As the fall-out from Australia's series defeat against South Africa continues, one man who many Aussies would be desperate to see on a cricket field again has had his say. Shane Warne played against West Indies in 1992-93, the last time Australia lost a series at home, and writing in his Herald Sun column says that the current attack has to come up with some new plans.

There is too much emphasis on containment and protecting runs rather than attacking and trying to take wickets. If in doubt, attack every time. These observations are more of an approach and attitude to bowling, rather than directed towards any particular player or the current attack.

Ricky Ponting has a good cricket brain and the bowlers must be prepared to try things, back their instincts and not rely on computer printouts.They must also have another plan, and after that plans C, D, and E when the opposition digs in and the wicket is flat.

In the same paper, Ron Reed goes through the usual end-of-year tradition of picking his team of the last 12 months. He finds space for a couple of Australians, and in the spirit of the season gets the banter going ahead of the Ashes series.

Even one Melbourne paper - yes, the other one - had a go last week and found room for only Mitchell Johnson. Less than one week later, Ricky Ponting had scored his 37th Test century and added a 99 in the second innings, making his omission from that particular combination look a little, er, premature perhaps.

Since then, one venerable English Sunday paper, The Observer, went one better in the Aussie-bashing stakes when cricket columnist Vic Marks, a former England Test player of little distinction, managed to find no room for anyone wearing a baggy green cap.

But he did manage to include not one Pom but two, current captain Kevin Pietersen and a former one, Andrew Flintoff. Pietersen is fair enough - he scored more than 1000 runs at an average of better than 50, but Flintoff?

	Indian fans: An embarrassment? © Getty Images

Watching the Australia-South Africa series has been an education in how much India have lost in recent years as a cricketing nation, writes Suresh Menon on dreamcricket.com.

We may have the better players, more stadiums, infinitely more money and the loudest voice in world cricket but in one are we have regressed. Indian fans have, in recent years, become an embarrassment. It was wonderful to see the Melbourne crowd (around 42,000, which would be large in most stadiums, but filled less than half of MCG) responding to cricket's latest star Jean Paul Duminy.

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Today, a visiting cricketer has little chance of being roundly applauded in many of our stadiums. Centuries are received in stunned silence - as if by scoring a hundred, a Ponting or a Hayden has somehow upset the natural order of things. A boundary by a visitor almost passes unnoticed by a crowd which cheers every time an Ishant Sharma plays the forward defensive stroke.

Lawrence Booth, in his blog in the Guardian, puts his spin on some of the highlights of 2008, such as Jason Krejza's 'lucky' debut, and Shivnarine Chanderpaul's 'unnoticed' brilliance.

The Invisible Man Award for Most Under-Rated Cricketer on the Planet

Before Shivnarine Chanderpaul made a first-ball duck in Napier recently, his previous nine Test scores had been 86* (v Sri Lanka), 118, 11, 107*, 77*, 79*, 50 (all v Australia) and 76 and 126* (v New Zealand). His Test average for 2008 was 101. But then we shouldn't be too surprised: in 2007 he averaged 111. And yet how many people would include him unthinkingly in their World XI? If England think their next six Tests are going to be a breeze, they can think again.

Paul Holden, in his blog Sideline Slogger, picks out some of New Zealand's highs and lows of the year.

	South Africa, with a team truly representative of their nation and under an admirable captain, Graeme Smith, have ransacked a crumbling edifice © PA Photos

Waiting in the wings, the likes of Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Monde Zondeki have cut their teeth in the franchise competitions, both ending as leading wicket takers in the last two completed SuperSport Series. Both are more than able replacements for Ntini when he finally decides to call it quits ... The find of the summer, JP Duminy, has also waited patiently, all the while churning out a pile of runs domestically. An enthralled Australian commentary box has compared the classy left-hander to none other than Brian Charles Lara, so meteorically has his stock risen. The man whose injury opened the door for Duminy, the indefatigable Ashwell Prince, has climbed the ranks to become Smith’s lieutenant, with several match-winning centuries — including one in Australia and two in England — illustrating his pivotal role in a vastly succesful middle- order. None of these players are looked at within the team, or around the world for that matter, as inferior players of colour dependent on a favourable selection process to make the grade. They are key to Smith’s plans, heroes around the country and good enough to hold their own in any conditions.

South Africa, with a team truly representative of their nation and under an admirable captain, Graeme Smith, have ransacked a crumbling edifice in Australia, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

There were times when it seemed Australia were invincible, an opinion to which Australia themselves, through preparation, method and sheer outrageous conviction continually added credence. But they demonstrated above all that none of the above can legislate for the simple loss of great cricketers. Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne went more or less together, along with Justin Langer. Adam Gilchrist followed a year later. It was too much.

The South Africans were once the most renowned chokers in the game, but the recruitment of Jeremy Snape as their sports psychologist and performance coach played a part in changing that. Simon Briggs of the Daily Telegraph find out how.

On Supercricket website Neil Manthorp enjoys South Africa's vctory and chats to Jacques Kallis about waiting 12 years for a series win in Australia.

In the ABC Radio commentary box there is an sms screen alongside the television replay screen which displays listeners comments and questions. There are too many to mention but, from time to time, the commentator picks one and discusses it. One which slips through the net but grabs my attention while I'm doing another guest spot says: "The first popular Safrican team ever to tour Oz - they're winners and seem bloody good blokes, too much to cope with! - Nevil" Jacques Kallis is standing close to the presentation area after the match. He doesn't need to be there but has waited 12 years for this moment and wants to soak up as much of the atmosphere as possible.

Mike Coward writes in the Australian that Graeme Smith is an impressive man who has led an equally impressive team.

South Africa's achievement is a triumph for astute leadership both on and off the park. The intense, angst-ridden, humourless South African cricketers so familiar to Australian crowds since 1993-94 have been replaced by positive, relaxed and modest young men bonded by a conviction that they can be the very best. Indeed, should they win the third Test starting in Sydney on Saturday, they will officially supplant Australia as the No. 1 Test nation.

Smith's reaction at his press conference said it all. A thoughtful and articulate man who is playing in considerable pain with a worrying elbow complaint felt there were no adequate words to describe his feelings. He said his satisfaction and that of his men was best judged by their smiles. This provided a delightful association of images - broad smiles of Rainbow nationals.

In the Age, Greg Baum looks at the contrasting messages this series has sent Australia and South Africa.

In South Africa, it was, in all senses, dawn. Its cricket team had won a series in Australia for the first time and was on top of the world. Television and radio ratings were at record levels, newspapers bulging.

The Sowetan, which pitches to blacks and concentrates almost exclusively on soccer, was commissioning a cricket spread. Two Cape Town businesses gave their employees the morning off. Captain Graeme Smith's phone message bank filled to overflowing in five minutes.

