Kevin Pietersen advises Stuart Broad during his first match as England captain © Getty Images

Kevin Pietersen will probably not agree, but both he and England cricket could benefit from losing his first game as England captain. Players possessed of great natural gifts need to be reminded occasionally that the world does not always march to their beat, and losing to New Zealand on Saturday should prove a powerful mnemonic.

One game is not enough to judge a man's leadership qualities, but there were revealing moments to his captaincy at Lord's. Like Michael Vaughan, whom he described beforehand as an "absolute legend", Pietersen cuts a commanding figure in the field. This is partly due to his height (he is 6ft 4in), but there was also a briskness and authority to his decisions and field settings you simply don't notice with Paul Collingwood.

However, the Guardian's Kevin Mitchell is impressed with Pietersen's captaincy.

Cynics might have imagined that England's stand-in captain, Kevin Pietersen, who struggles to convince people he really is a team man, would be a dodgy conciliator. As it happens, there were no incidents to test his mettle the way Paul Collingwood had his equilibrium disturbed at the Oval. The job seemed to fit him like a glove. He was less showy than normal, thoroughly engaged and marshalled his side with military correctness from mid-off. He made some thoughtful field changes and hurried his men to their places between overs (his careless push to gully for six after 23 balls wasn't so clever).

It's something of a shock to the system to be pulling the whites on this week and playing a game that lasts for four days rather than three hours, writes Matthew Hoggard, who describes his Twenty20 Cup experience in the Times.

There was one real disappointment for me during the Twenty20 Cup, when a proud record of mine was wiped from the books. Until Graham Napier went berserk with the bat for Essex against Sussex last week, I had the distinction of holding the record for the most expensive analysis in the competition ... Now that we're back in the County Championship, Durham have turned up at Headingley with Paul Collingwood in their side. It was nice to see him again, but I did have to inquire as to whether he should really be playing while he's been banned from appearing for England. And when he bats, I'm wondering whether to shoulder barge him to the ground when he goes for a quick single, then ask him whether we should run him out or not. I'm sure Colly will see the funny side.

What is the point of the ICC? The question will be answered this week when its annual conference takes place in Dubai, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

Despite the pressure from England and South Africa, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has yet to indicate that it favours action against Zimbabwe, and because a two-thirds majority is needed for any such action, it is inconceivable that anything could happen without its say-so. The BCCI said over the weekend that only a directive from the Indian Government would force the issue ... Zimbabwe will grab the headlines, but an equally important matter is how cricket moves forward after the Twenty20 revolution.

India has been mourning the death of Field Marshall Manekshaw, the hero of the 1971 Bangladesh war. Writing in Mid-Day, Yajurvindra Singh, the former Indian batsman, remembers the day when members of the national side met him.

Bhagwat Chandrasekhar was one member of our team the Field Marshal was very keen to meet. He wanted to shake his hand to recognize his big-hearted feats for India. His hawk-like eyes instantly focused on Chandra and a quick march had him at hand-shaking distance.

At the heart of our game lies the contest between bat and ball and when that is imperiled, the game is imperiled, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express with regard to the Kevin Pietersen switch-hitting controversy.

South Africa’s Neil McKenzie has ended his bizarre pre-game rituals and is ready to take on England, finds out Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times. Wilde questions McKenzie about his oddities, which range from taping bats to the ceiling to decreeing toilet seats be closed before he left the dressing room, and finds out that McKenzie is cured. There's also his views on South Africa's tour of England, which McKenzie feels "is going to be hard work".

In the Observer, Vic Marks says that for England's batsmen, the honeymoon is over. Because Dale Steyn and South Africa are in town. Marks traces Steyn's rise to stardom and finds a tearaway fast bowler just wanting to run in and bowl.

Steyn also chats to Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday.

	The Elliott-Sidebottom collision at The Oval © AFP

With millions on offer, winning at all costs has become de rigour. Richard Boock, in the Sunday Star Times illustrates that point with the controversial run-out of Grant Elliott at The Oval, an incident where New Zealand were entitled to be furious. And we should prepare ourselves to witness more such ugly scenes.

Collingwood might have apologised for his antics in London last week but the mere fact he didn't immediately appreciate the correct course of action speaks volumes. Clearly, in his book, the end justifies the means. There is no such thing as honour, much less dignity.

The more money being ladled into the game, the less principled the contestants appear to become. The old saying about some people knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing has never seemed so accurate.

After Graham Napier's record-battering 152 not out for Essex against Sussex in a Twenty20 match, it's easy to forget his struggles at the start of the season, when he struggled to find a place in the championship side and had to try out for the second XI. James Root of the Observer caught up with Napier, who by now should have already caught the eye of the IPL scouts.

'I'm going to make sure that I'm on top of my game because it certainly was a low for me and I thought, "Right, what am I going to do? I need a plan here to get back in the side or to have something to fall back on if cricket doesn't go too well this summer." I had a few ideas, photography is one area that I would like to get into - I even sat down with some of the photographers at the ground to gain a bit of experience.

In the Sunday Times, David Walsh catches up with Darren Gough before his last county season. Gough talks about the dizzying heights of Strictly Come Dancing, the current England team, Twenty20 and his captaincy stint with Yorkshire, gushing with the pride of being a 'people's person.'

Difficulties in their personal lives, off-the-field problems and they have always said that at Yorkshire, there was nobody to talk to and they kept things bottled up. The last person they had here wouldn’t have listened. I listen, I let people go back to their country for a break, I let people stay at home with their family when they’ve been having problems and I let them know I’m there for them, through thick and thin. And I know they’re desperate to do well for me and that’s the only difference I’ve made. But the lads here knew what I was like, they wanted me to come, many of them rang, Anthony McGrath said, ‘If you come back, I stay; if you don’t, I’m leaving’.

	Graeme Smith today is a mighty impressive man © Getty Images

On the occasion of his debut he had already irked the Australians by revealing the truth behind their tactics of so-called 'mental disintegration' - all manner of abuse, he said. But now Smith chose to indulge in some of it himself. By the time England visited South Africa in 2004/05 his puerility was becoming tiresome ... Not exactly Mr Popular then. But, talking to Smith at Taunton last Friday, none of this washed. To meet him for the first time was to meet a mightily impressive man. "I was quite impulsive before because a lot of people were challenging me, questioning whether I was good enough to do the job. Opposition teams were feeling I was a weakness and taking me on. You keep feeling you have to prove yourself or show you're strong. And you can get too strong and say the wrong thing. I'm much quieter in many ways now. I'm really enjoying the captaincy and enjoying being who I am."

For 20 years, the MRF Pace Academy has been shaping uncut stones into fast bowling gems. But the future looks uncertain after the BCCI cut off all links with the home of fast bowling in India. The Indian Express' Sandeep Dwivedi travels to Chennai to find out how they’re dealing with the snub.

With or without the stars, it’s business as usual at the MRF Pace Foundation. There is certainly a feeling of hurt about the BCCI snub, but S Senthilnathan, who took over from Sekar, puts fears about the institution losing its relevance to rest. “This institution came into existence 20 years back with the intention of producing fast bowlers. And it will continue to do so. If we can train players who will make it to the Indian team, that’s all we want. That’s our only aim,” he says. It’s quite clear that his posture isn’t aggressive as he repeatedly refers to the BCCI as the parent body. “In case they want us to help them in the future, we will welcome the move with open arms,” says Senthil, with a grin this time.

In his Sunday Times column, David Gower has a clear message for the ICC and the Indian board.

[The ICC] is an organisation with a reputation for dodging the big issues, of preferring to rule by consensus and has done its best over the years to avoid confrontation.

India has been a supporter of Zimbabwe for years and has in return been assured at all times of Zimbabwe’s vote whenever needed. But surely this is no time to allow a blinkered view of world affairs to affect their judgment. It is one thing to claim politics and sport should not mix but the BCCI are past masters in the politics of sport and are world leaders when it comes to the business of sport. Their coffers are fuller than all others and if they wish to be a major power, they should assume the greater, wider responsibilities that come with that power.

It would be a scandal if that part of the world were to put its own interests first. India has the perfect opportunity to show it does care about more than just the money.

Commenting on the move to revoke Zimbabwe's Full Member status, Anand Vasu in the Hindustan Times asks why should the BCCI take a stand when other boards have followed government directives? He highlights two problems in case the Indian board and the ICC indeed do the right thing and strip Zimbabwe of its status.

Firstly, if the ICC was to go after Zimbabwe cricket for its political problems, then what will happen of their plans to take cricket to China and USA, one country with a woeful human rights record at home and another which holds hundreds indefinitely without any rights whatsoever at an off-shore detention centre?

Secondly, Morgan’s taking the moral high ground is a touch disingenuous, for the ECB has made its move only after receiving a letter from their Culture, Media and Sport secretary, thereby safeguarding them from the $2 million fine that the ICC could have levied had they unilaterally snapped ties with Zimbabwe.

Alex Brown of the Sydney Morning Herald catches up with the Hussey brothers, Michael and David, and reveals that they were competitive even as children.

The Husseys make no attempt to sugar-coat the situation. As children, adolescents and even young adults, the brothers didn't care much for each other. Acerbity and antagonism marked their relationship. The Bradys, they weren't.

"I just felt as a kid everything was competitive - in the backyard, playing cards , playing dice, whatever," Michael said. "I'd generally lose my temper, because he'd try to bend the rules a bit, and I'd try to drive him into the dirt. We weren't friends, definitely not. I just saw him as the enemy and had to win. And he was much the same coming from the other way."

Michael does not use the term "enemy" flippantly. The older and more naturally gifted of the brothers, Michael viewed David not so much a brother, but an opportunity to flex his athletic superiority. And for David, Michael represented a figure to be defeated by any means necessary, underhanded or otherwise.

Brown also meets Andrew Symonds, who talks about how he tries to deal with being a celebrity, as well as his cricketing prowess. Click here to read the article.

Geoffrey Boycott, in his column in the Telegraph, joins the chorus of those criticising Paul Collingwood for going ahead with the controversial run-out appeal against New Zealand’s Grant Elliott, and recalls an incident during his debut Test.

It was so obvious that Paul Collingwood should have called Grant Elliott back after the New Zealander had collided with Ryan Sidebottom after setting off for a quick single.He should have done it instantly. That's part of the spirit of cricket. It's all there, in the preamble to the Laws, written by the great Colin Cowdrey. And if Collingwood hasn't read it, as an England captain, that's a major oversight.

I remember a similar incident in my first Test, against Australia at Trent Bridge in 1964. Neil Hawke ran into Freddie Titmus and knocked him over. But when Hawke threw the ball to Wally Grout, the wicketkeeper, Grout threw it right back to him without breaking the stumps. That's an Australian team we're talking about, a team who do not give an inch to anyone.

