New Zealand cricket isn't often the height of fashion, but lately it's been sniffed at even more than usual, especially given John Bracewell's disconcerting habit of rotating his starting line-up. But now, suddenly, the Kiwis are on the up - a place in the CB Series is all but sealed, and even Australia were threatened by Jacob Oram's fireworks at Perth. Richard Boock in New Zealand Herald feels an apology is in order.

In common with other newspapers, we may have been guilty of suggesting that John Bracewell was not quite the next Albert Einstein, and that his selection policies appeared to have been designed by a bunch of Alzheimer's victims

Irfan Pathan, in an exclusive interview with K Shriniwas Rao, talks about his worries and on his recovery process adding that the rest has done him a world of good.

Cricket aside, coming back home and getting to spend time with my parents, my brother, sister and close friends was the best thing to happen. Staying at home, eating food with my family the way we usually do, driving through the lanes of Baroda, catching up with friends, I enjoyed all that.

Alex Brown writes in The Age Bennett King, the West Indies coach, has been “sounded out” about replacing John Buchanan.

The Centre of Excellence coach Tim Nielsen remains the favourite to assume Buchanan's position after the World Cup, but Cricket Australia's subcommittee nonetheless has decided to expand its search in the aftermath of Tom Moody's withdrawal.

Tickets for Friday’s Australia-England one-dayer in Sydney are being resold for $5 online, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.

In the Herald Sun Jon Pierik looks at the lack of interest in World Cup tickets.

Lyall Johnson profiles Kumar Sarna, an 18-year-old who was born in New Delhi and has made the Australia Under-19 squad, in The Age.

	Jacob Oram gets going against Australia © Getty Images

Oram has emerged as the man most likely to end Australia's dominance this summer after turning on an ominous batting display that almost snatched victory for the Black Caps

In The Age Alex Brown talks to Jimmy Adams, the former West Indies captain who lost 5-0 to Australia, about the scenario facing Andrew Flintoff and England.

"The main thing that kept us going was that we desperately wanted to make that final. That was the carrot. England are in a similar situation at the moment. I imagine that they'd love to qualify for the finals."

Simon Barnes identifies a familiar pattern as the pressure mounts on Duncan Fletcher. Writing in The Times, Barnes notes how, as in politics, even the most successful coaches are doomed to ultimate failure.

Less than 18 months ago, Fletcher could do no wrong. He was a national hero, the man who masterminded England’s Ashes-winning summer against Australia. Perhaps he should have gone then — stepped off the open-top bus and handed in the dinner-pail. But a coach almost never goes at the right time

In a remarkable broadside aimed at the England side in Australia, The Observer’s Vic Marks has made it quite clear where he stands. In a column which says it would be better for England to fail to qualify for the best-of-three finals in the CB Series, he writes:

It comes to something when, before the solitary one-day competition that really matters, we can seriously advocate the benefits of avoiding further fixtures to spare the England players further mental disintegration. Currently, so many of the team are shot to pieces. Their minds are dead. It is most evident among the batsmen. Bowlers can just about function mechanically, batsmen need a spark of life to react to the ball and the situation. No spark is visible.

And Marks goes on to slam the selection policies which have left Duncan Fletcher unsure of his side weeks ahead of the World Cup:

The desperate selections, the old men of county cricket, Paul Nixon and Mal Loye, are reminding us why they hadn't been chosen before. The call-up of Nixon, in particular, still grates. Choosing players primarily because they have a combative tongue, reflects the disarray in the camp.

Who knows who will keep wicket for England in the World Cup? Probably not David Graveney or Duncan Fletcher. Who knows who will bat or bowl? Who knows who will lead the side? Almost a year ago, Fletcher said that he had a good idea who 10 of his World Cup XI would be. He might be able to name four or five now.

Writing in The Guardian, David Hopps points the finger at the joyless hangers-oners in a "bloated" England squad, in particular the security personnel who, he believes, are cramping the style of the younger, more impressionable players - in particular those like Liam Plunkett, on the fringe of the team.

The talk is of a bloated and cowed group who have toured joylessly. Nothing illustrates England's suspicious and insular approach more than the four security guards employed by the England and Wales Cricket Board to protect the players on their travels around Australia. It is a disproportionate measure which suppresses England's players mentally as much as it seeks to protect them physically, proof only of English cricket's pompous self-regard

The Hindustan Times' Varun Gupta meets Yashpal Singh, the torchbearer for Services, one of the weakest teams in India's domestic circuit.

There is an infectious, almost naïve enthusiasm in Yashpal’s answers, one that is rare in the commercial world of today's cricket. Until now, he has kept going on a combination of adrenaline and hope, illuminating the dim world of the Plate Division.

Peter Roebuck writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about the power of Australia’s fringe players.

On the evidence of the past few weeks, Australia have plenty of strength in depth. As the senior side plundered runs in Perth, so numerous impressive candidates strutted their stuff on the eastern seaboard. Nor were the contenders happy with 50 runs or tidy spells. Everyone knows they must knock the door down and force their way in.

In the queue to replace Glenn McGrath in Australia’s Test attack, one name seems to have been forgotten. Nathan Bracken is a much-improved bowler and as he explains in an interview with The Age, he knows he has now made the grade in limited-overs cricket.

“When you field on the boundary - especially in a day-night game - there are always blokes in the crowd who try to be funny,” Bracken says. “In previous years they've yelled that I couldn't bowl or I was hopeless. This season they've been saying I should get a haircut. On a professional level, being abused about my hair is a big step up from being branded hopeless.”

Bracken is hoping for a Test recall and says his improvement in the last few years has been an exciting journey.

“Guys like Jeff Thomson and Ian Chappell used to criticise me,” he says. “I'd tell myself it didn't matter, but in the back of my mind I'd think, ‘It’s Ian Chappell and Jeff Thomson, two all-time great players, and their opinions count’. That's why it has been great to hear them change their tune since the ICC Champions Trophy. They've said I should be considered again for Test selection.”