In Australia, it was — at least metaphorically — twilight. Its Test team had lost a home series for the first time in 15 years; and its supremacy; and three players because of injuries.

	"RIP Australian cricket. Slaughtered by South Africa" © The Daily Telegraph, Sydney

Australia's first home-series defeat in 16 years has prompted an understandable depression by their media, and no shortage of anger either.

The Daily Telegraph's Ray Chesterton is one, claiming Australian cricket has died. "It simply followed a short illness complicated by player arrogance, chronic selection short-sightedness, poor captaincy decisions, unreliable batting, indecisive bowling and fielding clumsiness," he wrote. "Australia, propped up by statistics, are still No. 1 in world rankings. But after dismal series losses to India and South Africa, this Australian team is so lifeless it could come to the next Test in a hearse."

In the Courier-Mail, Robert Craddock gives both barrels to Andrew Hilditch, Australia's chairman of selectors. "Hilditch, who has done a modest job as national selection chairman since taking the post from Trevor Hohns, has changed 15 successive Test teams. Talk about a team becoming a transit lounge," Craddock wrote. He went on to slam the selectors' lack of planning. "Australia have paid a heavy price for not formulating succession plans for the retirements of spinners Shane Warne, Stuart MacGill and Brad Hogg. Like a child on Christmas morning, the selectors simply expected there would be a present under their tree."

Over in the Sydney Morning Herald, Aaron Timms is fed up of Australia's "acting talents" in his whimsical piece entitled Our cricketers are turning into Pinters. "Already there are signs of irreversible Pinterisation among many members of this Australian team: recall any of the Ford backyard cricket ads from this season and it is abundantly clear that most of our cricketers are hopelessly in thrall to their own acting talent."

Gideon Haigh, in his blog in the Guardian, writes the nature of Australia's defeats in Perth and Melbourne indicates their decline in fortunes is more chronic than one can imagine.

At times in Melbourne, Ricky Ponting's men played as opponents used to play against them, with a kind of grim, orderly, persevering mediocrity. As JP Duminy, in his second Test, and Dale Steyn, with a single-figure Test average, added 180 on the third day, bowlers went through the motions to defensive fields, while catches were spilled, and overthrows and penalty runs were conceded almost without a care.
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It is not so much that a generation in Australian cricket is over, as that a new one has failed to begin, and that the players assumed to tide the team over in transition have fallen from their high estate.

	Calls for Michael Vaughan's return are motivated more by a recognition of his past achievements, writes Michael Atherton © Getty Images

Michael Atherton, writing in the Times, feels Michael Vaughan's desire to return to international cricket appears a far-fetched one as runs have not been forthcoming to merit a selection in the side, and that calls for his comeback are motivated more by past achievements than a realistic assessment of the present. He also thinks some of the England players are fortunate to have kept their place in the side following a disappointing tour of India.

Vaughan has repeatedly stated his desire to return to international cricket and tried to structure his winter plans to that effect. But after his emotional resignation speech in August there has been little evidence that his body has responded to his mind’s desire. Both he and Geoff Miller, the national selector, accepted that a volume of runs was necessary to justify a return, but they have not been forthcoming. Those who argued for Vaughan’s return, most notably the newspaper for which he writes and Duncan Fletcher, his former coach with England, did so out of recognition of past achievements and a belief that, as an Ashes-winning captain, Vaughan would be able to sprinkle some magic Ashes-winning dust on this underachieving squad.

I am not in the England team and Yorkshire now has to be my main concern. I have to knuckle down with them and start the season as well as I can. If that happens then I will put the guys under pressure and still have the chance to play for England again, something that I dearly would like to do during an Ashes summer.

Derek Pringle, writing in the same newspaper, is not surprised that Vaughan wasn't selected for the tour of West Indies, and feels the future prospects for his selection do not look all too encouraging.

Cricinfo's Andrew McGlashan presents his take on Vaughan's chances of a comeback here.

Makarand Waigankar, writing in the Hindu, feels the quality of cricket played in the Ranji Trophy will only improve if some significant changes are introduced. He suggests league matches be played at neutral venues to avoid possible manipulation of pitches in favour of the host team, and that each innings be reduced to 90 overs to make games more competitive.

An ideal solution could be for the league matches to be played at neutral venues too. The BCCI curator’s committee could oversee the preparation of the pitches and we could expect good standard pitches as the onus will then be on the pitch committee.
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To make the Ranji Trophy more interesting, each innings should be restricted to 90 overs only. A bonus point for number of centuries and five-wicket hauls could make the teams play with more planning and responsibility. And we would get to watch quality cricket.

Malcolm Conn, writing in the Australian, says if the Australian selectors don’t bring in new players for the Sydney Test they should be sacked as well.

Australia now have no choice but to abandon the present so they can rebuild for the future. There will be pain as the next generation develops under Ricky Ponting but it can be no more painful than watching Australian cricket go into freefall over the past two days.

Alex Brown says in the Sydney Morning Herald the past two days have proved as dispiriting as any in recent memory for the Australian team.

In the same paper Andrew Stevenson looks at the options for Sydney.

Mike Coward, a columnist in the Australian, makes the case for the New South Wales opener Phillip Hughes.

Hughes at the age of 20 is 17 years younger than Matthew Hayden and represents the future. Hayden is representative of a golden era that has passed and, barring the apocalypse, will be formally consigned to history.

England are set to pick their Test squad for West Indies on Monday and Duncan Fletcher feels former captain Michael Vaughan should be brought back because of his experience. He writes in the Guardian:

I don't buy the worries about having a former captain in the side. I had Nasser Hussain captaining Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart, and then Vaughan captaining Hussain. Michael can be very sensitive to what is needed and he will understand that his role is to quietly offer advice when it's asked for. If he is selected for the West Indies and can get his batting right over there, England simply must pick him against Australia.

Angus Fraser believes the decision the selectors take regarding Vaughan's inclusion in the squad will be criticised whatever it is. He writes in the Independent:

If Vaughan is named in the squad the reasons for his return will be questioned. The 34-year-old has done nothing to warrant inclusion since resigning as captain four months ago ... Should Vaughan be overlooked the reasons for him being offered a sought after and lucrative 12-month central contract in September will be quizzed.

	Allen Stanford's eventful 2008 © Getty Images

In June I made my historic first trip to Lord's to meet my new buddies at the ECB. Folks say the British can be cold and reserved, but as I stepped out of that helicopter I had a great, warm feeling of love, somewhere between the knee and upper thigh region. But as soon as Mr Collier had been removed and helped back up to his feet he was fine. "There you go, little fellow," I said, slipping him a little something for his trouble. "But ... I'm chairman of the ECB," he said, still drying his eyes. "My mistake," I said, replacing it with a fifty. "Now don't drop that valise, son. I'll be in your office. If you need me I'll be drinking a Dr Pepper with my feet up on your desk."