Writing in The Times, Richard Hobson believes that Collingwood has suffered a stain to his reputation that will take some expunging.

By apologising immediately after the game he scores points for admitting a mistake. We should take him at his word and accept that it was meant sincerely rather than a public relations exercise. Yet the fact that, under pressure, he took such a flawed decision in the first place raises major questions about his ability to lead the side.

However, writing from the opposite side of the world, and the opposite point of view, David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald believes that Collingwood has been unfairly singled out in an era when the spirit of cricket has long since lost its meaning.

Had the positions been reversed, would Daniel Vettori have reached a different decision? New Zealand would be wise to keep their own counsel on any issues of spirit. They have a few skeletons rattling about in the cupboard down the years.

Certainly Vettori's predecessor, Stephen Fleming, was no shrinking violet when it came to playing hardball. Like it or not, this is the age where you make use of any advantage you can crib.

Elsewhere, the Guardian's Lawrence Booth seeks out the opinions of former cricketers on the controversial run out.

Alex Brown takes a drive around Grenada, which is hosting the second Australia-West Indies ODI on Friday, and writes in the Sydney Morning Herald of an island of struggle – “a land witness to many a hostile invader”.

At Carib's Leap, a sheer cliff face on the north coast, a memorial has been erected to the band of 40 Carib Indians who, having been cornered by French colonisers in 1651, jumped to their deaths rather than surrendered. Further south, Grenadians of an older vintage sit around the foreshore of Carneage Harbour and regale tourists with tales of the US invasion of 1983.

Still, there is a more obvious example of Grenada's struggles with an invasionary force, albeit a meteorlogical one. A stroll around the bustling capital of St George's reveals a city still recovering from Hurricane Ivan, which pulverised the island on September 7, 2004. Even now, almost four years on, buildings lie in rubble, churches remain gutted and rooves are in disrepair. The winds may have eased, but the battle remains ongoing for the locals.

	Shoaib Malik should be handed the captaincy on a series-by-series basis, insists Imran Khan © AFP

While impressed with the 'young and fearless' Indian side under Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Imran Khan, the former Pakistan captain, is not too pleased with the state of affairs across the border. He writes in the Hindustan Times:

The same optimism cannot be shown as far as Pakistan is concerned. Right from the moment Inzamam-ul Haq forfeited the Test match in England, Pakistan cricket has gone from one crises to another — World Cup exit, drug scandals, Shoaib Akhtar’s ban and now Mohammad Asif’s detention.

...

At a time when talent is hard to find in Pakistan, Asif’s case has been a serious blow to the team. I am also not in favour of Shoaib Malik being given a two-year tenure as captain. Even when I was established as captain, I was always made captain only for the series ahead. Such long-term planning is another example of how high-handed and arbitrarily cricket is run in Pakistan.

The ECB has suspended all bilateral agreements with the Zimbabwe board and cancelled England's tour to Zimbabwe next summer and the Guardian's Andy Bull welcomes the decision for sport and politics are inseparable, so the government's stance on Zimbabwe is the least one should expect.

It is a damning indictment of the previous regime's handling of the issue that the letter from Andy Burnham to the ECB stating that England should not be playing cricket against Zimbabwe should seem to be so refreshingly direct an approach. That clarity of thought and action is the very least we should expect from a government which has been so keen to use sporting success for its own political advancement. Having been repeatedly shafted by the government's wavering over the years, it's childishly satisfying that one England player urinated in the garden of No10 Downing Street, while another called Blair a wally during their drunken post-Ashes party.

In the Times Mike Atherton criticises the ECB for taking the decision to suspend ties with Zimbabwe only after being assured there would be no financial penalties.

After receiving Burnham’s letter, the ECB released a statement stating its concern over the “lack of human rights in Zimbabwe”. Only now, after years of human rights abuses, has the ECB found the courage to speak. It appears that it is fine to be moral, as long as it does not cost you money.

Atherton has another piece in the same paper, this one about his embarrassment at a photo of him taken with Robert Mugabe:

Why should I be embarrassed about a 12-year-old photograph? Partly, I think, because of my slightly deferential body language. For someone who has never been impressed by status, power or money, it’s puzzling to see that I’m not quite bowing, but nearly.

Also read Sambit Bal's piece in cricinfo.com urging the ICC to end years of indifference by suspending Zimbabwe's Full-Member status.

	Paul Collingwood took the easy option © Getty Images

England pride themselves on being a tough side, but there is a huge difference between making themselves hard to beat and messing with the spirit of the game. Collingwood sought victory at any price, little realising that its value would be diminished.

According to Mike Atherton, writing in the same paper, England lost the match, but, more important, a good deal of self-respect in that moment.

Imagine, though, if England had won. It is difficult to imagine how Collingwood could have apologised with a straight face; difficult, too, to envisage how the New Zealanders might have felt able to accept it. When Graeme Swann’s errant throw missed the stumps and evaded four England fielders, the cricketing gods rendered a judgment of their own.

Simon Hughes writes in the Telegraph that when a man as decent as Paul Collingwood gets drawn into temporarily seeking a win at all costs, it is just further confirmation that cricket has sacrificed any right to the moral high ground.

Meanwhile Mark Richardson, the former New Zealand opener, said the collision was "harmless". He said to stuff.co.nz:

Richardson said New Zealand should be careful about "throwing stones" and being hypocritical. He said the incident was similar to when Sri Lanka's Muralitharan was run out during last year's tour to New Zealand. Muralitharan had walked down the pitch to celebrate his partner Sangakkara's century, while the ball was being returned to the wicketkeeper, and he was dismissed. "We were happy to take that decision," he said.

Paul Holden, the Sideline Slogger, feels there are differences in the two incidents.

I agree that it was a very aggressive move for New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming not to recall Murali, and was arguably a contravention of the spirit of cricket. However, let’s also remember that it was also pretty dumb. In this morning’s case, unlike Murali, Elliott was not at fault. He was not being stupid or naive, he was injured and had been flattened, and unlike the Sri Lankan he could not and unlike the Sri Lankan he could not be accused of failing to value his wicket sufficiently.

The New Zealand Herald has a collection of English press reactions from the incident.

Allan Border’s baggy green is being auctioned in Melbourne and it’s expected to fetch around AUS$20000. Phillip Derriman has the full story in the Sydney Morning Herald:

This would be a bit higher than the recent going rate for baggy greens, but, given that it is reportedly the first of Border's baggy greens to go on sale, the price may well be realised. When and how this status was achieved is the subject of an interesting new book, The Baggy Green, co-written by Michael Fahey and Mike Coward.

A table in the book listing baggy green sale prices year by year suggests that collectors have lately been attaching almost as much value to the baggy green as the players who wear it. Average prices have shot up in the past few years, although no recent sale has come close to matching the $425,000 paid five years ago for Don Bradman's 1948 baggy green.

Cricket South Africa should be applauded for suspending its bilateral agreement with Zimbabwe Cricket, a move that should finally force cricket's administrators to abandon their association with the country, writes Angus Fraser in the Independent.

It is about time a group of administrators took action in response to what has and continues to take place in Zimbabwe; it is only a shame that it was left to CSA, Zimbabwe's closest allies, to make the decision and not the British Government, ICC or ECB. Zimbabwe has been a maggot-infested open wound sitting on the face of cricket for quite some time, causing huge embarrassment to anyone who places the moral integrity of the game ahead of money, the commodity cricket cannot get enough of these days. One of the only non-Zimbabweans to have taken a moral stand in recent times is Nasser Hussain, the former England captain. Hussain refused to take his side to Zimbabwe at the 2003 World Cup, a brave and admirable move that ultimately ended England's chances of winning the tournament.

Next week the ICC executive will sit down and discuss the future of Zimbabwe. As their choices narrow, Cricinfo's Martin Williamson looks at the three options on the table.

	But what Saturday's match showed vividly was that the longer form of one-day cricket, although by nature restricted compared with Test cricket, still gives allowance for the true fluctuations of a real match © Getty Images

Two contrasting limited-overs matches this week have caused me to rethink and wonder whether, in terms of the entertainment being offered (forget the dosh for a moment, if you can), Twenty20, cricket's zeitgeist, is being hyped beyond its unquestionable worth, and that by contrast 50-overs-per-side ODI cricket is being written off prematurely as a relatively unattractive option," writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

Then came Saturday's riveting international at Bristol. For a while, as the Black Caps scrabbled to get a grip on things, it looked like being a replica of the midweek domestic non-event. But they rallied, played with purpose, got a workable total, and in turn made England struggle, running out worthy winners. Some commentators, more attuned to biff, bang and wallop apparently, declared this a grinding bore. To me, it was a match of ebb and flow, in helpful bowling conditions for a change, and thoroughly absorbing, I would have thought, for anyone interested in cricket beyond a very superficial level. Certainly it didn't look as if the ground had emptied as Paul Collingwood dug deep to try and haul his side over the line.

Fuller Pilch, a Victorian cricketing hero who bamboozled opponents with a pioneering style of batting that became known as the “Pilch poke”, is proving as troublesome in death as he was in life, writes Jack Malvern in the Times.

Building work in the churchyard of St Gregory’s, in Canterbury, cannot proceed until his remains, along with the remains of about 200 others, have been disinterred and reburied away from the site of the proposed music centre. The trouble is, the planners have no idea where he actually is.

	Glenn McGrath with his children at his wife's memorial service © Getty Images

To see the photos of what happened outside the service go here.

It was 25 years ago that India won the World Cup at Lord's and the team of '83 has planned a get-together at the Long Room to celebrate the triumph. In the Hindustan Times Sunil Gavaskar recounts how the idea of a Long Room party came to him:

Last year at the ICC chief executives committee meeting, I was leaving the venue that is next to the Long Room and found a table-plan for that evening's charity dinner. Going through the list, I found there were some famous names who were to attend the dinner and as I checked the dates, it was, thankfully, in June, when India won the World Cup 24 years earlier. It struck me that it would be fantastic to celebrate the silver jubilee of that fantastic win with a dinner at the Long Room.

Kapil Dev relives some of his memories of that day in an interview with the Kolkata-based Telegraph.

I’d been somewhat upset on seeing a significant amount of grass on the Lord’s wicket... Out of disgust, I even told some of my teammates that the conditions just weren’t fair... The state of the wicket also put paid to all the planning we’d done the previous day. .. Soon enough, though, I realised that we had to make the best of the conditions... We didn’t have a choice... Then, with the ball swinging like nobody’s business, we felt we’d definitely be in with more than a shout that afternoon. We had a ball, as it turned out.