Geoff Boycott doesn’t worry about upsetting people when he speaks, and that’s just as well as much of what he says is plain common sense. As England’s hierarchy puffs and splutters, the national side is fast becoming an international joke. Boycott, writing in The Daily Telegraph, thinks he knows why:

The reason is that there are no cricket people running our game any more. The decisions are taken by men in suits who might do a fantastic job on the business side, but they don't have a clue about cricket. Our domestic cricket is not strong enough or competitive enough. In Australia it's highly competitive. If you don't perform in domestic cricket you don't get picked to play for your country.

And he is again keen to offer his help:-

There is nobody on the panel who knows what winning against Australia is about. Where is Botham, Gower, Mike Gatting, Bob Willis or Geoffrey Boycott? We are not considered good enough to be on the review team. I played in eight Ashes series and only once finished on the losing side, in 1964 my first series. I played in four winning sides - two in Australia and two in England - and three drawn series. It's a better record than England have had against Australia in the last 18 years.

	Will we ever see the Balaji of the old? © Getty Images

Balaji's famous toothy smile is there, his thick mop of hair still needs to be regimented regularly but a stress fracture of the back means he has to be in casuals and sit behind the Men in Blue.

Watching the just healed pacers Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar sitting in the front row and remembering the missing faces of Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel and Ashish Nehra, it seemed Balaji's ring tone was more like the signature tune of the fitness-fragile India pace department.

An English journalist, Ian Wooldridge, suggests there may be calls for Pakistan to be chucked out of the World Cup. Writing in the Daily Mail, in London, he says:

Cricket's World Cup opens next month in the West Indies. I may just be alone in anticipating its start with a violent political explosion — a demand for the expulsion of Pakistan. If you recall, two of Pakistan's most volatile fast bowlers were found guilty of drug abuse in October. Shoaib Akhtar was banned for two years, Mohammad Asif for one. Both appealed. Their appeals were heard by Pakistan's Cricket Board without external influence.

Both were exonerated. Both were immediately chosen to play again. Don't tell me this is going to pass unnoticed.

Read more of his thoughts on other topics here.

Nathan Astle retired on Friday, citing a lack of motivation ahead of the World Cup. But Richard Boock, in the NZ Herald, reads between the lines and finds Astle's reasoning doesn't add up.

So, what about the idea that coach John Bracewell and the management team have approached Astle, offering to assist him through a dignified retirement rather than announcing that he's been axed? It's certainly worth considering, not only because Astle seems to have lost the hand-eye co-ordination that made him such a threat in previous years, but also because of the remarks he made about retirement last month.At the time, Astle was being interviewed in the lead-up to the first test against Sri Lanka and his comments then contrasted wildly with the slightly rehearsed reasoning he came out with yesterday.

England’s latest dismal display at Adelaide drew no sympathy from the Australian press. Robert Craddock writes in the Herald Sun that England might as well not bother turning up for their remaining CB Series games.

Send the England cricket team home and refund all tickets. Give them a fresh batch of OBEs for being Obscenely Bad Englishmen. Enough is enough. Andrew Flintoff is captaining one of the greatest British comedy outfits to visit our shores but people have stopped laughing.

Andrew Ramsey, in The Australian, agrees.

In the era of reality television, the time has surely come for England's cricketers to be voted off this island. Yesterday's submission was so meek and disrespectful that even the most jingoistic Australians were left insulted at England's unwillingness to have a go on the national day.

And Richard Earle, in Adelaide’s Advertiser, discusses local boy Shaun Tait’s best chance to push for a place at the World Cup.

Former Australia No. 4 Mark Waugh believes Tait should go to West Indies where the wickets will be bouncy and almost certain to offer considerable reverse swing. Sadly, you can bet Tait will get better competition from Victoria's batsmen at the Melbourne Cricket Ground this weekend than any duel against England.

A day after John Buchanan comments (realistic or arrogant, depending on where you stand), Ricky Ponting has told The Australian that Australia’s toughest test at the moment might be on the training ground.

"It is all about us stretching ourselves as far as our skills and tactics go … sometimes you can do that in games, otherwise you do it on the training track. If we are not getting what we need to as far as competition goes in terms of these games, we have got to find other ways of doing it."

After today’s farce at Adelaide, you can only think that a net against some local Under-16s might be more taxing.

	© Channel 4

Ad guru and theatre personality Alyque Padamsee told HT "the ads were disgusting … they certainly encourage racism. It is the ultimate in gadhagiri (idiocy). Just because I love my country’s cricket team does not mean I should hate every West Indian.

In the Daily Telegraph, Iain Payten reports that the Barmy Army are flying home in droves after England’s lacklustre start to the one-day series.

The head of the Barmy Army in Australia, Craig Gill, said last night that organisers had dumped dozens of tickets for the Commonwealth Bank Series with the edict: “Get whatever you can for them”. Easier said than done. Of the 19 spare tickets Gill has for next Friday's Australia-England clash at the Sydney Cricket Ground, only two have been taken.

Perhaps the next major one-day tournament – the World Cup – will prove more competitive. Dene Hills, the Australia assistant coach, has just returned from a fact-finding tour of the West Indies and, according to the Herald Sun, he reports that Australia’s four-man pace attack could be the way to go on the hard Caribbean pitches.

“There probably won't be a lot of spin,” Hills said. “The grounds were more lush than I expected and the pitches were hard. Some pitches haven't started to be rolled yet, so I guess if I had one concern that would be it. But they've got five weeks to go so I'm sure they will be starting to prepare them.”

In Mumbai today, a match took place in front of the TV cameras that, for the victor, was arguably vastly more significant than the one-day international in Cuttack.

It is only a Twenty20 match played by a bunch of unknowns, in front of a handful of spectators. But one of those spectators is Indian legend Kapil Dev, another is the ex-Indian batsman Sanjay Manjrekar, and they have the power to eventually grant one of the players involved a full professional contract with Leicestershire CCC.

And far from having had her fill of reality TV at the hands of Jade Goody, the Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty is being lined up as a presenter for the UK version

The walk-or-don’t-walk debate that began with Michael Hussey’s insistence on leaving the decision up to the umpires has continued with Paul Nixon throwing in his two cents’ worth in The Age. Nixon says even though he’s no walker himself, it won’t stop him sledging Hussey to the hilt.