There is no more glorious sight in sport than that of a cricket paceman steaming in to bowl, with his slips at the ready, and the batsman at their mercy. However, with Twenty20 and its vast incomes circles, you might wonder and worry that the fast bowlers of this world are an endangered species. Chris Rattue in the New Zealand Herald hopes to see a renaissance of personalities who can sustain pace in the game.

What's wrong with having a tie anyway. Nothing really. Gayle's roughhouse treatment of Daniel Vettori in the Super Over in the first Twenty20 at Eden Park had the New Zealand captain, understandably, taking a dim view of it all. David Leggat in the same paper takes a closer look.

Peter Roebuck, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, was stunned by Australia’s efforts on the third day at the MCG.

Nothing in the recent patchy performances of the national team prepared an incredulous crowd for the calamity they witnessed. Put it this way: in the first five hours of play, the cream of the country's cricketers managed to take a single wicket, and that caught near the boundary ... For Australia, it was not merely a bad day - it was a cricketing disaster.

In the Australian Malcolm Conn reports on how the once mighty Australia “unravelled amid terrible selections, key injuries, poor fielding and impotent bowling”.

Few great sides have lacked a top-class No. 3 and few good sides have carried a No. 3 who was not making runs. And yet, today, England are unclear who should be playing there, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times.

Ian Bell has averaged 15 since moving to that position when Kevin Pietersen took over as captain; before him, Michael Vaughan averaged eight there in four matches against South Africa. It is one reason England have rarely won of late.

In the Daily Telegraph, Steve James writes that Kevin Pietersen has been struggling with his technique for the first time in his career and wonders whether it is wise to burden him with captaincy.

... just imagine if Pietersen had been in nick all year. Because he still ended the year as England's leading run scorer in both Tests (with 1,015 runs) and one-dayers (658), their player of the year by some distance. He is the man. As compatriot Gary Kirsten, India's coach and generally a man of understatement, says in their local vernacular: "Jeez, he's dangerous is that oke". He sure is.

Stephen Brenkley is optimistic about the future of Test cricket in his review of the year in the Independent on Sunday.

At Edgbaston in August, Graeme Smith of South Africa played a captain's innings of admirable control and discipline to ensure his team won a Test series in England for the first time in 43 years. It was masterful. But for sheer human drama it was surpassed by Sachin Tendulkar's 41st Test century in Chennai which gave India an emotional victory following the horrific slaughter in Mumbai a fortnight earlier, a win that for four days had seemed certain to elude them. Once more, its nerveless control was its most extraordinary feature.

Sachin Tendulkar, India and the beguilingly-named Balapuwaduge Ajantha Winslo Mendis lit up 2008 but England's bedding in with Sir Allen Stanford has caused nothing but embarrassment, writes Steve James in the Daily Telegraph.

India and South Africa are challenging Australia's No. 1 spot, while England are a tier down, according to the Observer's Vic Marks who decides to pick a World XI from these teams without including an Aussie.

Will Swanton states the case in the Sun-Herald for Shane Warne, who is currently sitting in the Nine commentary box, to end his retirement.

This is not some whimsical notion about sparing Australia the embarrassment of losing consecutive series against South Africa and England. It's a serious attempt to remind Warne that his word is his bond. Warne vowed to ride back on his white horse if Australia's spin-bowling stocks went up the chute after his retirement. Well, they are up the chute.

Tim Lane, writing in the Sunday Age, looks at Matthew Hayden’s chances of saving his career.

Hayden has never been a cricketer to state his case by artistic persuasion. The only way the Queensland behemoth knows is to pile up the runs. Not for him a Mark Waugh-like average of 42, with bonus points for aesthetic beauty. With Hayden it's always been runs or bust. He became one of the game's greatest accumulators.

John Bracewell, the New Zealand coach, spotted a flaw in Hayden’s technique before the start of the Australian summer, Alex Brown reports in the Sun-Herald.

Brown also writes Brett Lee is running out of time to convince the selectors he is the man to lead the Australian attack into next year's Ashes series.

The year began with a family feud that threatened to tear apart our tiny community. It ended with two events of utter warmth, of romance and brotherhood, writes Harsha Bhogle on ESPNStar.

The events at the Sydney Cricket Ground were immensely forgettable. Teams raged against each other, supporters seemed to take up arms and allegations of racism were in the air. It seemed, on the surface at least, that it was a cricketing issue, umpires might have got it wrong and the definition of the spirit of the game grew increasingly far-fetched, but it soon grew into a much bigger problem ...

It was a series that may not, need not, have been played but England showed a largeness of heart that cricket must never forget. What a lovely change from England teams of my growing up years that moaned, complained and spoke condescendingly about the people that were hosting them. In one gesture, England made more friends than they could have imagined.

It would be fair to say that Harold Pinter, the Nobel laureate, who died on Christmas Eve at the age of 78, was rarely happier than when he was playing or watching cricket, writes Michael Henderson in the Telegraph.

For Pinter, as for so many, the game’s ancient home was much more than a place where cricket is played. It was there that he went in his student days, bunking off from RADA to watch ’the Middlesex twins’, Denis Compton and Bill Edrich, and nothing could erase those golden memories.

Appropriately it was Lord’s that provided the stage when the BBC organised a reception to introduce a season of his work in 2003. Pinter, who had just emerged from a gruelling battle with throat cancer, paid tribute to his wife, Lady Antonia Fraser, and to his surgeon as he welcomed guests to the Long Room, “the greatest room in the world”.

Andy Bull interviewed Harold Pinter for the Guardian.

Pinter's study was heavy with the clutter of a cricket fan. On one wall was an oil portrait of himself, wearing whites, knocking a drive away to the leg side. The shelves creaked under his cricket library, including all 145 editions of the Wisden Almanack. On the mantelpiece were photographs and memorabilia of the Gaieties, the wandering club side of which Pinter was captain, and, when he gave up playing, chairman. Downstairs, on the wall was a framed copy of WG Grace's autograph.

His favourite, though, was the England great Len Hutton. He first saw him as an evacuee in Yorkshire. "I was sent for a brief period to Leeds, and I went to see some kind of game up at Headingley. I caught Len Hutton, who was on leave from the army. I fell in love with him at first sight, as it were. I became passionate about Yorkshire because of Hutton really. It is my great regret that I could have met him, but I was too shy."

Alex Brown, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, believes Matthew Hayden’s position in the Test side is close to untenable.

Australia's selectors must by now have devised a contingency plan for the opener's position in the increasingly likely event Hayden draws the curtain on his career after the Sydney Test. His dismissal for 8 was the fourth time in six innings he has been caught between wicketkeeper and point this summer, and took his tally to a grim 56 runs at 9.33 from six innings.

In the Australian Peter Lalor says Hayden may be playing his last Test for Australia.

Only sympathy for symphonies past or a minor miracle in the second innings will send him to Sydney.