R Mohan writes of the rivalry that existed between Kapil and Gavaskar in the Asian Age.

More stuff in the Hindu. V. V. Subrahmanyam writes on the relationship between the two stars.

“Come on, Sunil, it’s time you score runs”. That’s exactly the then captain and India’s greatest all-rounder ever Kapil Dev did in the 1983 World Cup edition to Gavaskar. Then the retort: “Come on, maan, if you feel I am not good enough to play, drop me as you have done in the league matches.” A visibly startled Kapil was taken aback by the reaction but fortunately England captain Bob Willis slipped into the dressing room to invite Kapil to come out for toss to save further embarrassing moments for these two cricketing greats.

In 1983, Indians were not pleased with me at all, writes David Frith in DNA. I had written in Wisden Cricket Monthly that unless India knuckled down to the one-day game it might be better if they withdrew from future World Cups.

So I sat in the press-box at Lord’s, with a glass of red wine at hand, and devoured the offending words, risking poisoning by newsprint but glad nonetheless to cleanse my soul. I was actually genuinely delighted for India, and began to realise that probably my words had been penned in the hope that they would now take their task seriously. Why else would I have attempted to do a discreet banghra of my own in the hotel foyer? The pleasant tailpiece to all this came with a letter from my correspondent: he referred to me now as “a gentleman and a sportsman”. He had not even expected his first letter to be published. He even apologised for the intemperate tone of some of his words, and invited me to join him for a drink if ever I was in New York. I still hope that day may come. A decent drink is hopelessly spoiled when mixed with printed paper.

Also read Cricinfo's full coverage of the World Cup win.

I think he felt talent alone would be enough to get him to the top and it is only now he is realising that areas such as discipline, fitness and mental strength will play a pivotal role in moving him from promising youngster to top-class performer.

That is the assessment by Nick Knight of his former Warwickshire team-mate, Moeen Ali, the 21-year-old batsman who now plays for Worcestershire. Knight explores Ali's potential and future in The Guardian, where he says he still has the ability to play for England - and could become a "very successful and wealthy player".

From games of Twisti-Twosti to scraps of tarpaulin, Lawrence Booth lists six moments of invention that really changed the sport.

1) The googly

2) Bodyline

See the full list in the Guardian.

Writing in the Courier Mail, Robert Craddock shares his memories on the relationship between Glenn McGrath and his wife, Jane, who succumbed to cancer yesterday.

Once on a South African tour, Glenn made her heart melt when he told her how lonely he was and how much he was missing her. "And I've gone into the kitchen and put the kettle on and put the news on, and the sport was on," Jane said. "And there he is coming down this water chute in his swimmers with his arms in the air going 'wooohooohooo' and I could have absolutely killed him. "I rang him straight back and said: 'I'd hate to see you when you're happy if that's depressed'. He hasn't done that again."

... "I've decided to take up the piano and learn one song . . . for Jane," said McGrath, who later bought his own piano.The song was Richard Marx's heart-tugging melody Right Here Waiting For You.A cold, ruthless fast-bowling enforcer on the field, McGrath had a soft, romantic touch beyond the boundary when it came to his wife and family.

Also, have a look at a 2004 Enough Rope interview where Jane and Glenn McGrath spoke of how they met and dealt with the devastating news of her being diagnosed with cancer.

You met in 1995. When you first met, did the sparks fly?

Glenn McGrath: Yes. Sort of think back to a few years ago now. A nice little nightclub in Hong Kong called Joe Bananas. We've often thought about heading back there sometime, it was an interesting place to meet, to say the least. But, some good memories.

... Jane McGrath: ... We were walking through Cronulla, and people were shouting, "Hey, Glenn," and "Oooh, ah," and I thought, "God, he's a popular chap. He's got lots of mates." And that was the bit... I just thought he was a popular bloke, had a lot of friends, and then we went to a friend of his that were having a barbecue, and the girl said, "So, what's it like going out with Glenn McGrath?" And I said, "What's it like going out with your boyfriend?" And she goes, "Yeah, but Jane, Glenn's a superstar!" And I was just dumbstruck. I said, "What do you mean, a 'superstar'? I said, "Like Ryan Giggs?" He's a soccer player in the UK. And she's, "Jane, Glenn's as famous as Robert De Niro." Which he's never let me forget!

In the New Zealand Herald Dylan Cleaver lets rip against the recent New Zealand debacles.

New Zealand are now in the process of writing a grim tale: How to turn a sport from boom to bust in five easy steps.

1. Make the players look like money-hungry frauds

Whichever way you slice it up, the Indian Premier League ended up being an almost unprecedented PR disaster for New Zealand Cricket.

2. Have a coach who doesn't know when to talk or when to shut up

Ezra Stuart of the Nation thinks the Barbados women's team being allowed to play in an Under-15 schools competition is a bad idea.

While the women may benefit from match play prior to the regional tournament in Jamaica, it could be detrimental to the boys in the long run.

Just imagine, hard-back women playing against little first and second form boys. Will the lads handle the taunts from their peers after being struck for a number of fours and sixes or being dismissed for a "duck" by a woman?

This could have adverse effects on these boys and such an unnecessary development is one which school principals and parents should address, especially since Rule 20 of the competition states: "Only schoolboys under the age of 15 years on September 1 in the current year are eligible to play"

Harsha Bhogle, in his column in the Indian Express, writes about his memories of India's historic triumph in the 1983 World Cup.

And, as I read through an amateur analysis I had made for the Deccan Chronicle on the 4th of June, 1983, I discover that Kim Hughes had labelled India the dark horses. The fan in me had tried to make out a case for India to qualify for the semi-final and, the day after the article had appeared, an elderly man laughed at my youthful optimism. “Semi-final, ha!” he said as if I had suggested that the left might go along with the nuclear deal.

Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN catches up with the legends of that victory.

Sandeep Patil: When we started the tour and room partners were assigned, I was lucky but my room partner was so unlucky to have me as a room partner. Fortunately or unfortunately it was Sunil Gavaskar, who shared the room with me. That was the reason why Gavaskar did not score runs. I kept him awake, I kept him out and I don't know how and where he used to spend time. I clearly remember me bombarding him with questions. In fact, I asked him if would be able to even see the balls of West Indians. He asked me what do you mean by 'the balls of the West Indians?' I told him the cricket balls that will be bowled by Marshall. I had not faced West Indians then and Sunil told me that you have faced Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thompson; you will be able to see the balls. I saw the ball and I hit a six.

Since stepping down from captaincy nine months ago, Rahul Dravid has lost his place in the one-day side, led the Bangalore Royal Challengers to second-last place in the IPL, had mud slung at him by franchise owner Vijay Mallya and reached the landmark of 10,000 Test runs. He talks to Hindustan Times' Anand Vasu about captaincy, IPL, being a father and possible retirement.

"I have played unbroken, missing only one game in my Test career. You have to be fit and scoring consistently, or you'll get dropped at some stage - the fact that I have been able to do that is important, not so much the number itself. But it is nice to be in the company of some players you really respect and admire."

Meanwhile in the Outlook Rohit Mahajan lists out the impact of India's World Cup win in 1983.

That win at Lord's redefined the country's aspirations and expectations; it imparted a new meaning to the term 'professional cricketer'; and it took cricket to the masses as never before. Some would even make bold to say India acquired the elements of 'soft power' in the summer of 1983, long before it even began to be counted among the emerging global powers.

England lost to New Zealand in the third ODI in Bristol by 22 runs and David Gower believes that for all his promise and ability, James Anderson still has not managed to master his own inconsistencies. By contrast his less experienced and supposedly junior colleague, Stuart Broad, has become one to rely on. He writes in the Sunday Times:

The way Broad bowled at Taylor was a lesson in how to build pressure on a batsman in a one-day match. Broad knows the way the Kiwi plays and he stopped him doing so by adhering to strict lines close to off stump. By the time he slipped him one of slightly fuller length, Taylor’s frustrations were there for all to see and his attempt to find a gap on the leg side merely opened another more crucial void, through which the ball found its way to the stumps.

In the Independent on Sunday, Stephen Fay notes that Chris Tremlett must step up if he wants to catch the selectors' eye ahead of the South Africa Tests.

	Kevin Pietersen plays the switch hit © Getty Images

I agree with their decision, though not their logic. While seeking to rid us of the notion that all lawmakers are batsmen they point out that bowlers 'do not provide a warning of the type of delivery that they will bowl (an off-cutter or a slower ball, for example)'. So, they argue, a batsman should have the opportunity of executing a switch hit.

This is not the correct parallel. The right one would be that batsmen do not warn bowlers which stroke they intend to use (the off drive or the slog over midwicket, for example). Logically, if the bowler has to indicate whether he is going to deliver the ball right or left-handed, the batsman should say whether he intends to hit it right or left-handed and stick to his word.

Ian Chappell says as much in his latest Cricinfo column, but he does not want the shot to be allowed.

It is unfair to ask the bowlers to nominate beforehand the way they are going to operate (over or round, left or right arm) and then allow batsmen to change their mode of striking after the ball is in play.

The Sunday Telegraph's Steve James has no issues with the switch hit, and asks "why now?" Click here to read the article.

Meanwhile, Zaahier Adams, in the Cape Times, has sought out the opinions of former South African cricketers regarding the issue.

	Beau Casson claimed overall figures of 3 for 129 on his Test debut © AFP

Much about Casson is ordinary. Take his character. He might appear to possess potential for the mad professor look when older, but he is certainly no eccentric like so many others to have plied his trade. Think of the dark, reclusive Michael Bevan, whom England coach Peter Moores struggled to deal with in his early years at Sussex, or the hyperactive Brad Hogg. Or even, from a bygone era, 'Chuck' Fleetwood-Smith, who ended up living under a bridge. By contrast Casson is what the Australians call 'a good kid'.

Sadly his bowling is also ordinary. As Australia's newest wrist spin bowler, the designated successor of recent retiree Stuart MacGill, Casson made his debut in the recently concluded final Test against the West Indies in Barbados. He was not particularly impressive. Dwayne Bravo took a particular fancy to him and match figures of 32-4-129-3 tell a humdrum story. That can only be good news for England ahead of next year's Ashes.

One may glorify Twenty20 as the best version of reality television, but it'll never hit the heights of the climax of an Ashes series, writes David Mitchell in the Guardian. However, he says it is monumentally unfair that players are expected to show restraint, and prioritise Test cricket, when future financial security is being offered them on a plate, like Allen Stanford's investment of US$100 million in a series of Twenty20 matches over the next five years in Antigua.