"If I feel strongly that he's nicked it and not walked I will give him a bit of stick and rightly so. The Aussies would be exactly the same if it was the other way around. I am not a walker. You get the rough with the smooth. But if you don't walk you're going to cop a bit of stick and that is fair enough."

Hussey started the discussion a few days ago in the Daily Telegraph where he explained why he’ll never give up his wicket unless the umpire gives him out. But his brother David Hussey, the Victoria batsman, also weighed in and says his brother should be more honest and walk when he knows he has hit the ball.

The gradual decline of the popularity of cricket in the Caribbean is highlighted by an article on caribbeancricket.com which reports on how the game is now being ignored by local radio in the region, for years the main way people followed the domestic game.

For the first time in memory, there is no coverage in Jamaica of that country's first class or limited overs matches. In Trinidad, former West Indies paceman Colin Croft commented that he had to search the airwaves to find the cricket, eventually finding coverage only on one weak station with poor reception. The situation doesn't seem to be much different in Barbados, where commentator Andrew Mason noted that the first round match between Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago came very close to not being broadcast because of a lack of sponsorship.

Shane Warne cannot even escape the headlines now that he has retired. Trevor Marshallsea writes in The Sydney Morning Herald that Warne appears to have done some revising of his history with “John the Bookmaker”.

While Warne this month told British TV interviewer Michael Parkinson he did not know John was a bookmaker until months after he accepted $US5000 from him in 1994, eight years ago the Australian inquiry that heard Warne's version of events found otherwise.

In the same paper, Marshallsea discusses Matthew Hayden’s poor form and suggests his chance of a trip to the World Cup could be slipping away.

Since Hayden was dropped following the 2005 tour of England, Australia have been disappointed in their quest for a regular partner for Gilchrist. Simon Katich had his time, but though he scored runs he did so too slowly for the selectors' liking. Should Hayden suffer many more failures in the series selectors will be eager to see Shane Watson return as soon as possible.

Damien Martyn has broken his silence six weeks after his shock retirement from all forms of cricket. Steve Waddingham writes in The Sunday Mail that in an interview to air on an Australian current affairs TV show on Monday, Martyn explains why he quit the game.

Asked why he did not tell Ponting - who was best man at Martyn's wedding - of his decision in person, Martyn said: "To look him in the eye, I would have broken down. I would have been in tears." And Martyn remains concerned that his relationship with Ponting has been damaged by the affair. “That is always something I've got to live with," Martyn said. "[Ricky] is disappointed, and rightly so."

In the Sunday Telegraph Mike Atherton jumps on the Big Brother bandwagon and also draws on the recent Herschelle Gibbs controversies to say that cricket is the ultimate reality show.

Players have long known that their every move – every suspicious thrust of hand in pocket, every touch of nail on ball – is open to scrutiny. The more recent advent of stump microphones, intended to bring the sound and fury of the game to the viewer, means that a player's words, and therefore his thought processes and character, are open to scrutiny, too.

Meanwhile, this week England announced the seven-man panel who will try and work out what when wrong during the Ashes series, a few other things besides. The chairman is Ken Schofield, the former chief of the PGA Golf Tour, and in the Sunday Telegraph Scyld Berry tries to find out a bit more about him. However, he says that even this review committee is unlikely to be radical enough.

When Schofield said he brought passion alone to the party, he was not quite correct. Parallels and analogies are not always useful but this one might well be. Working out of a small office at the Oval, where he met men of Surrey like May and Stewart, Schofield built up the European Tour in the same way that English cricket has to grow if it is to match Australia's

The move to return England’s captaincy to Andrew Flintoff instead of Andrew Strauss has not been a popular one with the press. In The Independent, Angus Fraser – who is on the committee enlisted to review the failed Ashes campaign - writes that the decision to overlook Strauss must be questioned.

The move smacks of weak management. The selectors must realise by now that Flintoff is a far better cricketer when the shackles of captaincy are removed and he is allowed just to play. Yet it appears as though they obsessed with not upsetting the team's most influential player in case it has a negative effect on him.

Richard Hobson, in The Times, agrees.

When it came to the crunch yesterday, the selectors were not strong enough to rule out Flintoff as Vaughan’s stand-in and the player — more understandably — could not bring himself to reject what may have been his one and only opportunity to show that the 5-0 whitewash was no reflection of his captaincy.

In The Australian, Malcolm Conn makes his view clear.

Keeping up appearances is clearly more important to England than achieving results. That can be the only logical conclusion after England again reinstated Andrew Flintoff as captain in place of the injury plagued Michael Vaughan. Great bloke and inspirational cricketer Flintoff may be, but he is a dud captain.

Writing on the Supersport website, Cricinfo's Neil Manthorp gives the alternative angle on the Gibbs controversy, and wonders just how much provocation a player should have to put up with.

Let's just say, for example, that a player happens to be...at third man. During a test match. You can't just walk away. So you stand there, for most of the day, being told that your sexual orientation leans towards sheep, and members of your own family, and that you are racist. And more.

India needs Virender Sehwag fit and firing at the World Cup, says R Mohan, in the Deccan Chronicle, and believes Sehwag could do with some 'mind training'.

Virender Sehwag needs a ‘brain trainer’ more than ever. A few things may be wrong with his game, but then there were always a few things wrong about his basics. It’s his mind that has strayed from the game now, making batting seem like a trip to a house of horrors. He never knows what will turn up at which turn, although such gargoyles may be more in the mind.

Having presided over one of the most controversial days of cricket last year, Darrell Hair was subsequently sacked by the ICC from officiating in top-flight international matches. A triangular series between Kenya, Canada and Scotland, in Mombassa, though has no illusions to top quality and marks the scene of Hair's low-key return to the umpiring fold. It's not all fun and games for as The Guardian reports, he's lost his suitcase.

The umpire wore dark glasses and last night's clothes: black shoes, black trousers and a black shirt, loose at the wrists. Hands in his pockets, he walked alone around the field. Past the whitewashed mango tree situated a few metres inside the boundary rope; past the baobab tree so thick that the wall of the Mombasa Sports Ground was built around it.

	Adam Gilchrist flies in Perth © Getty Images

Viv Richards tells the Sydney Morning Herald’s Alex Brown how Adam Gilchrist’s 57-ball century woke him up in the middle of a December night.

