelaide.

It would have been profoundly embarrassing if the selection panel, chaired by former Australia opener Andrew Hilditch, had chosen a 12-man squad and then watched Tait fire out England's finest.

Tait is also the subject of a piece by Robert Craddock in The Courier Mail.

Is he the new Jeff Thomson, a super slinger capable of carving a destructive path around the cricket world? Or will he be a player who burns brightly but briefly between injury setbacks, his body unable to handle the freakish stress applied by his whipcord action? No one seems certain, which only adds to his mystique.

In the Sydney Morning Herald Alex Brown profiles Shane Watson’s rise from the outer to first-choice allrounder. Peter Roebuck runs his eye over the first-Test squad in the same paper.

In off-field events Mitchell Johnson shows off his new girlfriend in The Courier-Mail and Wally Lewis, the rugby league great, hops on the Ashes train.

Matthew Hoggard is doing a video tour diary from Australia for The Times. He's sent over three so far, all well worth a look, and available on YouTube.

Touring sides are increasingly bloated with personnel these days. For all the coaches, trainers – masseurs, even – that litter the dressing rooms, England can now add a resident poet, David Fine, from Bakewell in Derbyshire. Come January, batsmen's concerns might revolve around their stanzas, not their stance...

He will write 25 poems, one for each day’s play of the Ashes, following funding from Arts Council England.

"Wordsworth, Tennyson, Betjeman, Housman, Chesterton and Hughes have all gone out to bat for cricket, in verse.

"A line is a ball, a rhyme perhaps a wicket.

"In the stands, this is reflected by the 41 chants and songs in the Barmy Army's Barmy Harmonies for last year's Ashes Tour," he said.

The BBC have the full story.

A scientific study claims that top batsmen can predict the sort of ball a bowler is going to deliver before it even leaves his hand.

A report by Dr Sean Müller of RMIT University in the latest issue of the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology states that the best batsman can predict how a ball will swing and where it will bounce well before it's airborne.

"[Experienced players] can pick up ... cues that the intermediate and novice players don't or aren't sensitive to."

	© Getty Images

Graham Thorpe probably knows more than anyone about what Marcus Trescothick is going through. In his Sydney Morning Herald column he says Trescothick is an incredibly brave man.

In this sport we play, in which being macho is mandatory and admitting to any kind of fragility is akin to defeat, to make his problems known is incredibly courageous, and people should give him all the sympathy and support he needs.

Obviously, I feel a certain amount of empathy towards Marcus at the moment. When I pulled out of England's tour of India to try to save my marriage in 2002, the disintegration of which had become very public, I remember feeling incredibly alone on the flight home. I felt as if I had let everyone down, that I was a failure. Once I got home, I locked myself in for a while and just generally felt ashamed of myself.

And Thorpe's advice?

Talk to people, get all the help you need and, even though you won't feel it now, be assured things will get better. When I came to the realisation that I was nowhere near being emotionally and mentally ready to come out for the previous Ashes series in Australia, I felt as if I had let a lot of people down, but also a sense of relief once I had put it out there. Looking back, I would not have done a thing differently. I'm sure Marcus will feel the same in time.

Even an Australian golfer has swung support towards Trescothick. Steven Bowditch suffers from depression and speaks about it in The Australian.

In the same paper Jamie Cox, Trescothick’s long-term team-mate at Somerset, tells Malcolm Conn how he had no idea the batsman would be heading home early.

"He showed no sign of it the other night," Cox said. "He seemed in good spirits ready to go. His family was due over in a week or so but obviously there's more to it than that.”

In other Ashes news Australia is preparing to receive 45,000 England supporters during the series, according to The Courier-Mail.

© Getty Images

There are 40-odd team meetings left for Rahul Dravid to revitalise his team. If, as is rumoured, Dravid is viewed as closer to Chappell than to his team, then that needs immediate rectification, writes Rohit Brijnath in Sportstar

There are approximately 15 matches left to get our quick bowlers to figure line and length is not as complicated as Fermat's last theorem. Overreaction gets us nowhere, but India's public is entitled to its team at least knowing the basics. Furthermore, is there something in the Penal Code we are unaware of which forbids bowling coaches? If Australia can have one, humbly so can we.

Also read Peter Roebuck's piece in the same magazine where he says, India lacks a core of respected elders able to carry the team along through hell and high water.

	© Getty Images

It is just the beginning – more players will crack up in the future. There is a quick and easy way of stopping this happening but it would involve the game's administrators taking the one step that they dread – cutting back on the amount of international cricket.