Missing the Antigua game due to injury or making themselves unavailable for the IPL because of the start of the English season have huge long-term financial consequences for these men and, if they follow the money, I for one wouldn't blame them. Test cricket organisers need to be big enough to defend themselves, rather than relying on men in their 20s, with few prospects of employment beyond 35, to do the job for them.

"Had you been travelling near the village of Cranleigh, about 80km south of London, one Sunday earlier this year, you could have followed the signs to the cricket match and made the most extraordinary discovery," writes David Walsh in the Australian. "For sure, there was much that was familiar from any weekend match: the finely cut grass of the cricket pitch, families picnicking around the boundary, white flannels, the white canvas of the marquees, the ugliness of the ice-cream van. Startling, though, was the familiarity of the faces inside the boundary."

The tall guy with the gentlest batting stroke: wasn't that Mike Rutherford, the guitarist from the old rock band Genesis? And the one over there, standing in the outfield, who looked like he didn't want to age, that was surely Pink Floyd's Roger Waters. The same Waters who once filled us with fight - "We don't need no thought control/ No dark sarcasm in the classroom" - was now playing cricket on a Sunday afternoon with Guy Waller, the headmaster of smart Cranleigh School. In the middle of them all, directing the flow of banter around the wicket, stood Eric Clapton. An earnest cricketer, let us say. But it is the little guy in the gully who rivets you. Bill Wyman, the old Rolling Stone, in his 72nd year and still up for it.

	Dwayne Bravo © AFP

Alex Brown writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about the impact Twenty20 is having on the game.

It’s not just to domestic and international calendars but to the individuals, the players, who are tumbling down the rabbit hole with little idea as to where it will all end. Dwayne Bravo and Shaun Marsh would appear to have little in common.

Bravo, an all-rounder from the village of Santa Cruz in Trinidad, is diamond-encrusted, extroverted and counts the likes of top-selling reggae artist Beenie Man among his friends. Marsh is a quietly spoken batsman from Narrogin whose most obvious link to celebrity is his father, Geoff.

But it is these two players, perhaps more than any other outside India, who best represent the "Twenty20 effect" on the current generation. Afforded opportunities beyond anything their forebears could have expected, Bravo and Marsh, both 24, are the poster children for cricket's newest format and are reaping the benefits.

In the same paper Philip Derriman states the case for a stand at the SCG to be named after Richie Benaud.

In Supercricket, Neil Manthorp feels Dale Steyn's gaffe on his IPL experience didn't intend to hurt anyone, much like Lance Klusener's vain attempt to ease the pain after South Africa's painful 2003 World Cup exit.

It was Zulu's version of the famous Boris Becker quote when the German tennis star was eliminated from Wimbledon in the first round when he was defending champion and tournament favourite: "I lost a tennis match, I didn't kill anyone. Nobody died," Becker told a stunned room full journalists.

Paul Holden, the Sideline Slogger, comes up with 10 topical questions on cricket, including ICC's new lunch rule following the abandoned match between England and New Zealand at Edgbaston. He provides answers as well:

Will the new lunch rule make a difference?

Under the new rules, even if Collingwood had played hardball and disagreed with Vettori over the need for another helping of Edgbaston macaroni cheese for his boys, the match referee would have been wheeled in to make a call.

Who was the original switch hitter?
One of the most boring batsmen alive in fact: no, not Geoff Allott, Shoaib Mohammed, Alastair Cook, Rahul Dravid, Trevor Franklin, Chris Tavare or Mike Brearley - none other than Jacques Kallis, who hit two unorthodox sixes in a match for Middlesex at Uxbridge during his stint as their overseas player in the nineties.

More on KP's switch-hitting. In the Times Mike Atherton wonders if Pietersen could transfer his talents to baseball if he ever got tired of cricket in England.

Switch-hitting is not unusual in baseball. It is a commonly held belief that right-handed hitters do better against left-handed pitchers and vice versa. The ambidextrous hitter, therefore, becomes a gem of a player and can take advantage of any idiosyncrasies in the size of the boundaries, while giving flexibility to the coach. All a switch-hitter has to do is take his place on one side of the plate or the other before the pitcher has stepped on to his mark. Once the pitcher has wound up, however, the hitter cannot switch.

John Buchanan, the former Australia coach, predicted some years ago (was this partly down to Young's influence?) that ambidextrous batting, baseball-style, would be the skill of the future ... Buchanan well knows, cricket will continue to evolve. During the 1985 Texaco Trophy series, after poorly executed reverse sweeps by Ian Botham and Mike Gatting, Peter May, the chairman of selectors at the time, was forced to issue an edict that England batsmen should not reverse sweep. Such puritanism seems fanciful now.

In the New Zealand Herald David Leggat adds that the switch-hit is a natural extension of a batsman making use of his footwork, terrific hand-eye co-ordination and being quick enough to recognise when pies are being delivered to take his chances.

"Pietersen's six over long-on, or long-off as it was before he 'switched', was phenomenal. We've seen him play it in the nets, but to catch it so sweetly after Scott Styris had spotted him coming and bowled a slower ball was something else. Up in the dressing-room, we were laughing in disbelief at the sheer audacity of it all," writes Alastair Cook in the Telegraph.

There has been a big debate about whether the shot should be outlawed, but that's daft. Pietersen's innings was a fantastic spectacle, and it's not as if everyone is going to start switch-hitting; it's too difficult. I can't hit the ball that far from my usual stance, let alone right-handed. Reverse-sweeps have been around for donkey's years. Suddenly everyone has started talking about them, just because one person has become so good at the shot that he has redefined the coaching manual. But I can't see a case for changing the rules. Why would you want to penalise excellence?

"Winning the first three Tests of a five-match series in India [as England did in 1976-77] remains a unique achievement, incidentally, and here's the thing: it came with the aid of what these days might be called a skeleton support staff, which consisted of three people: Ken Barrington, Bernard Thomas and Geoffrey Saulez," says Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

Forward this now to the height of the last Ashes series, when a rough headcount suggested that the ECB staff were just as numerous as the players. Is it too cheap a shot to mention that they lost the series 5-0? OK, it is ... I'm not so much knocking the rising numbers of support staff as pointing out that increasing coaching numbers is not necessarily a panacea. Indeed the sheer weight of numbers who surround the team could cause some conflict and ill-feeling over the next couple of months. I'm talking here of course about Sir Allen Stanford's Antiguan shoot-out (of which you may have heard).

	The only ODI at Tunbridge Wells wasn't covered by a TV crew © Getty Images

Twenty-five years since Kapil Dev's momentous innings at Tunbridge Wells, Ayaz Memon still reckons it as the best ODI knock he's ever seen. He writes in the DNA:

Time neither dulled its appeal or dimmed its impact. A whopping 940 ODI hundreds have been scored yet, many of them forgettable, only a few memorable, with this knock (at least in my reckoning) at the apex. It’s not that better batsmen than Kapil have not been seen, or some other innings were not better crafted, but I believe no other innings had had quite the same effect. Kapil was to redefine not only the destiny of the 1983 World Cup, but also Indian cricket. This was not just another batting exploit, it was a catharsis. The game would just not be the same again.

Amit Karmarkar looks back at the knock in the Times of India. Cricinfo's Jamie Alter visited the Nevill Ground, read more here.

	Kevin Pietersen's stroke of genius © Getty Images

It is a sign of genius that a player can make the laws of a game look foolish while not obviously cheating, says Michael Atherton in the Times on Kevin Pietersen's switch-hitting. He offers a solution to the conundrum that the lawmakers face.

So what can MCC do to not discourage such wondrous feats as Pietersen's on Sunday, but at the same time maintain the integrity of the game and intrinsic fairness to bowlers? Well, it could consider the following: that a fielding side should not be penalised once the batsman decides to switch-hit. That is to say, once a right-handed batsman has changed both grip and stance to become in effect a left-hander, the bowler ought to be allowed to bowl both sides of the wicket, without incurring a wide, and, taking that one stage further, he ought to be allowed to get leg-befores by pitching both sides of the wicket as well. At a stroke, the kind of genius we saw on Sunday would not be prevented, but would be discouraged by the subsequent advantage accruing to the bowler.

Blogging on the Guardian website, Richard Williams feels Twenty20 is the perfect stage for switch-hits.

My solution would be to take full advantage of the emergence of Twenty20 cricket, a form of cricket for which Pietersen himself has expressed an almost excessive enthusiasm. For Twenty20 only, improvised switch-hitting would be permitted. A batsman would be given out leg-before if, in the umpire's opinion, the ball would have hit the stumps, no matter where it pitched. A wide would be given for any ball pitching outside lines of longitude drawn six inches from the stumps on both sides of the wicket. And the fielding problem would be solved by making captains set symmetrically proportioned fields, with four men positioned on each side of the wicket and one "floater" to be deployed ad libitum. Oh, go on, try it.

Read what Michael Holding and Richard Hadlee think about it in the Telegraph. Also, don't forget to read the views of Cricinfo's panel of experts.

	All eyes are on Ajantha Mendis © AFP

In just over a week, Mendis will be in Pakistan for the Asia Cup playing international cricket for the first time in the sub-continent, though he did turn out in one game for the Kolkata Knight Riders against Kings XI Punjab after being signed at a late stage for the IPL. With the new ‘freak show’ coming soon to world cricket’s epicentre, it isn’t tough to guess where the spotlight is headed.

Ask [Mahela] Jayawardene about Mendis and he gets a twinkle in his eye that is the prerogative of someone hiding an ace up his sleeve. “It’s really exciting to have a spinner like him in the squad. In Sri Lanka, the anticipation is similar to the one that was during Murali’s [Muttiah Muralitharan’s] early days,” he says. And that’s saying a lot since the comparison happens to be with the highest wicket-taker in the world.

The man at the helm of affairs when Murali was taking his first step in international cricket, Arjuna Ranatunga, has one request that could ensure Mendis’s initiation in international cricket is smooth. “We never had a problem replacing our pacers but we had a tough time getting quality spinners. Finally, we have Mendis. Though it doesn’t seem like Murali will retire soon, it will be good if he sticks around for at least two years. It will be great if Murali is around to guide Mendis.”

The battle for the Frank Worrell Trophy has been one to savour, writes Alex Brown in the Age.

The timing of a contest between a West Indies side climbing off the pavement and an Australian side descending from its peak has proven ideal, providing three competitive Tests, each of which has progressed deep into the fifth day. For both sides, the events of the past month have provided cause for concern and optimism.

In the West Indies' case, the positivity that has surrounded each strong performance has been partially offset by the team's admitted over-reliance on Shivnarine Chanderpaul. And for the Australians, the success of the realigned batting line-up continues to be overshadowed by anxieties over the third seamer and spin-bowling positions.

Beau Casson’s first Test and maiden wicket are reviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald.