"Someone said to me that he was going great guns. It was very special. Things like that I love to see. You could say that I had a bad year in terms of holding onto records.

"I loved that innings from Gilly … Doing what he did, scoring one of the fastest hundreds, at a time when you're at your lowest and not in the best of form, it goes to show you what he's about. He's a powerful player. It's not the ability, it's how mentally strong you are. He is a mentally strong guy to overcome what he did.”

Chloe Saltau writes in The Age about the regrets of Michael Bevan, who retired on Wednesday.

England thought their captaincy problems were solved with the return of Michael Vaughan for the CB Series but the hamstring tear he suffered against New Zealand on Tuesday has brought the issue to the fore again. Richard Hobson writes in The Times that should Andrew Strauss be appointed captain, Andrew Flintoff’s batting and bowling would improve.

In the absence of Kevin Pietersen, Flintoff is the only world-class player England have at one-day level and the ideal scenario would have him agreeing to continue without the responsibility of leadership and Strauss, who made a strong impression in the second half of the English season, taking over at the helm.

Simon Briggs suggests in The Daily Telegraph that Strauss might be the beneficiary of England’s Ashes disaster.

After leading the team throughout last summer's Test series against Pakistan, Strauss had to deal with the disappointment of being returned to the ranks for the Ashes Test series. In the long run, however, this may work to his advantage. Such was the ferocity of Australia's cricket during the Ashes that the job represented something of a poisoned chalice.

In The Independent, Angus Fraser argues that Strauss should be Vaughan’s long-term successor.

Strauss has a similar approach as Vaughan and would ensure that England's current planning and strategy would continue throughout the series. It would also allow England to get the best out of their most important player, something Flintoff was unable to do during the Ashes.

	One-day magic: Michael Hussey © Getty Images

Malcolm Conn, writing in The Australian, looks back at the moment when Michael Hussey started to fill the finishing role he has mastered since entering the one-day international scene.

He was due to be 12th man in a one-day match against Victoria at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in December 1999 when Damien Martyn injured his back and Simon Katich pulled out with what was eventually diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome.

"I came in as a late replacement down the order when we were in a lot of trouble and managed to get a hundred, so that's when it all started," Hussey said. "I was just trying to bat and it was one of those days when everything fell into place. I didn't try to do anything different."

Mid-day's Clayton Murzello catches up with Saeed Hattea , a fast bowler who played two seasons for Mumbai before shifting to England.

Hatteea’s cricketing saga is fascinating. He studied at St Mary’s here before completing his schooling in London. He played for the English schoolboys in the late 1960s. In 1969, he returned to India and discovered that Vijay Merchant, then chairman of national selectors, was looking for him.

Glenn McGrath has missed New South Wales’ team of all-time, which was picked by the librarian Colin Clowes to celebrate 150 years of first-class cricket in the state. Alex Brown takes a look at the side in the Sydney Morning Herald.

A top order of Arthur Morris, Bob Simpson and Don Bradman. A middle-order of Victor Trumper, Charlie Macartney, Steve Waugh and Billy Murdoch. A pace attack of Charles Turner, Ray Lindwall and Alan Davidson. And, in a move that may surprise the current panel of national selectors, a pair of leggies in Richie Benaud and Bill O'Reilly.

McGrath was joined in exile by Mark Taylor, Monty Noble, Warren Bardsley, Mark Waugh and Doug Walters.

Andrew Symonds says in The Australian the national one-day side is desperate to improve. "We're still looking for a perfect day in the field, and for bowlers to execute certain deliveries. We're always looking to do things better."

Cricket Australia is holding on to one of its World Cup sponsors despite being told to drop the company five months ago.

With Warney retiring, the Australian public are in need of a new super-hero. But wait... who's this, swooping out of the sky in a peculiarly effeminate red, white and blue costume? Step forward Captain Australia, aka Brendan Lichtendonk, a 25-year-old car salesman from Launceston in his spare time, who has hit out at what he calls the "fun police"- the Australian authorities who are stopping fans from doing mexican waves in grounds this summer:

I always look at it as being in Australia's biggest loungeroom. If you don't want to be hassled with a bit of noise and a few weird characters, and the chance of having a little bit of beer spilt over you, then watch the game at home in front of your own TV in your own loungeroom.

There you have it. And you don't want to mess with a super-hero do you?

Peter Roebuck writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about Ricky Ponting’s construction of a formidable 50-over team.

Ponting already may have found his most intimidating outfit, but he may need to be flexible. His spinners' inability to check an onslaught on a turning track offered some hope to opponents. Thank goodness, though, the unbeatable side has not yet taken to the field. Captains make choices. Ponting is playing to his strengths.

	Was it really Freddie out there? © Getty Images

Mike Brearley, in The Observer, picks out four images of the Ashes humiliation, starting with Andrew Flintoff's batting and captaincy. Brearley feels that the captaincy was a constraint, an oppression for an immensely gifted and likeable cricketer.

An Australia fast bowler bowled to him just short of a length and just outside off stump. Flintoff carved at the ball, it caught the outside edge and flew first bounce to the fielder placed for just this, perhaps 20 yards in from the third-man boundary. Flintoff stood stock still, looked back and suddenly jerked as if to run. My guess was that he hadn't noticed the fielder there, otherwise there would have been an easy single. He seemed in a dream. How could he not have noticed?

Read the full piece here.

Mark Waugh says Australia are certainties to make their fourth consecutive World Cup final. He picks his team in the Sun-Herald.

Two months before a ball has even been bowled, I'm saying the Aussies will make the final … and I don't know how anyone could argue the point. In the four years since Ricky Ponting guided Australia to victory in South Africa, they have grown stronger while the rest of the world has stagnated or been left behind.

Jon Pierik writes in the Sunday Mail about a “major review” for the Australian tri-series, which also involves New Zealand and England.

In The Age Nathan Bracken talks about his desire to return to the Test set-up.

Adrian Proszenko reports in the Sun-Herald about the need to put Troy Cooley, the Australia bowling coach, on a long-term deal.

	© Getty Images

What purpose does it fill in the international arena other than providing the ICC with another dedicated event it can call its own?