Allan Border plays the occasional warehouse game in Brisbane so he can turn out alongside his son Dene, Mike Coward reports in the Australian.

Border does not feel out of place. He loves cricket folk and has always enjoyed a beer. Moreover his only other active gig in the game these days is playing with old mates in a beach cricket competition sponsored by an Australian beer company.

But it is with young mates that he plays at the Brahmas and in particular his 24-year-old son Dene. As so often is the case with elite sportsmen, Border many times during his great career considered how much pleasure he would gain from playing alongside his first born child.

Mitchell Johnson almost quit the game after struggling with an injury and losing his Queensland contract in 2003 but his perseverance, and guidance under Australia's bowling coach Troy Cooley, has transformed him into "the most destructive member" of his team's bowling attack, write Chloe Saltau and Alex Brown in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Thankfully for Australian cricket, Johnson chose the right direction at a critical moment in his life. Sick of the stress fractures and stripped of his Queensland contract in 2003, he returned to Townsville to figure out his priorities. His father urged him to have one more crack at cricket and he did, determined to do it on his own. He got a job driving a plumbing van in the mornings, used the afternoons to get fit and played for his club side, Norths, at the weekends.

In the same newspaper Brown notes how a single-minded Graeme Smith gained the edge. Smith became South African captain at 22, fulfilling a plan he had hatched 10 years earlier, writes Alex Brown.

Also, Chloe Saltau speaks to AB de Villiers, the star for South Africa in the first Test, about his desire to emulate his boyhood hero Jonty Rhodes, and his state of mind before the final day in Perth, where he scored a century to help his team pull off the second highest run-chase in Test history.

All three, Johnson, Smith, and de Villiers feature in Peter Roebuck's Test team of the year, in the Sydney Morning Herald.

	Matthew Hayden's batting will be under scrutiny at the MCG © AFP

Peter Roebuck, in the Sydney Morning Herald, previews the second Test between Australia and South Africa in Melbourne. He expects the Test to live up to the hype, as opposed to India's capitulation last year at the same venue, with plenty at stake for players from both teams, particularly Matthew Hayden, who is struggling for form amid calls for his retirement.

As far as cricket is concerned, Hayden has not passed his sell-by date - but the slide has begun. By and large, batsmen are at their peaks between 27 and 34, as shrewd brain and sharp eyes work in harmony. And it goes further. Once a sportsman reaches 35 or so, he starts to wonder about his way of life, starts to think about home and hearth. Having experienced domestic bliss in small doses, he is inclined to think well of it. And so the mind loses its intensity and the player becomes a self-caricature. About a fortnight into retirement, of course, the player wearies of golf, fishing and washing up and applies for a job with Channel 9.

Geoffrey Boycott, writing in the The Daily Telegraph, feels England's batsmen need to rise to the occasion, with the team's bowling options limited by an injury-prone Ryan Sidebottom and the lack of a quality spinner, to entertain any hopes of beating a struggling Australia.

For England to beat Australia, Flintoff has to stay fit, he is the iconic figure, and Harmison needs lots of bowling between now and the Ashes so he can bowl straight and on a length. He has the ammunition but needs plenty of overs so he can train it in the right direction.

And finally we have to improve the inconsistency of the batting. The players have to remember it isn't how many shots you play, or how quickly you make runs, or how long you spend at the wicket. It is how many runs you make. That is the key.

Mike Coward, writing in the Australian, says a stable side can help re-educate the next generation of players. Until recently Australia were in that position, but things have changed in 2008.

It is not yet a calendar year since the Australians defeated India in Sydney to emulate the achievement of Steve Waugh's team in winning 16 consecutive Test matches. Since then it has lost four, drawn three and won two of nine Test matches ... The speed of the decline has been startling and the pressure on captain Ricky Ponting and his senior counsel at the MCG will be as intense as anything they have experienced in long and distinguished careers.

The Times' Simon Barnes is upset after Australia's defeat to South Africa in Perth.

I am cast down for several reasons. The first is that it was, well, South Africa they lost to. With Australia v South Africa, who the hell are you supposed to cheer for? “Come on, Satan!” Or do you say: “No, no, sock it to 'em, Beelzebub?”

He also believes its too soon to start wondering if Australia are in decline.

Let us simply note the result and nod. Let us refrain from sending off gloating texts and e-mails to the southern hemisphere. Let us remember that every talent Australia possess will be doubled when they are in England. So hear this, Australia: we are not gloating, all right? Just noting.

However Hamish McDouall believes the Baggy Green, which has been a symbol of dominance in cricket for two decades, is now fading and tatty. He writes in his blog Googlies & Grass Stains:

Where had the Australian top order been hiding? Matthew Hayden is now officially over the hill, his return since October reminding me of an economy slipping into recession. Mike Hussey had two failures, Ponting one and a half. Clarke and Katich, neither of them batsmen in the run-accumulating mould of Waugh or Langer, are now the only reliable source of runs. Symonds is patchy, and will always be so. Watson survives in the squad because of his bowling. The highest scorer for Australia at the WACA was Brad Haddin. If that doesn’t send shivers up the selectors spines Ponting’s captaincy should. He was surly, his body language defensive. He did away with slips. He set defensive fields. He opened up after lunch with Krejza and Siddle. He didn’t look at Symonds or Katich, relying on the nude spin of Clarke for variation. There was no paint-striping team talk, little clapping.

Patrick Kidd profiles David Boon in the Times' Ashes Heroes series.

Boon once vomited on the outfield at Adelaide before a TV audience of millions (not necessarily, we stress, because of alcohol), and then went on to make a century and be man of the match. A class act. One other thing in his favour was his lack of athleticism, meaning that he often fielded close in to the wicket in the danger areas given usually to young pups. Yet occasionally he could produce stunning chase-and-throws from the deep. They used to have a saying in England: never risk a fourth run to David Boon.

The BBC's cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew is in no doubt that the tedious last day of the Mohali Test did little to boost the appeal of the longer version of the game. In his final tour blog, he writes:

How sad it is, after such an entertaining six weeks here, that India should have treated this final match with such contempt.

I really hoped that this attitude to Test cricket had died years ago.

It is no wonder that the five-day game is facing a battle for survival in this part of the world if the captain and coach approach it like this, with absolutely no consideration to spectators, sponsors and a huge television audience.

In the New Zealand Herald, Chris Rattue salutes Australia for helping set tremendous Test standards and featuring in most of the best series, but says that they also need to realise that they can't always rule the game. And in his native New Zealand, Rattue believes five days of solid Test action from Napier did its best to contribute to the class of Test cricket and its refusal to go under.

We never thought the day would arrive when cricketers could earn telephone numbers, but it is even more surprising to find a commentator who dishes out 0800 numbers for restorative cures. It certainly shouldn't make the rest of us feel better, but the cricket certainly did. Neither New Zealand nor the West Indies is a great team, but they've conjured up a match that has been tense and entertaining. Who said test cricket was dead, and why should the game face such a challenge from within?