While Allen Stanford's Twenty20 for $20 million grabs all the headlines, Alan Lee heads to Godshill in Hampshire where they are gearing up for the St Mary Bourne in Regional Division Two (North West) of the Hampshire League. He writes in the Times:

Alan Cousins was shovelling cow dung from the outfield and scouring his back catalogue of last-resort players. Later, while Kevin Pietersen was holding court about the merits of becoming one-match dollar-millionaires thanks to the distorting largesse of a Texan financier, Cousins hit on his solution. A call to Devon and Ken Balfour was rerouted from his holiday.

True, Ken was 67 and still running in a new knee, but he hobbled back gamely to don his aged whites in the familiar wooden shack without lights or hot water.

As captain, groundsman, fixtures secretary, opening batsman and wicketkeeper, Cousins is a life member of that dwindling band of stalwarts keeping the village game alive against the increasing calls of garden centres, shopping malls, reality TV and sloth. “But I've given up being treasurer,” he said with a certain pride.

In the same paper, Simon Barnes says the Twenty20 match is about rich people getting richer. He's not going to get over-excited about Kevin Pietersen's chances of buying a second Porsche.

It's entertainment, but it's not sport. In sport, the process itself matters: the beauties, the subtleties, the long-term relationships, the tactical nuances, the opposition, the quest for perfect execution. In reality TV, we put someone on the griddle, put him to the ultimate test, and then forget him for ever while we pour ourselves a nice drink.

	In form and in danger: Simon Katich © AFP

Simon Katich is in danger of making history by being dropped following consecutive Test centuries, Alex Brown writes in the Age.

Percy McDonnell, in the 1880s, is believed to be the only batsman to be demoted immediately after posting hundreds in consecutive Tests, and that was because of a contractual dispute. Katich, however, could join him if, as expected, Matthew Hayden recovers from his achilles injury and resumes his place atop the order for Australia's tour of India in October.

After his century in the same innings in Barbados, Phil Jaques talks in the Sydney Morning Herald about the success of laser eye surgery.

In Supercricket, Pommie Mbangwa feels the referrals system in umpiring has a few loopholes and is not safe to try it out yet. He also raises the issue of 'walking' and asks whether a batsman who stands his ground knowing he has no business to be there be labeled a cheat.

Some players walk and others do not. Does that mean that some are bad and others are good, is it cheating to stand? Of course this subject cannot be discussed without talking about how the umpires feel about it all and what part they play. There are some people who say that they are traditionalists and would like the umpire to continue to have a role to play in the game so would take the rough with the smooth as things even out over time. Others feel that human error has too much influence on Test matches.

In an impassioned piece for the Sunday Telegraph, Scyld Berry promotes the virtues of Test cricket and all its intricacies over the brief but glitzy Twenty20.

It is above all in duels within the team game - Warne v Flintoff, or McCullum v Panesar, ad infinitum - that a player's character is revealed, and Twenty20 has no time for duels: after a couple of bad overs, a batsman or bowler is out. Test cricket shapes and displays a player's essential self; in Twenty20, which is all action and no drama, he is little more than a robot. He has therefore to play in the former to be marketable in the latter. Sir Viv, one of the Stanford courtiers at Lord's, would never have done what he did for the identity of Afro-Caribbean people if he had played only Twenty20.

Far from killing the five-day game, cricket’s newest format can have a positive impact on Test-match tactics and techniques, writes John Stern in the Sunday Times.

Cricket is awash with Twenty20 and its money and Test cricket and 50-over cricket are both under threat, says Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday.

Scyld Berry has a view in the Sunday Telegraph.

Money aside, Test cricket will always offer something that no 20-over match ever can: human interest. When Brendon McCullum scored 158 in the first IPL game, we could all see that he was a brilliant attacking batsmen. When Kevin Pietersen scored 158 in the Oval Test, we could see he was not only that: he was also a man who could be a bit insecure at first (those early missed chances) but, when warmed up, a risk-taker happy to fly in the face of convention, self-confident to the point of arrogance.

Also read Kevin Mitchell in the Observer.

Rahul Dravid, who symbolises everything precommercial cricket stood for, is reduced to one among many cricketer mercenaries who have joined the IPL, writes Nissim Mannathukkaren in the Tehelka magazine.

There is a deathly silence about Dravid’s humiliation in the cricketing fraternity. Saurav Ganguly was evasive when asked about it. There are no words from the otherwise clamorous Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Harsha Bhogle. Why would they say anything when they are all part of the same gravy train?

	Has John Bracewell reached the end of his tether? © Getty Images

Listening to John Bracewell's pronouncements this week made it clear New Zealand Cricket should get their skates on and hasten the appointment of his replacement as national coach, writes Adam Parore in the New Zealand herald.

Matt Richens, writing in the Waikato Times, thinks the blame for New Zealand's loss should all be directed at Mr Inept himself, John Bracewell.

With Bracewell at the helm, we will be lucky to keep our current seventh spot, but fret not, we will win some one-day games because that's where all Bracewell's eggs have been firmly placed.

In the Sunday Star Times John Matheson interviews Martin Crowe on the coach's role in the modern game.

Coaching at the top level is about man management. My forte as a captain wasn't man management it was tactical and leading from the front. My combination with Warren Lees worked because he was a man-manager. You need someone who can manage men and John Wright is outstanding at that. Clearly the lesson from the last five years is that the man-management of the side has been disastrous.

It’s the 60th anniversary for the Invincibles and the Sunday Herald Sun speaks to the four surviving members from the unbeaten tour. Arthur Morris remembers the stunning Leeds victory; Neil Harvey left Australia with a borrowed bat and no pads; Ron Hamence was the squad’s best singer; and Sam Loxton says the only team meeting happened on the ship before they arrived.

For more on the tour go here.

	Beau Casson © Getty Images

The figures don’t look good for Beau Casson in his first Test for Australia, but Alex Brown says in the Sun-Herald it was a promising performance.

Save for a pair of catches - one a spectacular, diving effort to remove the West Indies captain Chris Gayle - the rookie spinner had little to show for his day in the field, finishing with an unflattering 0-43 from seven overs.

But delve a little deeper, and there are signs that Casson is capable of performing at the elite level.

Doug Walters used to have a small stand named after him at the SCG, but with the construction of the new Victor Trumper Stand all he gets is a room. Walters’ wife tells the Sun-Herald the family is not happy.

	Glamour or glutton? Concerns are being whispered among the counties that there are too many Twenty20 Cup matches this season © Getty Images

The fear that Surrey may not be eligible for the inaugural Champions League may continue, but that hasn't stopped the club enjoying a profitable start to their Twenty20 Cup campaign, writes Patrick Kidd in The Times.

Last night's match against Kent at the Brit Oval, which was attended by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, was watched by a capacity crowd of 23,000 and the county announced yesterday that ticket sales for their five home matches had now brought in more than £1million.

This is the first time that Surrey's ticket sales have broken the million-pound barrier, helped by there being five matches at home rather than four. “It's massive and the impact is much wider,” Paul Blanchard, Surrey's sales and marketing director, said. “Not just in terms of secondary spend, such as at the bar or in the shop, but in getting a different sort of cricket-watcher coming. The long-term knock-on benefit of that is hard to calculate.

But for all Surrey's financial success, the same cannot be said of other counties. Over in The Guardian David Hopps expresses his concerns, and those of several clubs, who are concerned at potential overkill:

It is too early to draw firm conclusions but the word being whispered around the counties is "overkill". County Twenty20 has expanded again this year and the lack of sell-out crowds suggests that it might have overstretched itself.

This year, county Twenty20 involves three groups of six, demanding that each county play 10 games - five home and five away - in a maximum of 18 days. Yorkshire have played two home matches on successive nights and the least attractive, against Derbyshire on Thursday, drew only 5,000. If one of the bigger grounds cannot even achieve last season's average of 7,000 then there is cause for concern.

Lancashire's first home game is against Leicestershire at Old Trafford tomorrow, and Jim Cumbes, their chief executive, conceded: "We have five home games in eight days. People are bound to pick and choose. There are a lot of entertainment choices around here and there is a recession on. There is only so much money to go round."

Lalit Modi's condition that no team with ICL players will be allowed in the Champions League has hit English counties badly. Indian Express's Kunal Pradhan writes that Modi, like the boy who owns the football in a colony match, is making up his own rules as he goes along.

So, after formulating base prices for all players and deciding on who the ‘icons’ are, he starts issuing coloured passes to owners for visiting the dressing-rooms, suspends umpires, hands out fines at will, and then decrees that any player associated with the ICL won’t be allowed to play in the Champions League, or he will “disqualify that team” and mind you, “no exceptions will be made under any circumstances”.

IPL officials can rest assured that any conflict with teams from abroad will again be seen as a race debate back home. Like with so many other things in Indian cricket, the slam-the-foreigner card has become the easiest one to play. Right from the Tendulkar ball-tampering row in South Africa to the Harbhajan racism debate in Australia to Gavaskar’s ‘conflict of interest’ with the ICC, the Indian media and public fall in line to attack those of fairer skin — not always with good reason.

	Steve Waugh loves his baggy green © Getty Images

A new book covering the history of the baggy green is being released. In the Australian Peter Lalor takes a look at the developments, from Victor Trumper’s skull hat to the Waugh-era cap worshippers, and sees how much the items are selling for at auctions.

Allan Border is as surprised as anyone to learn that his baggy green cap is being hocked by an auction house with an asking price of between A$10,000 and $15,000. "Mine?" he says. "There's no way I would sell any of that stuff."

Border has his first baggy green framed and guarded. It is a precious item to him and he would never let it go, but the auction house is selling one along with scores of other items from what is titled The Allan Border collection, including numerous state caps. The baggy green being sold is almost certainly his too.

Michael Atherton, writing in The Times, has pointed out that in recent weeks, among the most hectic in the game’s history, there has been a deafening silence from the ICC.

Can you imagine any other governing body being so quiet and so ineffective while the structure and ethos of the game changes day by day? Cricket is reorganising itself along football lines, with clubs becoming as important as countries and player loyalty a thing of the past, and the ICC stands idly by.

The one-day series between England and New Zealand begins on Sunday and Paul Holden has come up with each team's best-performed XI based purely on averages over the past two years. He writes in his blog the Sideline Slogger.

Meanwhile Hamish McDouall goes to the Tests and comes up with his three favourite New innings by New Zealand batsmen down the years:

Mark Burgess batting at Dacca in 1970. Ugly conditions, rabid crowd, but Burgess worked with the tail to secure the draw, and our only series win in Pakistan.