So much for the joy of the traditional game and the apparent re-establishment of the Ashes as the game's iconic series: that was eight days ago. Since Ponting and his team-mates held up the Waterford Crystal trophy - rather than the actual urn which, for the moment, is on display at the Melbourne Cricket Club's new museum at the MCG - there have been 10 Twenty20 matches around the country, including the international won by Australia over England at the SCG on Tuesday. Yesterday the 50-over format got under way and the domestic Twenty20 final is on today. Roll up. Roll up.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Philip Derriman looks at the way the game has grabbed a large - and fresh - audience:

The TV audience for Tuesday's match against England, which averaged 2.31 million and peaked at 2.81 million, was an all-time record for any kind of cricket match in Australia. Previously, the biggest audience was the one that tuned in to last year's Twenty20 match against South Africa. Its average audience was 2.18 million.

To judge from the fans at the SCG on Tuesday night, the audience was young as well as big. When at one point during the telecast Ian Healy wandered into a section of the grandstand with his microphone, he looked to be the only one over 21.

Healy had the following exchange with a pony-tailed girl of around 11 years old: Did you come to the Test match? No. Did your dad? Yes. Are you thinking you might come to the one-day matches now? Maybe. Or just stick with Twenty20? Twenty20!

Tom Moody is the favourite to take over from John Buchanan as Australia’s coach, according to press reports in Australia. Trevor Marshallsea writes in the Sydney Morning Herald that the Sri Lanka coach is the leader in a two-horse race with Tim Nielsen, the former South Australia wicketkeeper.

Nielsen, now head coach at CA's Centre of Excellence in Brisbane, is popular with most Australian players after serving under Buchanan. But after preliminary interviews, it is believed Moody has become the leading candidate owing to the fact he has greater top-level coaching experience.

Jon Pierik and Robert Craddock suggest in the Herald Sun that Moody might be able to have his pick of coaching jobs.

It is believed the former Australia allrounder wants to return home when his contract expires after the World Cup. But England could also seek his services if it decides to replace current coach Duncan Fletcher. CA is keen to secure its new man before the team leaves for the World Cup on February 27, ensuring a smooth transition once the tournament is over.

This entry’s a slightly left-field one for a Thursday, but hey ho. It concerns the Ashes poet-in-residence, David Fine, who you may recall received thousands of pounds of Arts Council funding to describe England’s disasters Down Under. The book section of The Guardian questions what the point was of having him on tour, particularly as the Times Literary Supplement was moved to describe his work as "more than mildly distressing".

	Ben Hilfenhaus delivers for Tasmania © Getty Images

Robert Craddock writes in the Courier-Mail about another potential retirement – this time it’s Ben Hilfenhaus from bricklaying. Hilfenhaus, a swing bowler from Tasmania, impressed during Tuesday’s Twenty20 game and is on the verge of a capturing a lucrative Cricket Australia contract.

As recently as last March, the unpretentious blue-collar boy from the township of Ulverstone on Tasmania's north-west coast supplemented his modest cricket earnings by working as a brickie's labourer ... Touted as a bolter for Australia's Cricket World Cup squad, he is set to snare a Cricket Australia contract that will guarantee him around $200,000 earnings next year.

The same paper reveals how Damien Martyn will tell the world why he quit.

Defeat in the Test series against India would have been catastrophic for the careers of a few senior South African players and the level of interest of the supporters in the country, writes Neil Manthorp in Supercricket. While Shaun Pollock received the accolades for his allround performance, his side's come-from-behind win was possible largely due to the mental strength of Jacques Kallis and Ashwell Prince.

Though it may sound dramatic in the warm afterglow of a magnificent, against-all-odds triumph, it is worth remembering that the line between triumph and disaster has probably never been finer in South Africa's cricketing history.

	Vaughan's return to international cricket wasn't entirely auspicious, with England losing to Australia by 77 runs in their Twenty20 match nobr>© Getty Images

Michael Vaughan returned to the England team with business proceeding as usual - this time a 77-run Twenty20 defeat against Australia. Graeme Fowler and Bob Willis in The Guardian debate whether it was too soon for the England captain to return.

Fowler says,

If I was Duncan Fletcher I would have told him to go back to Yorkshire, play a bit of first-class cricket, or said: "If you're coming to Australia, play some club cricket out here, get some runs, make a couple of centuries and you'll get back in in the summer. But under no circumstances are you going anywhere near this England squad."

Willis retorts,

While it is unlikely he will be truly fit for international cricket at this stage, things are so bad in the England camp at the moment that he had to get back and help the team out.

Sydney experienced its first taste of international Twenty20 and Iain Payten writes in the Daily Telegraph it went down like a “watermelon Bacardi breezer”. "While there were men in sequins in the crowd, the action was anything but a drag."

Trevor Marshallsea takes a look at the scene for the Sydney Morning Herald.

Any old-timers in the Members Stand who had returned after the fifth Test may have mused that it was Australia versus England, but not as we know it ... Gone were the white shirts of the 130-year-old form of the game. In came the brightly coloured uniforms of the three-hour version, with the players' nicknames on the back. Also gone were the subtleties, guile and tactics of the longer game. In came biff, bash, thump and wallop.

In the same paper Peter Roebuck says Twenty20 should not be taken seriously, but it is great fun.

Back at the Daily Telegraph Payten writes about the one-day dream team that will be picked in February.

Worrying news for fans of BBC's Test Match Special, according to Michael Henderson in The Guardian. Apparently the BBC are looking to 'drag it into the 21st century', which could be bad news for Blowers and co. Sad tidings indeed.

	South Africa needn't sweat once Pollock retires for Ntini has already taken over the role of the lead fast bowler © Getty Images

When Allan Donald retired and Shaun Pollock slowed down his his pace, a void was created in South Africa's fast bowling. But that has now been well and truly filled by Makhaya Ntini, writes S Ram Mahesh in Sportstar

There is something inherently dark, borderline masochistic, about quick bowlers. Courtney Walsh cloaked it with a raised, philosophical brow; Andy Roberts rarely spoke — his choice of expression was the sadistic smile; Ray Lindwall, a man of great charm by most accounts, had his ugly moments; others, Jeff Thomson and Sarfaraz Nawaz among them, unabashedly chose to let it all hang out.