Sadly the game is led by people with one thing on their minds – making lots of money. They are no doubt well-meaning people who love the game, but they lack one quality – the experience of playing at the top level.

International cricket brings in millions of pounds and there is no way the game's administrators will stop their money-grabbing ways. It means players are being worked into the ground and the burden of playing non-stop cricket is taking its toll.

And Boycott makes an interesting observation as to why things are worse now than when he played.

But people who appear to have everything do sometimes struggle to handle the pressure and that is why famous people go off the rails. A normal person can turn to a cigarette or a beer when things get too much but for an international cricketer this is not an option.

In the past you would get away from it all by playing county cricket, which was fun. You would be back with your mates, you would have a laugh and relax a bit. The modern player doesn't play county cricket. It has been replaced by an endless round of international matches, so they don't get a chance to unwind.

David Foot writes in The Guardian "loneliness hits hardest of all, even for cricketers, in crowded places".

And it was in a sweaty dressing room, wedged in with the coffins and enforced bonhomie of ambitious sportsmen - most of them with their own, varying neuroses just below the surface - that Marcus Trescothick told himself it was time to go.

He has never been gregarious or sharply animated in repartee. He likes a joke but leaves the telling to others. On occasions he has given the impression that he enjoyed the game more with his school chums when playing for Keynsham second XI, with his dad Martyn as the gentle counsellor and his mum suggesting the batsmen get on with it as the tea steamed in the big enamel pot ...

He may not be the most cerebral member of the tour party but, as a light sleeper, he has been pondering for hours the expectations facing a key and most experienced opening batsman pledged to retain the Ashes. He is a worrier. The nerves have been gnawing away at him, however much he has suggested otherwise.

Christopher Martin-Jenkins writes in The Times Trescothick's international career is almost certainly over.

Back to The Daily Telegraph where Derek Pringle writes the selection was a gamble waiting to fail".

Peter Roebuck, a former west countryman, in The Age, says that there should be much sympathy for Trescothick's position but that there has always been a certain unease about him.

Eventually Trescothick began to fray at the edges. Every sportsman will recognise the signs. Every sportsman is more vulnerable than he pretends. That is why the Australians had not the slightest intention of teasing the west countryman.

Jon Pierik interviews Shane Warne for The Courier-Mail and discovers the legspinner feels he’s an ideal mentor for young players.

"If you take a 'who cares?' attitude towards it, they can actually say what they want," Warne says. "I have been burnt enough times, nailed ... what haven't I been nailed about? I know I've brought a lot of it on myself, but I also think some of the press has been uncalled for and unfair at certain times.

"That's where I could be a good mentor for younger players because there's not one thing I haven't been through – sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, everything, whether it be divorce, banned for a year, the lot."

Elton John is a man who has really done rock ’n’ roll and he’s expected at the Gabba for the first Test. Sir Richard Branson, Robbie Williams, John Major and Prince William are also rumoured to be considering visits, according to The Courier-Mail.

In the same paper Robert Craddock sees something different in this England team.

Australia will do well not to confuse this England outfit with its flaky predecessors who looked beaten from the time they landed on these fatal shores. Worldbeaters these England players are not, but there is something different and more substantial about this team than the ramshackle outfits led by Nasser Hussain, Mike Atherton and Graham Gooch. They are close knit and seem to care for each other, which was never evident in many previous English tour parties.

	Morning Lara, morning everyone © The Daily Telegraph

Richie Benaud will be joined by a bikini-clad model, Lara Bingle, to front the advertising of Channel 9's Ashes coverage this season. Shuper effort, that. More at the Daily Telegraph in Sydney.

The doyen of cricket is joined by bikini babe Lara Bingle - clad in parochial green and gold togs and cricket pads - in Channel 9's new Ashes campaign.

"So, where the bloody hell are you?'' Bingle says in the promo, coining her Tourism Australia catchcry to attract viewers to the series.

Benaud's thoughts are simple.

"Marvellous,'' he says.

Images of Vaughan lifting the urn at The Oval are etched on Justin Langer's mind. But rather than becoming embittered by the experience, the battle-hardened batsman, along with the rest of the side, has used the setback as an opportunity for reflection and introspection, writes Alex Brown in The Guardian.

"I hate the word complacent, but maybe we just lost the sharp edge of our game in England. That loss was the greatest thing to happen to this team. England put us back in our place. It was the jolt we needed."