Nathan Astle scoring a century and then a fifty in 2003 against India. He arrived at the crease with the Black Caps 17 for 3 in the first innings, and hit a century to avoid the follow-on.

And the greatest defensive innings of all time. Mark Greatbatch, eleven hours, four Australian legends with the ball, the WACA.

	Piyush Chawla is making the most of Harbhajan Singh's absence © Getty Images

Happily, there is competition for every spot and that means players will have to be on their toes; a quality that Indian cricket has not always been blessed with. Piyush Chawla is making the most of Harbhajan’s absence and Sehwag and Gambhir could raise questions on how much Tendulkar will be missed. At the moment though, this is an excellent fair-weather batting side and on tracks responsive to quality seam and swing bowling, the top order still needs to prove it can do without Tendulkar.

Though most people involved with the first season of the IPL have thought it to be a huge success, Greg Chappell is a little sceptical about its future. Where is the black cloud to all of this silver lining, he asks in the Times of India:

It is one thing to have a successful first tournament; it is another entirely to back it up in the second and future seasons. Expectations have been raised by the initial success, so the bar will be much higher from now on. Some of the older players will be that much further removed from the rough and tumble of international cricket and may find it tougher to back up while some of the rookies will be looked at more closely by opposing teams, supporters and the media. History says that not all players will survive the greater scrutiny and the higher expectations; their own as well as those of others.

The other danger to cricket that will spring from the overwhelming success of the IPL is that every country will race headlong into hosting Twenty20 tournaments of their own at the cost of other forms of the game. I only hope that history does not repeat itself. One-day Internationals are suffering from a surfeit. ODIs have been played around the world ad nauseum for the past 30 or so years without due regard for the health of the format and of Test cricket.

Also read Osman Samiuddin's piece on how cricket commentary was replaced by sales pitches and relentless hype in the IPL.

Brad Haddin is appearing in the third Test with a broken finger and Alex Brown reports in the Sydney Morning Herald about the injury.

Haddin broke the finger in his first hour as a Test wicketkeeper, but played through the first Test at Sabina Park without major incident. A subsequent infection, however, proved far more troublesome, requiring him to have his entire fingernail removed during the ensuing match in Antigua.

	"He [Stanford] is a great legendary entrepreneur and he has the entrepreneur's ability to spot an opportunity and seize it and take it forward,' gushed Giles Clarke © Getty Images

In The Times, Mike Atherton watched Stanford’s presidential arrival by helicopter at Lord’s.

The key players, Giles Clarke and David Collier, waited at the foot of the steps in obeisance, their hair buffeted by the helicopter's blades. Then there were handshakes all round and even a billionaire's arm around the shoulder for Collier. Rarely have such levels of fawning been seen.

In a beautiful moment, which summed up the contrasting worlds that collided yesterday, Stanford came on to the stage shortly before the press conference. He waved and smiled and was greeted with an unaccustomed silence. As he turned to go backstage, an ECB official hurried over and, in a timid, frigid kind of English way, stuck out a hand. Stanford looked at the hand for a moment and then gave the startled young lad a bear hug. There is a new man in town and, as they say in the US, a whole new ball game.

Angus Fraser in The Independent was not convinced.

It is difficult to work out what was more tacky; the arrival of Sir Allen Stanford and his coterie on the Nursery Ground at Lord's in a private helicopter and the hierarchy of the ECB fawning over him, or the wheeling out of $20m in $50 notes in a plastic crate by a burly security guard at the end of the press conference.

Cricket, like every sport, needs money and publicity and who wouldn't do a bit of shoe shining if a billionaire is handing out a portion of his fortune but, even so, there is something rather unappetising about the whole thing. The matches are authorised but unofficial because of Stanford's desire for his trademark black bats to be used. The MCC, the guardians of the Laws of cricket, will not sanction matches when such kit is present, making the richest game in the history of cricket nothing more than an exhibition match.

In The Guardian, Paul Kelso wrote:

In one of the more unlikely scenes ever played out at Lord's, the billionaire financier and formidable self-publicist arrived in a helicopter bearing his name to be greeted by an England and Wales Cricket Board delegation still barely able to believe its luck at the unforeseen appearance of a willing sugar daddy.

Only two months ago Clarke was facing potential rebellion from a dressing room whose heads had been turned by the inflated wages on offer in the Indian Premier League. With reform of the domestic game bound to be incremental and limited funds to appease the players, Stanford's offer of a series of huge paydays was a godsend.

	Ricky Ponting is No. 1 © Getty Images

Ricky Ponting is the most marketable athlete in Australia, reports Simon Canning in the Australian, while Andrew Symonds rose from 27th last year to 10th.

Cricket may have lost its appeal as Australia's most popular sport but its stars remain the nation's most sought after sponsorship vehicles. Cricketers filled six of the top 10 spots in the latest Sweeney Sports survey of the most marketable sports stars, with the Australia captain Ricky Ponting listed as marketing's most sought after property. Ponting ranked No. 1 with a score of 74 points on the Sweeney scale, ahead of retired wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist on 67.

In the Sydney Morning Herald Alex Brown charts the emotional rise of Beau Casson, who will make his Test debut in the West Indies on Thursday.

Upon receiving confirmation that he would become Australia's 401st Test cricketer, an overwhelmed Casson struggled for composure as the backslaps rained down from his new international team-mates before Tuesday's training session at Kensington Oval. The emotion carried into the ensuing net session, as the realisation of his achievement constricted nerves and spinning fingers.

In the Guardian Brian Close and Tony Lewis debate whether Twenty20 is destroying the soul of cricket. In the same paper, Andy Bull joins the chorus of people calling for the end of one-dayers.

Going forward, post IPL, one shudders to think about the fate of regular cricket, writes Amrit Mathur in the Hindustan Times.

India's leading news magazine, India Today, have a cover story on the IPL. It promises to radically alter the shape of the game, redraw the contours of the global cricket economy and power Board of Control for Cricket in India further, writes Sharda Ugra.

Also read Rohit Mahajan's view in the Outlook.

In his column in the Australian Ricky Ponting tells of his love of the atmosphere when playing in the West Indies.

Despite the fact that West Indies have struggled over the past decade or so, the people remain passionate about cricket. They always want to talk about it, and cricket during Test and one-day matches is usually celebrated in typically West Indian style - with plenty of music and action in the stands.

Alex Brown, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, speaks to Sir Garfield Sobers in Barbados before travelling around the island looking for signs of the game’s health.

“I keep hearing this all the time, that people have lost the passion for cricket in the region," Sobers says. "But that's not what I see at all. Everywhere, the game is being played. If cricket is fading, I must be silly."

An interesting take, and indeed a different viewpoint to the widely held notion of Caribbean cricket losing its foothold in a region rapidly succumbing to Americanisation. Could Sobers be right? Have reports of cricket's demise in the West Indies been exaggerated? With curiosity piqued, you hit the road in search of Sobers' Barbados. And before you've reached Bridgetown's city limits, you suspect he might be right.

In the Jamaica Gleaner Tony Becca hails Shivnarine Chanderpaul, a special breed of batsman who is rarely mentioned as a West Indian great.

Lalit Modi's decision to give the IPL franchises the first pick over international players for the Champions League has Neil Manthorp fuming. He gives the example of Albie Morkel of the Chennai Super Kings, who was paid and rehabilitated through back and ankle injuries for years by the Titans who took a long-term view that he would, one day, pay them back through weight of performance. Read on in Supercricket.

In theory the Titans could say 'no' and insist on Morkel's services in the push for $5 million. But it is only theory - in reality all Modi has to do is offer an amount the Titans could not afford to do without. A million rand should do it which, at around $150 000, is the kind of money the IPL budgets for snacks in their Franchise owners corporate boxes. Per match. Besides, Morkel would be ill-advised to upset the SuperKings who now pay him over ten times what the Titans can afford.

Dylan Cleaver gives a diary account of what he describes as a sad sad day for New Zealand cricket, after surrendering another series to England. Read on in the New Zealand Herald.

All the optimism of Hamilton in March has been stripped away and was it any wonder that when he shuffled off Trent Bridge just now he looked a broken man.

Not alone in his thinking, Steve James believes Ravi Bopara's county form deserves to be rewarded with an England one-day recall. Immediately. Writing in today's Sunday Telegraph, James singles out Bopara's unbeaten 201 for Essex against Leicestershire in the Friends Provident Trophy quarter-final - "a quite extraordinary effort" - and praises the allrounder's fitness and down-to-earth attitude.

Bopara's stamina was astonishing. Revealing the benefits of some weight loss since returning from winter England duty, he was still pushing hard for twos in the final overs. Between the sixes that is. All 10 of them. His power in the latter overs was surprising: his wristy class earlier, especially in the extra-cover drive, not so. By blending the two it seems Bopara is conjuring a beguiling mixture of the best of western and eastern batting.

In the same publication, James also comments on how James Anderson delights and infuriates as a bowler. Anderson grabbed a career-best 7 for 43 to skittle New Zealand out for 123 at Trent Bridge but James says pressure and the bowler in concern do not mix well at all.

Will players ditch their counties in favour of the big bucks of cricket's Champions League? Jonathan Agnew in BBC Sport says plenty such questions need answering in cricket's latest mega event.

What about England's one-day cricketers who are unavailable for almost all of the domestic Twenty20 which starts on Wednesday? They will probably be free for the Champions League and I suspect will be keen to get their hands on the prize money.Will Peter Moores release them and, if so, what effect will that have on team spirit within their county team?

In the Sunday Telegraph, Scyld Berry wonders whether county supporters will buy into the aspirations of their team and turn out in large numbers, now with $5 million up for grabs for the world Twenty20 champions.

The sum of prize-money for the Champions League far exceeds the $2million touted when the idea was first proposed. The lid of Pandora's Box has been opened; the expectations of domestic cricketers have been raised as never before; attitudes will change as the object of the exercise is now major money. It may prove to be something of an understatement when Clarke said: "The ECB Twenty20 Cup will be even more fiercely contested this season in the knowledge that the two teams who reach the final will qualify for the Champions League and the chance to win $5 million."

	Darrell Hair and Steve Bucknor take another look at the ball © Getty Images

One of the major talking points during the England-New Zealand series has been the conditions of the balls being used. In every Test they have been changed after going out of shape, and the replacement ball has often brought a clatter of wickets. In The Times, Christopher Martin-Jenkins takes a look at some of the theories behind swing, and the part the balls play.

Trent Bridge has gone through many phases as a cricket ground, notably as the epitome of the featherbed pitch in the 1930s and (according to their opponents at least) as a zippy and green seamer's paradise in the days of Richard Hadlee and Clive Rice in the 1970s and '80s.