Ntini's run-up, while splendidly athletic, is earthy and grounded, not airy and ethereal as Holding's was — but now he meters how wide he leaps in delivery stride. Wasim Jaffer's hopeless pull at Durban from outside the off-stump was a consequence of this angle: those watching might say the Indian opener should have left it on line, but Jaffer was suckered into it because of the illusion that the delivery was straighter than it actually was.

India is back from an exacting tour and they don’t even have sufficient time to rest as they hit the final stretch to the World Cup. Greg Chappell speaks to Mumbai Mirror on the preparations.

We may have to play players like Sachin or Sehwag in the middle order. We cannot throw in a new player in the team before the World Cup. Because team that does well in the World Cup will certainly have experienced players.

Even though inclement weather ruined the series decider at Hamilton, there was just enough time for the toss. It meant that umpire Billy Bowden has now managed 100 ODIs. Phil Hamilton in the Waikato Times doffs his hat.

Brett Lee has soared to No. 4 in India’s music charts with a song called You’re the One For Me. He wrote the lyrics in 30 minutes in between Champions Trophy games last year, writes Alex Brown in The Age.

The combined drawing power of Asha and Lee ensured the single surged to No. 4 inside the first week, and all but sealed plans for Lee to complete a studio album for release in India within the next year.

"We had talked about it for a while, but in the end it happened really quickly," said Lee, who plays guitar and sings in English and Hindi in the song. "We had a break in between games last year, so I wrote the lyrics in half an hour and we headed up to a studio in Mohali to record it.

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	Andrew Symonds gets in some hitting practice for the Twenty20 © Getty Images

In The Australian Malcolm Conn writes about the strange way two of the country’s emerging bowlers are trying to get a spot in the Test side.

Alex Brown writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about how England almost let Canada’s captain John Davidson into their inner sanctum. Davidson's profile is here.

New South Wales’ decision to use a rugby league player in their domestic Twenty20 game comes under severe scrutiny in the Daily Telegraph.

The retirements of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath didn’t last long. On Sunday they played a Twenty20 game, although it was a walk-in-the-park charity affair. AAP reports in the Sydney Morning Herald.

In the same paper Trevor Marshallsea’s Mad Monday column takes a light-hearted look for a better poem for the Ashes urn.

In The Australian Malcolm Conn explores Australia’s spin bowling stocks.

Maurice Chittenden reveals Andrew Flintoff, despite leading England to a 5-0 thumping, has netted over £1m this winter, through his company Freddie Flintoff Enterprises Ltd. Read more on his moolah at The Sunday Times.

	Is Harmison sad to be leaving Australia? Is he heck... © Getty Images

Michael Atherton dissects his revealing, and worrying, interview with Steve Harmison - which he conducted during the Sydney Test - in today’s Sunday Telegraph and concludes that something is rotten in the England team.

This England team is not bereft of talent, but there is a fug of complacency that needs to be stamped out. All the talk at the end of the series from the captain and players was that this is a young England team, the vast majority of whom will still be in place the next time the Ashes are up for grabs. If I was in an England team that had just been wiped out 5-0, I don't think I'd be taking my place for granted.

In the same paper he urges England’s bowlers to learn how to bat.

Meanwhile Andrew Strauss insists that he, and England, “will be better for the experience” in his tour diary. He adds that the defeat “will give us more than enough motivation to take our game to another level”.

Scyld Berry laments the ECB’s so-called “special review” and calls for a complete reform. But he also highlights Simon Jones, the injured and forgotten fast bowler who was so instrumental to England’s success in 2005

Since then England have been unable to re-create that constant pressure on opposing batsmen, thanks primarily to the injuries to Jones. He, indisputably, was the difference between England winning the first Test in Multan and losing it by 22 runs; and England have gone downhill since. They have continued to use the new ball effectively, but from overs 40 to 80, when the second new ball is due, England have failed to pressurise, except when Monty Panesar has found turn or bounce.

Jones was more than a master of reverse-swing, he was also the one intimidator in a pace attack of otherwise gentle souls. But there is no point lamenting Jones's absence because injuries are a given norm in the international schedule that the ECB commit England to playing, well in excess of the amount dictated by the International Cricket Council. The point is that nothing was done, or could have been done, to make good his absence.

	The next million-dollar man? © Getty Images

It was the last time Justin led it and he passed on the honour to Mike Hussey, the perfect man for the job. Justin is passionate and he spoke about the history of the song and how the likes of David Boon and Ian Healy had led it before him. It's an important tradition and helps make Australian cricket what it is. Gilly will still do the song after the one-dayers. It would be nice to hear Huss lead the celebrations next summer, but I am more than happy with my decision to call it quits.

But there’s more than just team status up for grabs with Australia’s mass player exodus. In the Sunday Herald Sun, Peter Badel looks at the financial windfalls that will be reaped by Australia’s rising stars.

Stuart Clark is poised to become cricket's next million-dollar man in a major Cricket Australia contractual shake-up. Up to seven CA contracts are up for grabs this year with the retirements of Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Justin Langer and Damien Martyn. Former internationals Jason Gillespie, Simon Katich and Michael Kasprowicz are also in danger of slipping from CA's 25-man contract list after being axed from the Test and one-day sides in the past year. Those seven contracts carry an estimated earnings total of $2.3 million.

	Bradman may have got out for a duck in his last Test but he continued to hunger for runs in the first-class matches he played thereafter in England © Getty Images

Australians are short on cultural history, which may partly explain the deification of the Invincibles led by Bradman on his final tour of England

Meanwhile, Robin Marlar, in the same paper, recounts watching The Invincibles as a schoolboy

I was fielding at long leg at Oakham school. In front, our bald-headed opening bowler wheeled away; behind, a gardener weeded vegetables. We listened to events almost as dire as the dark days of 1940. A couple of weeks later, with my appetite already whetted by two schoolboy appearances at Lord’s, I caught the bus outside the family farm at Mayfield in East Sussex, changed at Heathfield for the slow old Southdown to Hastings, and joined the horde heading to watch these giants play against the South of England.