We are used to stories about local cricket clubs scrimping and saving to mend a leaky pavilion roof or buy a new motor mower. But The Daily Telegraph reports on a small club at Eversley in Hampshire who applied for National Lottery funding and found themselves £1 million richer – enough to provide eight football pitches, an additional cricket square, a new changing room complex and a clubhouse extension.

Steve Waugh suggests in his Daily Telegraph column something he did only twice as captain - picking Stuart MacGill for the first Test at the Gabba.

Legspin is England's achilles heel and it's our great fortune to have the two best exponents of this craft residing in Australia. For that reason, I believe Stuart MacGill should join Shane Warne in the first Test line-up at the Gabba.

The single most important set of statistics in deciding Australia's first Test team belong to Pakistan reject Mushtaq Ahmed. During the English county cricket season he claimed a monumental 102 wickets - 41 more than the next best, including 11 five-wicket hauls at an average of under 20 at a strike rate of one wicket every six overs.

Robert Craddock, writing on the FoxSports website, worries about Michael Clarke.

Brett Lee was in the next net as Kevin Pietersen faced a series of short balls from the bowling machine in Sydney, reports Alex Brown in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Kevin Pietersen exhaled, smiled and turned. "Anybody want to come in here," he asked of the two dozen onlookers behind his net at the SCG, none of whom answered in the affirmative. Moments earlier, those spectators had watched England's batting coach, Matthew Maynard, manning a bowling machine that was firing 150kmh-plus balls in the direction of Pietersen's groin, torso and head.

In the same paper Greg Baum takes a long look at Andrew Strauss.

England’s tour rolled into Sydney for the first day of the game against New South Wales and the tourists had plenty of support. Brian Brownstein writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about the Barmy Army, who are hoping to fly over Gary Pratt to annoy Ricky Ponting.

In the same paper Peter Roebuck targets England’s decision to ask for a 14-man-a-side warm-up.

A nation that recently dismissed an accredited international tournament as an irrelevance dared to treat a state team with a proud tradition as a mere plaything. England wanted a glorified net. In the traditions of hospitality, and through gritted teeth, Cricket Australia bowed to their wishes. The result was a bogus match played before a bemused crowd. From the start, it was a rotten idea.

One of the peripheral players in the Ashes has slapped himself with a media ban. Things are getting serious for Billy Bowden.

If the Australian newspapers are to be believed, Andrew Flintoff’s men may as well pack their bags and head for home, says Simon Wilde:

The mockery of the headlines was as predictable as it was scathing. Steve Harmison, who was due to make his first appearance of the tour against New South Wales today, said the derision would only motivate the team come the first Test match in Brisbane on November 23.

He may be the fastest bowler in the world, but Brett Lee does not fit the recognised model of the modern paceman. Read his interview in the Sunday Times:

The slate will be clean at 11 o’clock in Brisbane when that first ball is bowled. It doesn’t matter what’s happened recently with England; it doesn’t matter what’s happened recently with Australia, there’s going to be a lot of nerves on both sides on November 23. It’s a love/hate thing. England hate to lose to Australia; we hate to lose to England, but there’s respect on both sides. And there will be some great cricket played.

Also read Robin Scott-Elliot's piece in the same paper. England expect a barrage of bouncers in Australia, he writes, but it will not match up to the assault suffered on the 1974-75 tour.

© Getty Images

For many, the enduring image of the 2005 Ashes is of Andrew Flintoff consoling Brett Lee after the Edgbaston Test but it is wrong, writes Steve James in the Sunday Telegraph.

Wrong, because Flintoff was consoling the wrong man. It wasn't Lee who had just been dismissed so that Australia could no longer reach their target. It wasn't Lee who, if you were being hypercritical, could be said to have cost Australia the Ashes. No, that was Michael Kasprowicz. He was the one who needed an arm around his shoulder.

There's been no honeymoon period for Nasim Ashraf, the new chairman of the Pakistan board. Hardly did he settle into his seat than a number of hard decisions had to be taken. In an interview to the Kolkata Telegraph, he speaks to Lokendra Pratap Sahi on his appointment, the controversy over the Pakistan captaincy, the drugs scandal and much more.

I know I’m in a high profile seat, but I want the powers and perks of the PCB chairman to be reduced. I’ve already delegated responsibility to colleagues and I want corporate governance. I’ve assigned a leading head-hunting firm to help get us the best possible chief executive.

Notwithstanding the somewhat surprising level of support that is being lent to the Pakistan Cricket Board, over its decision to ban Mohammad Asif for a year, it is a monumentally foolish act, one that reflects an alarming level of ineptitude, writes Kamal A Munir in the Dawn Magazine.