Briefly, too, it was a good place for skiddy fast bowlers during that more recent period when the grass roots on the square were not growing deep enough. It helped James Kirtley, for example, to take eight wickets in his first Test here against South Africa in 2003, including a match-winning six for 34 in the second innings as the bounce became uneven.

Five years on it is not the pitches that are bothering batsmen, certainly not this one after only two days of use. It is the swing. More than that, it may be a swing enhanced by the impressive but also (to my eye) incongruous new stand. At cost of £8.2million, bordered by a vast new electronic scoreboard and replay screen, showing pictures that even from 100 yards away are far clearer than those on the television in my living room, it is tall enough to make George Parr's old tree look like a shrub. Whether its effect on swing is sound physics or mere speculation the fact is that until England recovered to 364 yesterday the average first-innings total here this season was 197.

James Anderson took advantage of the swing on the second day at Trent Bridge, but it was also with the bat that he made his mark. Martin Johnson, in The Daily Telegraph says that Andy Flower, the batting coach, needs an award if he’s improved Anderson’s batting.

Anderson, who destroyed New Zealand's batting yesterday with high-class swing bowling, has always been renowned as a hot-and-cold practitioner with a ball in his hand, but no one has ever doubted his consistency with the bat. Unless, that is, you can describe veering between bad and even worse as inconsistent.

When he came in at No 9 on Thursday evening, one explanation was that he was being shoved up the order as nightwatchman to protect Ryan Sidebottom and maybe even Monty Panesar, although it turned out that Anderson's promotion was due to Sidebottom being on the treatment table at the fall of the seventh wicket.

Beau Casson could make his Test debut for Australia next week and to get to this stage he has had to deal with more issues than most cricketers, as Chloe Saltau writes in the Age.

Casson was born with a congenital heart defect known as Fallot's syndrome. The condition makes it difficult for him to lower his heart rate after extended periods of physical exertion, and has prompted three open heart operations. He works to a modified training program, in which he is granted extra time to recover from exercise. He is monitored regularly.

But that's it. In every other aspect of his life and career, Casson feels in no way different to his cricketing contemporaries. And if, as expected, the national selectors bestow upon him the honour of becoming Australia's 401st Test cricketer for the third Test in Barbados, the 25-year-old expects no problem from his ticker, and no special treatment from his teammates, opponents or public.

A pair of ducks for Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood on the first day at Trent Bridge was the worst possible result for England’s two out-of-form batsmen. In the Independent, Jon Culley looks at whether they should keep their spots.

Naming an unchanged side for the fifth time in a row for the first time in 124 years has been tripped out as something worthy of pride. Yet the statistic that should be on the minds of the England hierarchy is that this is likely to be the 12th Test to go by since the team posted a first-innings total of more than 400, which tends to suggest that change, rather than continuity, is required.

It would suggest also that, instead of receiving comforting assurances, Collingwood and Bell should be told bluntly what is expected of them, although neither player is daft enough to think that loyalty can perpetuate. Miller and company have already displayed a ruthless side by dropping Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard simultaneously during the winter.

In the Independent on Sunday, Stephen Brinkley says the Natwest Series will be crucial for Collingwood and Ian Bell to save their Test spots.

The break between Tests may give the selectors breathing space which, in turn, should clear their heads. This has not been an especially competent series for either side – ignoring the contributions of Collingwood and Bell. New Zealand have not been as innocuous as West Indies were at the start of last summer, but so far the contest has been a poor advertisement for Test cricket as the acme of the game.

In the Daily Telegraph, Simon Hughes considers Collingwood’s predicament.

While Ian Bell, who also failed to score, has time on his side, Collingwood knows if he loses his place, it will be mighty hard to regain. You feel for him because he works his butt off. But does he stick or twist? Surely better to gamble and enjoy than stick and stagnate.

Also read Lawrence Booth’s thoughts on the matter in the Guardian.

Harsha Bhogle, in his column in the Indian Express, looks at the reasons behind Rajashtan's IPL success story

The key to team spirit is communication and this would have been Warne’s greatest challenge. The only language that his think tank spoke was also the language that a lot of players in the team would have been uncomfortable with. But by gelling so wonderfully, and it was great to see, Warne showed that the language of cricket and the intent to communicate can over-ride strange nouns and verbs. It is a huge learning, one that enemies of foreign coaches would do well to reflect over. Language and culture can be a barrier for those who choose to look upon it as a barrier.

And yet, having been lucky to have had a ringside view of a lot of the action, if there was one reason I would ascribe to Rajasthan’s success, it was that everyone in the team seemed empowered to win.

In the Hindustan Times, Gulu Ezekiel says the IPL has exposed the world's top cricketers as "hypocrites" considering the lack of complaints about burn-out.

In his column in The Times, Michael Atherton says that two documentaries on Monday evening, one about Hansie Cronje and one about Basil D'Oliveira, proved conclusively that sport remains the finest polygraph test known to man. The two South African cricketers, Atherton believes, say much about their nation but more about humanity.

As England begin the third Test, their bowling coach, Ottis Gibson, discusses swing, Steve Harmison and the day that Malcolm Marshall taught him the value of hard graft, in a chat with the Independent's Brian Viner. Gibson also says that he would love to be head coach of West Indies, but he would be equally pleased to take charge of England.

Here's an excerpt from this free-wheeling conversation :

Gibson understands Sidebottom, a fellow late-bloomer. But then Sidebottom is an uncomplicated man. Not so Gibson's erstwhile Durham team-mate, the enigmatic Steve Harmison, still omitted from the squad but posting a timely reminder of his talent with a hat-trick against Sussex at the weekend. Gibson does not presume to comment on the selectors' decision, and indeed is relishing the chance to work with an attack unchanged in five Tests, but he feels he understands Harmison better than most, and is certain the 29-year-old can force his way back into the reckoning.

"I know from playing with Steve last year what a good bowler he is. There were days when he did world-class things, like when we were playing at Worcester one day. He was bowling to Phil Jaques, a serious player, and I was standing at mid-off. Before he ran in he told me what he was going to do with each ball, and he did it. Jaques was on 90-odd, and Harmy eventually bowled him leaving alone, round the wicket, a reverse swinging ball. The problem is getting him that relaxed, that comfortable with himself, in this [Test match] environment. I have spoken to him at length about it and I know he wants that too."

	Mohammad Asif: what lies in store? © Getty Images

The latest scandal has little to do with the ones Mohammad Asif has been involved in before, but what's annoying is that it will still be stacked together with all the others, writes Anand Vasu in the Hindustan Times.

Asif, 25 by his own estimation, will know now that even his best-case scenario — being found not guilty on a technicality or for lack of conclusive evidence, and there’s nothing to suggest that so far — his life will never be the same again.

An editorial in the Pakistan-based Dawn terms the latest scandal as 'Yet another embarrassment'.

Another editorial, this time in the Daily Times, blames the establishment for the Asif scandal.

Because there is no proper first-class cricketing structure in Pakistan, highly talented boys get into the team without any mental or other strategic grooming.

Also read Osman Samiuddin's views on the same topic in Cricinfo.

Despite having been embroiled in many controversies; the man who still is a folklore hero, has not lost his bearings. Twenty five years after leading India to a heady World Cup triumph Kapil Dev chats with the Hindustan Times' Pradeep Magazine on the cricket establishment, the IPL and more.

Kapil is nothing if not pragmatic and his run-ins with the board are well documented. But he does not care and believes that a time will come after a decade or so when the players' voice will become powerful. And he thinks it has to do with the players getting richer and richer. “When I started playing, I could see that the earlier generation was frustrated. So, probably was mine, but once the money comes in and the players are no longer dependent on the largesse of the Board for making a living, a change will take place.”

Will the ICC wake up to the reality of a player-centric popular tournament and create a window so that all, including the English players, can get into the IPL and enjoy the competition and the monetary benefit, asks R Mohan in the Asian Age.

In the NDTV website Amit Varma reviews the IPL.

The closing ceremony of the tournament made the commentators look classy, it was that bad. It was a mix of a cheap Bollywood variety show, a circus from hell and a school annual day.

Twenty20 cricket may teach us very little on the field of play but, off it, the Indians have built a model which will undoubtedly change world cricket, writes Mihir Bose in the BBC website.

In the same website Rohit Brijnath reflects on the successful first season of the Indian Premier League but adds a warning:

Celebrity has powered the IPL, and why not. A colleague muttered that a frown-wearing Preity Zinta was complaining about Punjab's catching. A cricketer's friend on utilising a free ticket gushed not about the game but about sitting in aura-touching distance of Akshay Kumar. Shah Rukh Khan brought energy, famous friends, strange text messages and was in more cricket stories than Sachin.

Shane Warne has proved it takes more than money to buy instant success even in the IPL, says Mike Selvey in the Guardian. Old-fashioned he may be, but Warne's the king of all he surveys, says Selvey, and its not entirely surprising that he successfully employed a team coach to coax solid team performances out of his title-winning Rajasthan Royals.

Warne's latest incarnation, leading the Rajasthan Royals to success in the Indian Premier League, has put paid to the notion that anyone with a bottomless pit of money can buy their way to instant success. Warne's team were certainly not composed of bumpkin cricketers punching above their weight, and they had some big players. They might have come cheaper than some of their rivals but they were by no means cheap.

We have read how Warne got the best of the mosquito squadron that was at his command but what we didn’t read about was the backing of the support staff of the Rajasthan Royals, and one of them was a former Mumbai opening batsman Zubin Bharucha, writes Makarand Waingankar in Mumbai Mirror

Zubin Bharucha had handed over the opposition players’ analysis to Shane Warne who hadn’t seen many of the players in the opposition. The assessment of Bharucha and the implementation of Warne seem to have clicked.

The primary reason for IPL’s success was the players’ high intensity and sustained involvement through out the tournament, writes Javagal Srinath in the Hindu.

Deepak Narayanan makes an important point in the Indian Express. "We have seen packed stands around the country screaming themselves hoarse for every four and six and catch and run-out," he writes, "but aren't we missing that most important emotion that every sports fan has felt time and again? How many of you have felt genuine pain over the last month-and-a-half?"

Mohammad Asif was detained in Dubai on suspicion of possessing drugs and Khalid Hussain believes the Pakistan board has only itself to blame for his latest misadventure. He writes in the Karachi-based News:

Asif’s latest episode involving drugs is by no means an isolated incident. Less than two years back, the fast bowler tested positive for banned anabolic steroid nandrolone along with Shoaib Akhtar. But while Shoaib — the ‘bad boy’ of Pakistan cricket — was relegated to the role of a villain, Asif was treated by our cricket bosses as an innocent kid ‘who didn’t know what he was doing’.