Its that time of the year. People are looking back at 2008 and picking out high points and low of a year that, like a Shane Warne musical, had it all. ONE Sport's Chris Matthews runs a review of the year that was, which you can read here.

	Nasser Hussain feels the time isn't right for England to recall Michael Vaughan © Getty Images

England's cricketing year was the usual blend of triumph and disaster, but how was it for the players? In the Guardian, Lawrence Booth rates the England players according to their performances this year.

Until Ian Bell consistently produces match-winning innings, England's No3 is a luxury the team can ill afford, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

Rather than the end, being dropped could be regarded as the trigger needed for a spurt in Bell's Test career whenever he returns. He has obvious talent so a return would almost be guaranteed. But England need him refreshed and more ruthless and a break might help. Currently Strauss, Michael Clarke and Yuvraj Singh provide good examples of the benefits of being left out. For Bell, playing for England is in danger of becoming a routine occupation and compared to his predecessors, like Derek Randall ("I always played every Test as if it was my last"), he has that wonderful safety net of the central contract.

According to latest rumours, England are thinking about recalling Michael Vaughan for the West Indies tour, but that would be a mistake. Bringing him back at this stage cannot be justified and would create more problems than it solves, writes Nasser Hussain in the Daily Mail.

Where would it leave Owais Shah? He did well in the one-day series so if Michael came into the team ahead of him it would be a real kick in the guts. The alternative would be for Shah to play instead of Bell with Michael in reserve. But having an ex-captain carrying the drinks doesn't sit well with me.

	Mahendra Singh Dhoni sent down the last over of the series in Mohali © Getty Images

England's tour of India was a disaster on the pitch, but sometimes results can be excused for the greater good, writes Derek Pringle in the Daily Telegraph.

A new glasnost between the England and Wales Cricket Board and their counterparts at the Board of Control for Cricket in India, was particularly evident. Suddenly, seemingly intractable problems, such as the participation of England players in the Indian Premier League, did not seem so insoluble. What the fearful thought was the sound of gunfire was actually a bout of mutual backslapping from the two boards.

By not winning a single match of significance (their lone success came in their opening warm-up match), England's players could not claim the same sense of achievement after losing both the Test and one-day series. Plaudits were due, mainly to Pietersen and Hugh Morris, but only for the pair's leadership during the Mumbai siege and its immediate aftermath.

Also in the Daily Telegraph, Simon Hughes says, What will be recalled as the Commando and Kalashnikov Test series came to a paradoxically limp end as wicketkeeper MS Dhoni sent down a few harmless deliveries to Andrew Strauss.

If there was one lesson to draw from this two-Test series, it is that chances to win do not come along very often on the sub-continent and when you get one you have to be sure to take it, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

With the Ashes just seven months away, how is the team developing? Moores will be happy to see Andrew Strauss rehabilitated and back to his best at the top of the order, Andrew Flintoff patently fit again and beginning to find some batting form to go with his rock-solid bowling, and Matt Prior performing well enough with the gloves that the uncertainty over the wicketkeeping position can die down a while. In Graeme Swann, England have found a reliable second spinner for whom Test cricket and big reputations hold no fear.

Amjad Khan and Adil Rashid were passed over in the quest for stability, and Samit Patel misused in the one-dayers, but England must realise the attack is in transition all the same, writes David Hopps in the Guardian.

Of England's Ashes-winning quartet, Matthew Hoggard has been pensioned off and suggestions that Simon Jones might somehow return to fitness for a second Ashes series seem too fanciful by half. At least Andrew Flintoff has survived India unscathed. But what of Steve Harmison, dropped in both one-day and Test series, and whose mood was once again dragged down by life on tour? England, as has already been remarked, can't live with him and they can't live without him.

Also check out David Hopps' England's tour report in order of merit in the Guardian.

Despite hindrances England performed remarkably well, competing hard against a top outfit arguably playing the best cricket in the world. There were several times in each Test when England could have wilted but they continued to fight and they can leave India with their heads held high, writes Angus Fraser in the Independent.

If Monty Panesar was Indian, he would have been nowhere near Mohali. He would have been at one of four venues preparing for the Ranji Trophy quarter-finals, assuming the team he played for had made it that far, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian

Shane Warne, in his Daily Telegraph column, has advised a beleaguered Brett Lee to go into the Boxing Day Test and just let all hell break loose. Lee was well below his match-winning potential in Australia's record loss to South Africa in Perth, and Warne is the latest to give Lee a vote of confidence ahead of the second Test.

Sure bowlers hunt in packs and his partner, Mitchell Johnson, was outstanding in Perth with 11 wickets.That was a great achievement, but Binga is the leader of the pack and he must show it in Melbourne. I want him to let the horses out and consistently hit the 150km/h-plus mark in pace, not hover in the high 130s. Let them have it, Binga.

Warne is also disappointed in some of the speculation and criticism the Australian team received.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Roebuck notes the rapid rate at which left-handed batsmen are rising to success.

In the 1980s, roughly 23 per cent of Test runs were scored by blokes standing the wrong way around. In the last few years, the figure has shot up to 37 per cent. Apart from the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the ending of apartheid and the emergence of Paris Hilton, nothing much happened in these 20 years, certainly not enough to explain such a discrepancy. And it has only just begun. Within another two decades, the rate will have risen to 60 per cent. By then, the concept of right- and left-handed batting might have undergone a complete overhaul.

AB de Villiers played a crucial role in South Africa's historic run-chase against Australia in Perth, scoring a half-century in the first innings and a nerveless century in the second. On Supercricket, Mike Haysman remembers a time when de Villiers wasn't so calm.

The night before he was due to bat on the 25th of March (2006) against the likes of a potent Lee and Warne, he decided some extra hours of shut eye were warranted. After a draining day in the field watching a Ponting century he retired very early to the private sanctuary of his beachfront hotel room around 8pm. Restless sleep followed as the batting demons played havoc with his mind and he exhausted himself with visions of the challenge the following day. He eventually awoke in a startled state, riddled with apprehension about the day ahead. A quick glance at his watch escalated the anxiety. It was 10.30! He suddenly realised he was late for the start of play on day 2 and massive panic immediately set in ...

... Upon arriving in the foyer in a dishevelled and horror filled state, he realised his folly. It was still dark outside! He had actually awoken after only two hours sleep and it was in fact 10.30pm, not 10.30am! His watch combined with his fretful psychological state had succeeded to lie to him.

It almost slipped by unnoticed as Daniel Vettori took his place among the game's elite allround cricketers, writes David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald.