Mohammad Asif is not the exception. He is the rule in Pakistan. This is a country where every medicine is available without prescription. This is a country where it is routine to have medicines administered by your friends rather than a doctor. This is also a country ruled by a military dictator who has flouted every line of the country's constitution.

Seven first-timers make India’s tour party to South Africa relatively inexperienced. As the team flies out for a full tour to the African continent tomorrow after five years, The Sunday Express gets in touch with the old boys’ union for some last-minute advice.

Post Champions Trophy, Mark Richardson counters suggestions that Brendon McCullum be moved up the order to counter New Zealand's top-order woes, citing the team's strengths.
Read the full piece in Herald on Sunday.

The one area the Black Caps could say they are strong, and arguably the best in the world, would be their lower middle order. It is because of this depth the Black Caps rate themselves as a very good chasing side and it should be because of this depth that the top order has the confidence to play freely. If McCullum is taken out of the lower middle, he will leave a gap

It's Adam Gilchrist's fault. Talk to any wicketkeeper nowadays and it's a given you'll spend as much time discussing how they are faring with the bat as you will going over their prowess with the gloves, writes Lyall Johnson in The Age.

Victoria's Adam Crosthwaite, rated extremely highly for his work behind the stumps, is possibly the most notable example of a wicketkeeper who has fallen victim to what is becoming known as the "Gilchrist legacy". With his first-class batting average at No 7 last season an uninspiring 20.63, the then second-year keeper was controversially dropped from the Bushrangers side in the lead-up to the final of the Pura Cup because he simply was not making enough runs.

Everyone has been batting the wrong way around, writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald, and coaches have been barking up the wrong tree.

Chris Gayle spent the month belting the ball around Indian parks. Bats left-handed. Bowls, catches and opens beer bottles with his other mitt. Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Ever seen him send down a leg-break? Stephen Fleming? Writes his cheques with the easterly flipper. Jacob Oram? Thumps down his seamers with the right arm.

Consider the past. David Gower? Bowled his few overs in Test cricket with his cork-opening hand - and, for his pains, was called for throwing. Mark Taylor? Turns on his air-conditioner with the right paw. Sourav Ganguly? Kicks penalties with his right foot

Has Kevin Pietersen finally settled for the quiet life despite his love of the big stage and at his tender age? Various features in the press recently have expressed conflicting views on this. The latest journalist to speak to KP is Alex Brown of the Sydney Morning Herald and he doesn't seem to be convinced. Read his column here and make your own mind up.

Matthew Hayden writes in the Daily Telegraph about his bonding experiences at boot camp, and also he describes how his preparations these Ashes have differed from previous campaigns. To find out how and indeed why, read the article here.

Iain Payten writes in the Daily Telegraph about how Monty Panesar is going to deal with the local crowds during the Ashes.

"When I was here with the England Academy three or four years ago, and last year in Adelaide grade cricket, you could see the passion Australia has for cricket and it is nice to come to a country where there is passion for the game," Panesar said.

In The Australian Andrew Ramsey writes about Ricky Ponting’s thoughts on the third fast-bowling spot for the Ashes.

Ponting, while reiterating he was not a selector, said yesterday he had no issue with McGrath and Clark playing alongside fellow right-arm New South Welshman Lee in the series opener, even if that lent his attack a certain sameness. "You always want variety, but at the end of the day you have to pick your best bowlers, the bowlers you think are capable of taking 20 wickets in a Test match for you," Ponting said.

The role of Andrew Flintoff is a popular topic in the Sydney Morning Herald. Peter Roebuck writes Flintoff has two strategies to consider as England attempt to defend the Ashes.

They can be divided into two schools of thought, the cerebral and the warlike. Although a fighter on the field, Flintoff is a genial fellow and might not care to provoke the locals. Nor is he content to serve as a master puppeteer.

He yearns to be in the thick of the action, feels he belongs where the battle is at its hottest. In short, he wants to lead from the front. The solution is to blend these tactics without suffering a crisis of identity or losing momentum.

Alex Brown interviews Bill Brown, Australia’s oldest Test cricketer, who believes Flintoff is the right choice as captain.

Ben Dorries and Robert Craddock, writing in The Courier-Mail, report Malcolm Speed wanted to save Darrell Hair from the axe.

The Courier-Mail has learnt that ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed strongly lobbied for Hair to remain on the elite umpires panel in Friday's ICC board meeting in Mumbai but was howled down by the board members. Speed does not have a vote on the ten-member executive board which voted 7-3 to sack Hair after heavy pressure from the Asian bloc countries.