Thousands sat on the grass. Bradman, bowled for a duck in his last Test innings by a rather obvious Eric Hollies googly, presumably misty-eyed, was suddenly hungry again. His pulling was astonishing, daring and decisive: another hundred! England had to wait five long years before Len Hutton reclaimed the Ashes.

	For England to win the Ashes in 2009 they must feel the hurt of the 5-0 defeat this season © Getty Images

The true relevance of England's memorable victory in 2005 will be gauged when the teams next meet on English soil in two and a half years, writes Andrew Ramsey in The Australian

As far as visitors go, England's Test cricketers have proved the perfect guests. Apart from a few moments in Brisbane and Adelaide, the side has proved no trouble at all to its host. And at many times it was so unobtrusive it was easy to forget it was in town at all.

Ricky Ponting and his team have made no secret of the fact it was the feeling of hollowness and hurt when the Ashes changed hands at The Oval in 2005 that drove this summer's relentless five-nil redemption.

Perhaps it was due to the vastly different scoreline - Australia held hopes of levelling the 2005 series until the final session, while England was a beaten team with two Tests remaining - but there did not appear to be the same steeliness in the England players' eyes yesterday

The plaudits continue to come Australia's way after their 5-0 whitewash with comparisons with the greatest teams of all time. The debate will never be settled as to which era - Australia of '48, West Indies of the '80s and a few others - was the best ever, but this Australian team is making a strong claim. Matthew Engel, editor of Wisden spoke to the Courier Mail and says they are a match for the great West Indian era.

"They are the two dynasties – there is no one else in history who has lasted as long as they have and beaten everybody they have been matched against," said Engel after witnessing Australia's 5-0 triumph yesterday.

In The Age Peter Roebuck gives his assessment of Australia's performance.

Ponting devoted himself to the task. His first step was to admit that England had deserved to win and that his side had been off its game. Australia worked hard in preparation. Ponting took his side to a boot camp, urged senior men to keep playing, developed plans with John Buchanan, his underestimated coach. No stone was left unturned.

This tour has been a shambles from first to last, writes Geoffrey Boycott, and says he wants to see is the coach, Duncan Fletcher, taking responsibility for his mistakes and announcing that he will retire after the World Cup.

The Guardian's David Hopps looks at contenders for the future coach - Moores, Moody, Warne or Chappell?

Simon Barnes, from the Times, wonders if England can reover from their darkest hour?

	Damien Martyn joins his fellow retirees at the SCG © Getty Images

He has been the forgotten man of Australia’s Ashes campaign and retirement celebrations, but Damien Martyn made a shock reappearance in the SCG dressing rooms after Australia wrapped up their 5-0 win. Alex Brown writes in The Age that Martyn surprised his team-mates by turning up an hour after stumps.

Wearing jeans and a T-shirt, the reclusive West Australian walked into the rooms to a roaring reception and was immediately embraced by Australia's opener Matthew Hayden. Martyn later sat in front of Hayden's locker, and had his first face-to-face conversation with Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain and best man at Martyn's wedding, since his shock retirement after the Adelaide Test. "It was emotional," said one team source. "As emotional as anything you saw out on the field yesterday."

Just as emotional would have been Justin Langer’s rendition of the Australian victory anthem, Beneath the Southern Cross. As Andrew Stevenson writes in The Age, the tradition has an interesting history.

Southern Cross passed, first from Rod Marsh to Allan Border and then to David Boon. But where did it come from? Talk to Ian Chappell, Marsh advised. Chappell, the former Australian captain, was happy to put his hand up for bringing it into the Australian dressing room. But, poet he is not.

Such dressing-room customs are hard for us outsiders to understand, explains John Harms, also in The Age. The inner sanctum of Australian cricket, Harms says, remains a mystery.

One of the only things we mortal outsiders can observe with any confidence is that the inner sanctum is very, very inner. So inner that, in recent times, I reckon the Australian team has become a cult. Not everyone is accepted. I once asked Rod Marsh whether some cricketers were the victims of circumstance: had things gone their way they'd have had long and successful Test careers. I mentioned Martin Love, Stuart Law and Jamie Cox. "There's no luck," he assured me. "If you're good enough, you'll play 80 Tests." Such self-congratulatory logic dismisses anyone outside those who have done it.

After Craig McMillan flopped as a would-be salesman he was left a solitary career choice – weigh down his cricketing curriculum vitae by sheer volume of runs, writes Chris Barclay of the New Zealand Press Association.

"I did a couple of courses and saw a couple of things I thought I'd apply for – I was going to be a salesmen," he said."I got a couple of interviews, it was nothing major but obviously when something hits you pretty hard like that you have to start thinking ahead. I was out of my comfort zone turning up in front of two or three people and being asked questions you can't answer because you haven't been in that workforce or that situation ...I decided at the age of 30 I wasn't washed up – as some people obviously thought I was."

To keep faith in Sehwag ahead of the World Cup was a team priority," writes R Mohan in the Deccan Chronicle

However unfair it may appear to a makeshift opener thrust into a specialist’s job. Team India have been on that path many times before. Only on this occasion, it was a strategy born of pragmatism. In Kaarthik, they had a man willing to put up his hand, even as Wasim Jaffer made himself completely at home on a pitch that suits his batting to a T. He may not be the dashing opener who can put his act together on a hostile terrain.

Graeme Smith speaks to the Telegraph's Lokendra Pratap Sahi just a few weeks before completing four years as South Africa’s captain:

My decision making as a 22-year-old probably wasn’t as good... As captain, I trust my gut feelings a lot more now... Today, there’s more conviction in my decision making... Then, for example, I wasn’t sure about giving Polly (Shaun Pollock) an extra over or two or getting (Jacques) Kallis into the attack... Things like that.

Richard Branson, a man who has never knowingly missed an opportunity to self-publicise, stepped up and announced that the Ashes should stay in Australia. Sadly, in relying on Ian Botham to brief him, he picked someone whose knowledge of the game’s history might be best described as sketchy. The end result was that Branson was there to be picked off, and as David Hopps reports in his Guardian blog, Gideon Haigh did just that in response to Branson’s own version of events:

“The Ashes were burned when Britain, ehm when England, lost the 1882 game and it was turned into a trophy which the Australians took back to Australia and I think, and I may be wrong, but I think the MCC may be rewriting history."