When he got his 29th and last run in New Zealand's first innings against West Indies, it took him to 3000 Test runs, to sit alongside 285 wickets. He became the seventh player to reach the 3000-run, 250-wicket double, and the second New Zealander, after Sir Richard Hadlee, who retired in 1990 with the then world record 431 wickets to go with 3124 runs.

Australia lost a Test match they could not have lost, prompting the question - Is this the beginning of the end of the world's number one team (or maybe even the middle portion of the end, after the 0-2 defeat against India)? asks Suresh Menon in his column on ESPNStar.

The signs of Australia's decline have been around for a while now. Perhaps ever since India toured there last. Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne were bound to be missed, but the world champions were carried forward by the sheer momentum of their victories in the past. Over a longer period, the weaknesses become more obvious, the gaps more exaggerated. This is certainly a team in decline, and captains who seem totally in control when things are going right, suddenly appear indecisive and bereft of ideas when things go wrong. You can see this with Ricky Ponting, now beginning to look more like George W Bush than ever.

Also on ESPNStar, Arvind Iyengar looks at the parallels between the historic run-chases in Chennai and Perth.

	Rahul Dravid was bowled for a duck as India made only 134 runs in 50 overs on the fourth day © Getty Images

There are times when a low-scoring day can be absorbing. Yesterday in Mohali was not one of those days, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

It turned out, though, that they had been teasing us all along. There we were ready for some Indian hammer in the afternoon and a late declaration to set up a nervy last day, when Pietersen's men showed their mettle. They may not return to England with much silverware but there have been times - and the afternoon session was one of those - when they have looked like a team in the making. It is what makes the batting collapse in Mohali, and the second-innings performance in Madras (Chennai) so infuriating. Do we expect too much, I wonder?

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has shown some crafty captaincy, as he and rival captain Kevin Pietersen both develop their leadership styles in the international game, writes Simon Hughes in the Telegraph.

The spotlight in India these last 10 days has been on two relatively raw Test captains: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who can boast an immaculate record of played four, won four, and Kevin Pietersen, who has won one and lost one. Pietersen's strategies were a little stereotyped in Madras, though he has been better here, and the real proof of a captain is how instinctive he can be. Sometimes he needs to put aside the carefully-laid plans and go with his own hunches. Dhoni has distinguished himself in this area. The obvious example is in bringing on Yuvraj Singh when Pietersen comes to the crease.

Sehwag's moment of madness should make it easier for England to bat out a draw, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

Sehwag's departure transformed Jimmy Anderson's day. As usual Sehwag had been treating Anderson's bowling as cannon fodder. But once Sehwag had gone Anderson found his rhythm and the ball, for the first time in this series, began to swing for him. He bowled a succession of maidens and dismissed a distinctly mortal Sachin Tendulkar.

For most of the afternoon in the second Test yesterday it was somnolent stuff. Events proceeded at such a pace that it was as if the early-morning smog which had enveloped the ground and its environs had stifled all ambition, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

Australia have brought in some new players for Boxing Day following the shocking defeat to South Africa, but Peter Roebuck, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, believes a switch in attitude is more important.

Unless Australia produce the intensity missing in Perth, the changes will not make a scrap of difference. Australia did not use their heads ...

Ejecting a few trundlers may help to concentrate minds, and in this case will tighten the attack. But it does not confront the core problem, namely the underperformance of the senior players. Matthew Hayden, Andrew Symonds, Ricky Ponting, Brett Lee and company have been out of sorts since last year's somewhat contentious SCG Test match, and it is high time they recovered their poise. These blokes are the hard core of the team, but they are playing sucker cricket.

Ponting called some of his team-mates “passengers” following the loss. The Australian’s Peter Lalor travelled with them to Melbourne.

Ron Reed says in the Herald Sun the Boxing Day Test is now a guaranteed blockbuster.

In the Courier Mail Robert Craddock writes about Australia’s loss of psychological advantage over South Africa.

Australia are so unsettled that the side for the Boxing Day Test will be the 14th consecutive changed team. And the one after that will probably change as well in Sydney. And then there will be further changes for the South African tour.

Alex Brown wonders in the Sydney Morning Herald about the future of Matthew Hayden.

I am faced with a dilemma, caught in a struggle, on the one side of which lies my "responsibility" to the nation and the other to cricket and its followers, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.

As a citizen of the world, I think India should go to Pakistan to play cricket just as England came here to do the same. It was, as is being said, to prove a point and pass on a message that the best way to defeat the designs of terrorists is to not play into their hands by being terrorised.

As an Indian citizen whose identity is being hijacked by those in power, just as it must be in Pakistan, I may have no choice but to side with those who believe that to punish the wrongdoings of a state you have to punish its people as well.

Fazeer Mohammed, writing in the Trinidad and Tobago Express, lauds Graeme Smith for his inspirational leadership in his team’s record run-chase against Australia in Perth, particularly because it came amid deeper, more serious off-field issues, such as the debate regarding Cricket South Africa’s transformation policy, affecting cricketers in his country.

Stand in one position long enough at any cricket venue in South Africa and sooner or later someone comes by muttering something about the perpetuation of injustice, about whites refusing to let go of undeserved privileges, or, more specifically, about Smith being a classic example of the strength of the establishment mafia in that he has been fast-tracked through the system at the expense of more deserving players of colour. .........................
To stay focussed on getting the job done on the field in the midst of so many deeper issues that can hardly be dismissed as mere distractions, Graeme Smith has shown the sort of leadership that we yearn for in the Caribbean.

	The clock's ticking for Ian Bell © AFP

It hasn't been the best of winter tours for England but their fightback on the third day in Mohali was quite a welcome relief. However, the reputations of Monty Panesar, Ian Bell and Steve Harmison are on the line and Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores will be anxiously computing the pluses and minuses of a chastening winter before the team is picked for the West Indies tour, writes Simon Wilde in the Times.

Bell’s character as much as his technique is under scrutiny. If he doesn’t make runs here, he could lose his place for the Caribbean to Michael Vaughan. The former England captain hasn’t done anything on the field to merit a recall but Pietersen and others are thought to be keen to have him back

In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley is equally worried about Bell's form and says the ghosts of Mark Ramprakash and Graeme Hick are starting to haunt England's No.3.

But he still contrives to look less like a world-class batsman when he goes to the wicket than a wolf cub about to sing the pack mantra ("I'm a wolf cub, I'm a wolf cub, I'm a wolf cub yes I am and I'd rather be a wolf cub than I'd be a pot of jam" for those who have forgotten). This is demonstrated in his play.

In the Guardian, Vic Marks feels Andrew Flintoff's half-century was more significant compared to Pietersen's ton, especially after he had grown increasingly desperate about his lack of runs.

	Carry on smiling, and the world will smile with you © Getty Images

So why should we like Iain O'Brien so much? Chris Rattue in the New Zealand Herald lists out several reasons why we should treasure such a charming character with a decent handle on life.