In a comment piece Craddock says “we’ve been whispering it for years but now it's official – the Asian nations run cricket”.

Whether it be chasing the rights to host a World Cup, getting officials in important positions or getting rid of an umpire, the Asian bloc gets what it wants. England and Australian officials may luxuriate in holding the oldest, most famous series of all but when it comes to power broking they are no longer the kings.

In The Age Trevor Marshallsea writes no international umpire will ever take a stand again after Hair’s treatment.

Scyld Berry in The Sunday Telegraph reflects on the ICC’s decision to ban Hair from standing in any international matches between now and the expiry of his contract in 2008, saying that he had “been hung out to dry”.

England will spend the next three weeks playing warm-up matches. These ought to be boring — international sportsmen limbering up against lesser mortals in front of small crowds, all part of the phoney war, will be swiftly forgotten when the real thing begins, writes Tim de Lisle in The Times. Somehow it seldom turns out that way. There are just too many possibilities for drama, intrigue and comedy. Here are the seven types of warm-up, as experienced by England teams over the years.

Derek Pringle in The Daily Telegraph says that for England's cricket teams, Australia can be the greatest tour or the worst.

Once you have arrived and been deloused at customs (contamination is a major fear and they scrub your cricket boots and shave the bottom off cricket bats that have picked up dirt), it isn't long before the banter starts. The only trouble is, it never stops. "How do you like our sunshine? How do you like our beer – better than your warm rubbish, isn't it? Where do you keep your savings – under the soap?" (The last is a jibe about our apparent reticence to wash.) And on it goes.

In the Guardian Paul Weaver takes a trip down memory lane to a time when England tour parties sailed through Suez to Bombay and stopped off in Ceylon for a warm-up. Also in The Guardian, Barney Ronay asks whether the new tough Monty is too tough?

	Parore: 'If Braces [Bracewell] wants to win the World Cup, he'll need to make changes' © Getty Images

"You can wave goodbye to our World Cup chances right now unless John Bracewell rediscovers his nerve in the next few weeks," writes Adam Parore in The New Zealand Herald.

If the present lot were suddenly going to turn into world-beaters, they would have done so a long time ago. So we need to accept that, if we continue to support the incumbents, we cannot win the World Cup.

Warren Lees, New Zealand's coach during the 1992 World Cup, is also calling for changes.

"I know he [Hamish Marshall] scored a lot of runs in England, but all that confirms to me is that English county cricket is crap. Most of our players could go to England and do well on the county circuit, as Craig Spearman has already shown. But there's an enormous gap between that and international level."

"Chris Gayle has been the cricketer of this tournament," says Peter Roebuck in The Sydney Morning Herald. "Normally as docile as a government backbencher, he has burst into life, driving and pulling his way to three incandescent centuries, bowling tidily in his understated way and becoming so heated on one occasion that he was called before the beaks and obliged to submit a portion of his match fee."

"Cricketer, mate, Samaritan and the most popular touring captain ever … but Australia can't show any mercy to Andrew Flintoff," writes Chloe Saltau in The Sydney Morning Herald.

Andrew Flintoff will stroll into Sydney early tomorrow, probably hooked up to an iPod playing Elvis, Elton and Sinatra tunes, giving no hint he is carrying more than the weight of his kit bag.

It is his combustible qualities that have propelled Dan Cullen to national selection at just 22, well before most offies are considered mature enough to have their patience and courage tried at international level, writes Trevor Marshallsea in The Sydney Morning Herald.

	Graeme Smith reflects on another semi-final defeat © AFP

The fact that the hotel was an hours drive out of town, in Indian traffic containing camels, dogs, pigs and elephants as well as the usual hoard of tuk-tuks, bicycles and oblivious pedestrians deserves genuine sympathy. A journey of 15 minutes in such conditions, with the constant braking, swerving and hooting, can be as physically and mentally draining as a journey ten times as long on a South African highway

	'Look at it this way. Ntini is charging down at one end, Pollock or Nel man the other end and there is a bit of life in the track. Who would you rather have coming out at 10 for 1?' © Getty Images

Wasim Jaffer's call-up to the Indian side for the one-day leg of the upcoming South African tour - he was a shoo-in for the Test squad - has surprised more than a few people, and then some. If India needed another opener, and a bit of a dasher, Gautam Gambhir was the man, and if a calmer presence was considered, it had to be VVS Laxman, feels Harsha Bhogle.