He might as well have added that the Russians put the first men on the moon and that Alexander Graham Bell was the father of the railways. It brought an impassioned rebuke from Gideon Haigh, a renowned cricket writer and historian who has written for the Guardian on Ashes series for the past five years. It was time for a historically accurate version to take precedence.

There have been some suggestions that England’s poor form this series is somehow related to having the WAGs on tour. In a column in The Daily Telegraph, Australia’s captain Ricky Ponting scoffs at such notions.

I remember we had to answer all the same questions when we got back from our Ashes defeat in 2005. To be honest, I just dismiss all that talk as a load of rubbish.

There are certain times, yes, you do have to devote yourself to the team and it's important to steer clear of all distractions. But at the same time, to be all the way over here and not see your wife or family for two or three months would be very difficult.

John Coomber in The New Zealand Herald notes that Australian cricket’s marketing men risk destroying Test cricket because of their ignorance of the basic product. He bemoans the “relentless clamour of advertising, silly competitions and mega-decibel announcements that have swamped the grand old game in recent years.” And he continues:

In places like Adelaide they still have the good sense to leave the cricket as the cricket, with a minimum of music and advertising noise. In this series the Gabba and Sydney Cricket Ground have been by far the worst offenders. Presumably it happens at the instigation of marketing types who rely on research that tells them this is what people want. Test cricket needs nothing of the sort. The people who pay their money to be at the SCG do so to enjoy a loved summer ritual.

	Fashionless and loveable © Getty Images

Phil Dye ponders the hype behind (and admiration of) Monty Panesar in his column at the Sydney Morning Herald.

Commentators at the Perth Test were giggling that he wanted the ball, even though it wasn't his turn to bowl; that even after been hit for 19 runs he was putting his hand up for more. He would bowl every over in the Sydney Test if they'd let him - and maybe he should.

Bugger the strategy, it's the passion we love and Panesar is showing a passion and unbridled joy in the game we haven't seen for a long time.

But what really makes him so popular? A far cry from those fashionable, clean-shaven sports superstars we see so much of these days, he seems the antithesis of fashion. He's clearly his own man. A devout Sikh, Panesar wears the patka (a mini-turban) with a dignity that makes the coiffured hairstyles of millionaire sportsmen such as Matt Giteau or David Beckham look silly. Maybe I'm getting old, but I just don't get this fixation millionaire sportsmen have with their hair. Give me Panesar and his patka any time.

Sunil Gavaskar, in his column, tries to investigate the reasons behind Irfan Pathan's spectacular decline as a Test bowler since his hat-trick at Karachi earlier this year. He also commends Dilip Vengsarkar's decision to send Irfan back to India to regain his form in domestic cricket. Read the full piece in The Hindustan Times.

Irfan, on his first tour to Australia in 2003-04, had his jaw hanging open when he spotted his hero Wasim Akram at breakfast in the hotel where the team and the TV crew were staying, and he wasted no time in approaching the great man through another teammate to talk about swing bowling and all the tricks needed to get batsmen out

Billy Bowden is well known for his umpiring idiosyncracies. But do you know who he would invite for dinner? And were you aware that he once played for Auckland A? Perhaps less surprising is that he thinks too much technology is a bad thing for the game, but for the answers to the above, and more, read an interview with him in The Daily Telegraph.

	Justin Langer was the team's enforcer, according to Steve Waugh © Getty Images

Justin Langer’s farewell has not received the attention that was afforded Shane Warne or Glenn McGrath, or even Damien Martyn. Perhaps the novelty has worn off after the Australia team’s fourth retirement in as many weeks. But the Australian media have praised Langer for his courage and tenacity. Alex Brown writes in The Age that of Langer’s 180 Test innings, there has been no greater example of his commitment to the team than against South Africa in April, when he was felled by a Makhaya Ntini bouncer.

In the days that followed Ntini's bouncer, which thundered into Langer's helmet and forced him to retire hurt after just one ball, the opener would shuffle into the breakfast room at the Sandton Sun hotel, head bowed. He would attempt a mouthful of cereal. Maybe some fruit. And then he would retreat to his room, not to be seen for the rest of the day. But none of this sat well with Langer. Despite the vomiting, the sleepless nights the pounding between his temples, Australia's opening batsman felt he was letting his teammates, his country down. So, with a minimum of fuss, he packed his kit bag and headed to the Wanderers.

Steve Waugh, in the Herald Sun, tells of Langer’s toughness off the field.

Justin Langer is the genuine article, all bar his artificial front fang which appropriately was knocked out by a rearing Kookaburra while taking on a hot-head quick. He is a shining light to all those who aspire to make the most of their potential. He has acted as the team's enforcer when required, once intercepting a delusional Rastafarian Antiguan who lunged aggressively at Warnie as we made our way through a narrow corridor of spectators on our way to the team bus. It was an impressive sight to see the troublemaker being frog-marched away by his earring, pleading for mercy.

In the Sydney Morning Herald Peter Roebuck writes of Langer’s greatest qualities.

Every part of Justin Langer’s character emerged at the press conference announcing his retirement. Passion was shown in the way he talked about the honour of wearing the baggy green cap - an aged example of which sat on the table nearby, looking not unlike one of those manuscripts that periodically emerged from explorations of ancient Carthage. Respect was displayed in the way he thanked everyone who had played any part in his career: captains, coaches, physiotherapists, partners and even board members. Humour was evident in his repeated confessions that he had been a little grumpy at home these past, oh, 18 months.

And in The Age, Greg Baum takes a wider view of what Australia’s mass exodus will mean for the team.

It is widely assumed that because Australia's system is proven, and stars are emerging in interstate cricket, Test replacements will come readymade. But not all who make runs and take wickets in domestic cricket automatically will succeed in Test cricket. None of Darren Lehmann, Michael Bevan and Matthew Elliott had the stellar Test careers forecast for them. Nor yet has Brad Hodge. And it has taken Andrew Symonds until 31 to make his mark. Among the bowlers, big things are expected of Shaun Tait, Mitchell Johnson and Dan Cullen, but so were they of Scott Muller, Matthew Nicholson and Nathan Hauritz.