It's that infectious grin at the corner of his mouth and an open nature that draw you in. They are such a breath of fresh air in a world of sport where the mumbling of the precocious and the precious dominate.

In the same paper, David Leggat writes that O'Brien happens to be among the first names Daniel Vettori puts on his Test line-up these days because of the air of confidence he brings to the dressing room.

Robert Craddock writes in the Courier Mail about the poor attitude from the Australians during the defeat in Perth.

The message booming out to Australia after losing the unloseable Test match is that some key players are overrated, lacking form or too arrogant for their own good. And some, like captain Ricky Ponting, need to have a look at themselves and the damage that negative body language can do when the team has been driven on to the back foot.

South Africa were simply magnificent. On previous tours we have mocked and criticised them for being chokers and underachievers ... and they come out and make fools of the ghouls by producing a victory to rate with any ever achieved on Australian soil.

In the Daily Telegraph Craddock says only eight players have safe spots for the Ashes tour.

The Australian’s Peter Lalor looks at the plight of Brett Lee, who will be in the squad for Melbourne, but his place in the XI now seems under threat.

In the same paper Mike Coward rejoices over South Africa’s win.

What joy. What pure joy. This was a Test match for the ages; one that surely convinced even the non-believers that the pure game is beyond compare.

In Daily News and Analysis, Ayaz Memon says the classic chases at Perth and Chennai have boosted Test cricket to such heights that Twenty20 is made to look tepid.

What has clearly changed is the mindset of players. Modern cricket, and especially in this millennium, is being defined more by adventurism and opportunism than conservatism.

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) hit a new low when they came across some empty bins for the bids of annual sponsors which included Dilmah, which has almost become a household name in the country, while another sponsor believed this was a good opportunity to exploit the SLC and make them reconsider a bid for their merchandise. SR Pathiravithana, in the Sri Lankan daily, the Sunday Times takes a look at how the global crunch has hit Sri Lankan cricket, reflecting on the board's ironic attitude and how it has contributed towards the destabilization of the sport in country as well.

	Restrained reactions from Rahul Dravid after scoring his century © Getty Images

You get on in years, you learn, you change. You're no more the man you were, say, in 2001. That's very much true for Rahul Dravid.

Nearly eight years ago in Kolkata, Dravid scored a brilliant century against Australia – though put into the shade by a bigger innings from VVS Laxman – and celebrated with a vengeance. He took off his helmet, brandished his bat and poked it, without much kindness on his face, towards the press box.

This time around in Mohali, when he got to his century, though, a happier Dravid could have been expected; but his reaction was restrained. Rohit Mahajan in Outlook explains why he's no more the man he once was.

The subdued reaction did not go unnnoticed, as Achint Gupta in Espnstar.com recounts the dab down fine-leg off James Anderson, as Rahul Dravid was off to one of the most significant single he has taken.

Probably, all the hue and cry around him leading up to the Test match had made him numb or it was just that Dravid knew that he always had it in him. With this century, he ensured that those who haven't ever experienced ‘been-there-done-that' situations, never utter a word about brushing aside cobwebs.

Almost everybody in the Indian team curerntly has tasted the sweet flavour of each other's success; maybe, that was really the missing piece in the jigsaw called Indian cricket. Bobili Vijay Kumar in his column in the Times of India writes on how the turnaround was brought about.

There are tales, and then there are tales, one more incredible than the other, about Virender Sehwag.
Shane Warne narrates a delectable one in his recent book. Playing for Leicestershire against Middlesex, Sehwag found Abdul Razzaq reverse-swinging the ball alarmingly.

He called his batting partner Jeremy Snape over and said he had a plan. "We must lose this ball," Sehwag said matter-of-factly. Next over, Viru smashed the ball clean out of the ground. The ball was lost. The replacement ball would, obviously, not reverse right away. "We're all right for one hour," he told the non-striker, who told Warne. Mission accomplished.

Welcome to a distinctive ethos of cricket that is gaining fans with every cut, drive and loft. Rohit Mahjan looks at the concept called Sehwagism.

It means that its practitioner takes the rule book, tears it up, and traduces every principle. Implicit in this credo is the greatest possible belief in your own abilities, and none for your foe's record or reputation. It involves making choices and sticking to them. It means not allowing kindness to trespass between you and the bowler.

Two great batsmen of this generation are clinging on after glittering careers - Matthew Hayden and Rahul Dravid. A big knock may not save their careers but at least it will allow them a dignified exit, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian. He adds that if Hayden opts to call it a day after the Sydney Test against South Africa, he will be regarded with greater affection beyond Australia.

It is tempting to stereotype Hayden. But how do you marry the born-again Christianity with the ruthless sledging of Graeme Smith in the South African's first Test? He has the swagger of a bully. Hayden has been one of the most intimidating batsmen of his era, but also one of the least endearing. So when his powers are on the wane there is a dearth of sympathy outside of Australia.

In the same paper, Mike Brearley feels England missed the trick by not picking Steve Harmison, and that James Anderson should have been dropped as he doesn't usually swing for long in India and rarely reverse-swings the old ball.

As to Harmison, he may at times give an impression of languidness, but I am not sure his attitude is different from how he was when top of the world rankings. It is a mannerism, rather than a potentially contagious down-heartedness. At Chennai, apart from feeding Virender Sehwag's cut shots in the second innings, he looked as likely as anyone to get a wicket, causing Sachin Tendulkar discomfort with the short ball.

In the Sunday Times, Simon Wilde writes that the England batsmen are stuck in the slow lane and it's rather ironic that many of them fail to mirror Pietersen's aggressive style. He says there's plenty to be learnt by watching Virender Sehwag's approach to Test cricket.

It is no coincidence that the three best teams in the world today each possess such audacious openers. It is what makes them capable of turning matches around. It is also no coincidence that this is the type of player England lack — and have done since Marcus Trescothick retired.

Robert Craddock writes in the Sunday Telegraph that Graeme Smith, who scored 108 in South Africa’s second innings in Perth, is as tough as a half-chewed piece of biltong.

In an international cricket world stocked with dud teams and over-rated players, it is a joy to witness an old-fashioned, blood-and-guts warrior like Graeme Smith. You don't have to love Smith, but it is impossible not to admire him ...

From the time he took to the crease, earnestly chewing gum and sweating profusely as he always does, he had the look of a man taking it upon himself to shepherd his side towards a total history suggested was nigh on impossible.

Tim Lane, writing in the Sunday Age, says Mitchell Johnson’s eight-wicket haul in Perth was an example of what makes the traditional game so compelling.

These days there is so much more sport available, almost 365 days of the year, yet each Test match brings a life of its own to the ones we lead. When something like Johnson's 5 for 2 from 21 balls happens, the old game, whose future is constantly under question, bursts into life once again.