In his column for the Indian Express, Bhogle opines that character, rather than agility, is the need of the hour given that India’s batting is in the doldrums. Laxman's experience of South African conditions should have been a simple factor for inclusion, but unfortunately sheer batting class did not come at the top of the criteria list.

India’s options at No 3 now seem to be Kaif, Raina, Dhoni, Mongia or Pathan, given that team philosophy is to bat Dravid at No 4. But mere names do not options make and I don’t think India can look beyond Mongia or Kaif, especially since Dhoni is untested in those conditions and the team management is comfortable with his finishing skills later in the order. I get the feeling that India want to see flatter pitches in South Africa. And I get the feeling that South Africa know that!

	Of his last 18 dismissals, Marshall has been bowled or leg before wicket on nine occasions © Getty Images

New Zealand's World Cup plans appear in serious disarray after another abject performance from the top-order batsmen sent them toppling out of the Champions Trophy, writes Richard Boock in The New Zealand Herald.

Boock offers suggestions - recalling young Central Districts tyro Ross Taylor in place of the hapless Hamish Marshall, and promoting Brendon McCullum - while hoping that New Zealand have plenty of time to make adjustments to their World Cup squad.

Chief among them should be the immediate release of Marshall, who has been caught up in a scarcely-believable slump over the past 18 months, and ended his tournament campaign with the worst average of the entire squad. If Bracewell picks him for the next game, it would be no surprise to discover Amnesty International taking an interest, such has been the torture and needless cruelty caused by his continuing selection.

Courtney Walsh – not the former West Indies fast bowler, but a journalist for The Australian - writes about the WACA groundsman’s search for soil that he hopes will give the pitch back its speed.

A sod of soil south of Perth could provide the base that restores the WACA Ground's once-famed reputation as Australia's liveliest pitch. WACA curator Cameron Sutherland spent yesterday analysing soil samples on the Harvey River, about an hour's drive from Perth, in the hope of finding the dirt that will return the pitch to its glory days.

In The Age John Townsend writes Sutherland is preparing an extremely bouncy surface for the third Ashes Test.

Rather than starting work on the pitch only a week or so before the Test, Sutherland will begin preparations this month to build a compact base for the playing surface. The new method was trialled in Western Australia's one-day match against Tasmania last week, which Test opener Justin Langer said made for exhilarating cricket. "It is exciting for cricket - though not for opening batsmen when you see the keeper standing so far back," Langer said. "It was a classic WACA wicket."

Alex Brown writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about Greg Matthews’ heated confrontation in a grade game last weekend. Matthews, 46, had stepped in to replace Stuart MacGill, who had been suspended for abusing an umpire.

"There were about 20 people on the hill all day shouting out things about my sexuality and whether I dealt and took drugs, and I copped that pretty sweet,” Matthews said. “But when he [North Sydney’s Matthew Burton] walked over to me in a menacing fashion and took his glove off to intimidate me, that's when I took exception. I've seen 100 punks like him go down over the years. He didn't intimidate me. I just laughed at him."

After years of underperformance as a captain, wasted, unsatisfying years spent talking the talk and not doing the deed, Brian Lara has led his team selflessly and intelligently, writes Peter Roebuck in The Witness.

	Minki van der Westhuizen, Graeme Smith's girlfriend

We've all heard far too much about Footballers' WAGs (Wives and Girlfriends, for those not in the know), but the cricketers wives are an elusive bunch. Stick Cricket, that marvel of time-wasting during office hours, have been running a poll to ascertain the most popular WAG - and Minki van der Westhuizen has come out on top. More in The Corridor.

Stuart MacGill has set the stage for a heated showdown with the English, suggesting that NSW could attempt to bat for all three days of the tour game against Andrew Flintoff's squad and thereby force a "change [of] their preparations significantly", writes Alex Brown in The Sydney Morning Herald.

I'm not going to be playing this game for them," said MacGill. "It's not my role to help them practise. Our batsmen and our bowlers will be used as we choose to use them. If we win the toss and decide our guys need a bat, we'll bat for three days. It's a practice match.

Stephen Fleming and Michael Vaughan have much in common, writes Peter Roebuck in The Age. Apart from being lanky and looking like James Bond, both convey an inner peace balanced by a fierce competitive streak.

It has been illuminating to watch these tacticians hatch their plans. A keen understanding of their opponents lay behind their strategies. Both appreciated the need to turn Australian aggression back on itself, so that it became a self-destructive force. Both realised that the Aussies would not, could not, hold back. In strife, they'd double the stakes.