It is this patronising attitude of the PCB that is indirectly responsible for the latest embarrassment Pakistan has been forced to suffer courtesy one of its cricketer stars. Asif’s detention in Dubai for possession of drugs was flashed by TV channels and websites worldwide on Tuesday. Hardly the sort of publicity, Pakistan or Pakistan cricket needs after all that has happened in recent times.

Brett Lee is shaping up as Australia's answer to David Beckham by launching his own line of men's underwear and modelling them himself, AAP reports. Lee wants a collection that is cool, sporty and affordable.

"You see these other brands and they're worth A$35 to $45 for a pair of briefs or a pair of boxer shorts and trunks and stuff," Lee told AAP. “Sixteen and 17-year-old kids can't afford that. So we can make briefs with the highest quality with the fabrics we've got for under $10."

After Shane Warne’s rejection of a Test comeback, his manager re-confirms the news to AAP.

In the Daily Telegraph Stuart MacGill talks about the timeline of his retirement.

The Indian Premier League has finally come to an end and now begins the analysis. The Hindu editors believe the most heartening facet of the IPL was the opportunity it allowed domestic cricketers.

The recognition and the riches were welcome; the experience was priceless. For long consigned to second-class status, India’s domestic cricketers were granted a stage to parade their talent and a reference to measure it against. Just as significant was the access they were given to the world’s best cricketing ideas and practices. Ironically the BCCI’s brainchild is an indictment of the way domestic cricket has been administered.

Also check out their cartoonist's take on the end of the IPL.

The Hindustan Times editorial says what the tournament showcased was that a well-oiled, terrifically publicised popular event like cricket, when tweaked to its maximum in terms of spectator sport capabilities, can be a blowaway entertainment.

Meanwhile, in the Indian Express Sandipan Deb wonders how Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner who was attended most of the matches, manages his laundry stuff.

Because he was wearing a different suit every day. Did he buy clothes every time he landed in a city? Did he rent them? Can you rent suits? Did he ever become confused about which city he was in, like, land in Kolkata and tell his driver to take him to the Wankhede Stadium (I have a friend who took four flights on four consecutive days and started making STDs to his own phone)? Does he know where he is right now, or is he filing a missing person report about himself in a city he flew out of last Wednesday?

Sixteen years after he started his international career and one-and-a-half after he finished it, Warne finally rules over the hearts and minds of Indian cricket fans, writes Kunal Pradhan in the same paper.

Unlike many who were skeptics at the start of the IPL tournament and then fell in love with the format, my journey was in the opposite direction, writes Suresh Menon in dreamcricket.com.

	Stuart MacGill has called time © AFP

Alex Brown writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about Stuart MacGill’s exit, which came on the same day Shane Warne won the Indian Premier League final.

Even in retirement, Warne was stealing his contemporary's headlines. Once, that might have irked MacGill. It has often been said that the New South Welshman's greatest fault was to have been born in the same generation as history's most prolific spinner, and the constant comparisons with Warne often wore thin in the early days. But, over time, MacGill came to accept that his accomplishments would always be compared to the impossible standards of his Victorian rival, that his career would be inextricably linked to Warne's, that there was no escape from the shadow.

The Herald Sun’s Jon Pierik says Cricket Australia has to do everything it can to lure Warne out of retirement while Malcolm Conn writes in the Australian Beau Casson will need to change history.

In the Age Matthew Wade looks at Warne’s impact on the IPL.

	Shane Watson was IPL's Player of the Tournament © Getty Images

"The last couple of years were hellish as I missed the Ashes, and it's been a pretty long process since then. But I have been lucky to have one person, my guiding light, who has simply been amazing. Popov [sports physiotherapist] did quite a few different things with my body, he shook it up. And the guidance, time and the knowledge he has given me have been vital in me being where I am now."

In the same paper Anand Vasu writes that IPL will change the way the game is governed and consumed around the world.

The IPL has been a wild success, according to Rahul Bhattacharya, but such success can be disquieting, he adds. The cricket is a bit like video-game cricket, he writes in the Guardian.

The best games had a kind of compressed intensity where each delivery held the weight of an entire match... A six in the IPL, every 622 of them, was no longer a six, it was a 'DLF Maximum.' A sharp catch came branded as a 'Citi Moment Of Success'. Commentators tripped over each other to make these plugs. A future where a batsman executes a Toyota Front-Foot Drive against an Intel Faster One may not be the stuff of satire.

In the same paper, Randeep Ramesh ponders whether the IPL is a sign of a nation breaking free of a colonial legacy or just a crass money-making machine.

Cricket historian Boria Majumdar is convinced the IPL has been a resounding success. In the Times of India he lists out what the franchises have planned over the next year:

There’s talk of some franchise owners speaking to Australian state sides like Victoria to organise home and away games during the IPL off-season. If such plans are successful, we might soon see Rajasthan or Punjab taking on Victoria or New South Wales in attempts to keep the brands alive. Shah Rukh’s opening of an exclusive store in Kolkata to sell Knight Riders apparel is another such attempt. If industry estimates are to be believed, Knight Riders merchandise worth more than Rs 5 crore have already been sold from the Kolkata store since its opening on May 12.

	Shikhar Dhawan - a domestic success in the IPL © Getty Images

It should not have taken the IPL to reveal this. And the next step in nurturing this talent after the conclusion of Lalit Modi’s extravaganza need not necessarily be the squeezing in of a bi-annual Twenty20 competition. The capacity of Yusuf Pathan and Shikhar Dhawan, to name just two of IPL’s biggest stars, to hold their own against the best must focus the BCCI on making the domestic circuit more competitive and marketable. Those who play for the country must be made more involved with domestic cricket.

Meanwhile, over in the Telegraph, Nick Hoult reveals some of the franchises' ambitious plans to extend their interest beyond cricket.

If a match against a top (English Premier League football) side gets off the ground, the (Deccan) Chargers will look into creating their own football team, comprising recently retired players. The prospect of a team of travelling all-stars, made up of the likes of Zinedine Zidane and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, is being explored.

	Paul Collingwood: under pressure © Getty Images

England's selectors have named in unchanged squad for the final Test against New Zealand, meaning the top six get another chance to click as a unit. The most under pressure is Paul Collingwood, although Ian Bell needs a major score too, but in the Sunday Telegraph, Steve James says it's the right way to go although argues for some tweaking to the order.

No, those in situ are England's best top six. The personnel don't need changing but, in my opinion, the order does. Kevin Pietersen and Bell should each slip down a place to No 5 and No 6, and Collingwood be promoted from six to four. Yes, the latter move appears madness because Collingwood is so desperately out of form, but please hear me out.

England's batting tempo is of great concern, and to up it Pietersen requires the freedom of No 5. His second innings at Manchester, reflecting England's overall approach, was freer. But the parameters of shaping the innings at No 4 too often have their shackles. Forever fretting about his technique, Pietersen has been playing like an Englishman. That is not what we want. Once we denounced his South African arrogance; now we should demand its immediate return. Please, KP, bring back the 'flamingo' shot.

In the Sunday Times, Simon Wilde investigates the lack of really fast England bowlers and says the move to block Kolpaks could help unearth some new English quicks.

A straw poll of county captains and coaches produces a collective shake of the head when the question is posed about the depth of young native talent capable of speeds above 90mph. This is hardly surprising, though, when the likes of Hamp-shire and Sussex respectively sign Nantie Hayward and Corey Collymore, former new-ball bowlers with South Africa and West Indies, as Kolpaks. The reliance on foreigners is one problem. Another is that, historically, England have never produced genuinely fast bowlers in anything like the numbers that Australia, South Africa or West Indies have done.

There is also fashion to take account of and there is no doubt that English cricket has fallen a little out of love with speed for speed’s sake. Call it the Harmison Effect, the Durham bowler having tested to destruction the theory that pace alone is enough. This was, of course, a theory propounded by former England coach Duncan Fletcher, who was loath to pick any fast bowler incapable of topping 90mph. How things have changed.

	The massive physical presence of Andrew Flintoff © Getty Images

For the occasion, Will has devised a series of Mastermind-like questions for the Lancashire lad (specialist subject: the life and times of A Flintoff 1977-2008) in order to ascertain how much Freddie knows about himself. Later, Flintoff will rattle through these at a familiarly impressive rate. Without affectation, Flintoff treats Will as an old friend, indulging his Wisden-weary queries and laughing throatily at his useless jokes. Will marvels at his generosity of spirit for weeks to come.

In the same paper, Will Buckley finds, Afghanistan have made it through to the Division five final the World Cricket League, are the gabbiest team in cricket.

The lbw appeals rain in from all parts of the pitch: square leg, gully, long on. Karim Khan, jabberer-in-chief, comes out from behind the wicket to bowl a few. 'Well done, well done, the average is now six,' shouts one fielder. 'You don't have a fever, come on,' shouts another. A catch is skied to long on and dropped. The fielders are changed. Next ball another catch goes up to long on and is taken.

New Zealand lost the second Test against England after having the upper hand and Mark Richardson believes Daniel Vettori should be mulling over the lost opportunity more than most because he blew the opportunity to do something he has not done for 11 years/78 Test matches - take five wickets or more in a test innings in a game that New Zealand has gone on to win (excluding Bangladesh). He writes in the New Zealand Herald:

It's wrong to respond to this revelation by simply saying Vettori is not accomplishing his core responsibility of bowling his country to victory because there is so much more to Vettori's contribution to New Zealand cricket than simply taking wickets on the last day of a Test match, important though that is. There is no question of Vettori's quality, versatility and consistency as a Test bowler.

What should hurt the most for Vettori right now is that, regardless of the third innings batting calamity, 296 was plenty of runs to play with on that Old Trafford pitch and it was all set up for him to win the match with his primary skill.

The IPL has reached its climax but Hindustan Times' Pradeep Magazine wants to know why the media has ignored the league's drawbacks and reported it almost as if it was part of the show.

The electronic media thrives on stories of nepotism, corruption and wrong-doings of officials. They even create one where none exists, that is why the silence on stories concerning the dynamic Lalit Modi and a few other board officials, which may not show them in good light, is a little baffling.

In the same paper, Anil Kumble, writes that the secret to Rajasthan's success is that if one player doesn't quite contribute on a day, then another one does.

Ayaz Memon believes Twenty20 will breed bionic cricketers and Shane Watson looks to be a pioneer of sorts. He writes in the Daily News & Analysis:

To the millions who have seen his outstanding performances over the past 6-7 weeks, it must seem extraordinary that Shane Watson is not playing for Australia against the West Indies currently. Is there a better all-rounder in Ricky Ponting’s team? It does not need knowledge of rocket science to know that Watson will be perhaps the most coveted player next season.