In the Sunday Telegraph Kerry O’Keeffe, the former Test spinner, says Johnson will lead the attack to England next year.

Some team nick-names grow on you, but there are those that don't. The New Zealand Herald's David Leggat wants to know what's wrong with being called the New Zealand cricket team.

The other day in a conversation with New Zealand seamer Iain O'Brien, he spoke of what it means to be known as a test cricketer. "Every day is a dream come true. To call myself a test cricketer is pretty cool," he said. And I'll bet if he was asked how he wanted to be known, it would be as a New Zealand test cricketer, not a Black Caps cricketer. To be fair, most of his teammates most likely privately feel the same.

	Indian team's own designated head of security © Getty Images

Watching Dravid bat remains an occupation for the connoisseur. Unlike Virender Sehwag, he pays the bowler due respect at all times and by the time he walked off, with 65 to his name, it was hard not to calculate what Sehwag might have scored had he and not Dravid batted for 205 balls. The answer was 160. Oh well.

The high-security surroundings were a fitting environment for the Indian team's own designated head of security, Rahul Dravid, to prosper, writes Simon Hughes in the Daily Telegraph.

He would make a highly efficient guard, treating the ball as an intruder, an individual without the correct pass, that must be regarded with the utmost suspicion and generally repelled at all costs.

Vic Marks writes in the Guardian that the Mohali pitch looks like a fast bowlers' graveyard unless reverse-swing comes into play.

On a slow surface with little turn on offer, Pietersen dispensed with the bat/pad and silly point. Instead he wanted to throttle the batsmen with a ring of seven fielders saving the single. This felt the correct strategy and represented a fresh flexibility from the England camp. Unfortunately another glance at the scoreboard suggests it didn't work. Why? Well there are at least three reasons. Panesar regularly overpitched in his first spell, which scuppered the throttling process for a while; Dravid has limitless patience and Swann was plain unlucky. Swann teased Gambhir cleverly. On 70 the tenacious little left-hander offered a hard chance to Paul Collingwood at slip, which refused to stick; on 72 Daryl Harper unaccountably denied Swann's increasingly desperate lbw appeal.

In the Independent Andrew Flintoff chats with Angus Fraser about his decision to return to India, the first Test in Chennai, the security guard outside his hotel room and bowling to Sachin Tendulkar.

As 2008 comes to an end, Kadambari Murali Wade in the Hindustan Times has her wishlist for the BCCI and hopes the world's richest cricket body will wake up and address five pressing issues, including better TV production and having a 24-hour helpline for handling player stress.

You talk of transparency and accountability. So we ask you this --- are you really looking closely at what your state associations do with the double digit crores each gets annually as a share of TV rights, etc? Have you checked on the membership clauses, and how many relatives, even the personal staff of a secretary/president of an association, are voting members? Don't you find it strange that certain state units dole out almost monthly salaries in the range of Rs 50,000-100,000 as D.A. to their office-bearers? Or that others have elections after years? Or does nothing matter more than doling out favours for votes?

	Matthew Hayden desperately needs to score big © Getty Images

Matthew Hayden endured agonies during his brief and unconvincing stint at the WACA Ground. Desperately needing to produce a convincing innings to rid his mind of doubt and secure his place for the next few matches, he searched for his game and returned empty handed, says Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Often the veteran opener seemed to be beaten for pace as the speedsters bent their backs. Wisely, the tourists did not give him opportunities to move back to assess the delivery. Throughout they harried and hurried him, snapping at his heels like a pesky terrier. In his best years Hayden always had time to play his strokes. Only in his youth did he look stiff and slow and then observers concluded that he lacked the speed of wit and foot to score heavily in this company. It was a mistaken diagnosis. Then Hayden was petrified into inactivity. Perhaps history is repeating itself.

In the Australian Mike Coward writes it was much too easy to look away from Hayden on the third day. Robert Craddock also covers Hayden’s plight in the Courier-Mail.

The latest Stanford bombshell has raised questions over the deal approved by Giles Clarke, but as the ECB elections approach, his ability to bring in money to the coffers may save him, writes Paul Weaver in the Guardian.

When Giles Clarke looks in the mirror he is, like Snow White's stepmother one senses, not displeased with the view. And when a mirror is not at hand there is always Sir Allen Stanford. Clarke, the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, is first and foremost an entrepreneur, a bright gambler who financed his Oxford education playing backgammon and bridge, a committee member of the Society of Merchant Venturers. And in Stanford he sees a man made in his own enterprising image, a taker of calculated risks.

India have called off their tour of Pakistan following a directive from the government and Kamran Abbasi feels as the self-appointed guardian of cricket’s conscience, India have failed their most important test of conscience. He writes in the Pakistan daily Dawn:

The PCB must not take India’s decision lying down either. The matter should be taken up at the ICC and the hypocrisy of the international cricket community exposed — a community that dances too quickly to India’s financial tune, at the expense of less fortunate cricket nations and cricketers. India fought a 30-year campaign to win control of international cricket, and it has more than achieved that aim. Yet leadership comes with responsibilities, and there is currently little to suggest that India intends to rule with wisdom and foresight. While there is mounting evidence that its motivating force is self-interest.

	What does the future hold for Allen Stanford and English cricket? © AFP

In the Guardian Andy Bull writes that Stanford is a swift and ruthless businessman who made his fortune through wealth management, and his experiences so far have left him unconvinced that English cricket is a wise investment.

Just 23 days after the deal was announced it was reported in the US financial press that two former employees of Stanford Financial were suing the company on the grounds that they had been forced to resign because they refused to participate in illegal activities. The case is expected to reach a verdict next autumn. More seriously still, the same men stated that they had been issued with subpoenas by the Securities & Exchange Commission – the regulatory body which oversees over-shore banking regulations in the USA – as part of an ongoing investigation into Stanford International Bank. The Stanford Group denied knowledge of any formal action, and described the claims as "totally without merit." The ECB refused to address the issue.

In the same paper, Mike Selvey writes that what needs examination is Stanford's stated primary motive - the betterment and future development of West Indies cricket.

... there are those who see a wealthy man with an incongruous, slightly batty affection for a game that is alien to the vast majority of Americans, who understands what cricket once meant to the Caribbean and would move mountains to reinstate that feeling. He is, they say, a generous benefactor, a first-rate philanthropist. Then there are those who see only an opportunist, intent on milking a precious heritage to make a few more bucks. He has, they say, been using Caribbean domestic cricket, and his promotion of it through his own competition, as a loss leader to develop his credibility in those circles in which he aspires to mix.

To Michael Henderson in the Daily Telegraph, Stanford's departure would be a wonderful festive gift to all true lovers of the game.

It was an arrangement that could never harmonise, so widely did the interests of the parties diverge. Stanford is a rich man who, in the manner of rich men, was looking to get richer. He spied a convenient bauble in the form of cricket, and, armed with wads of the folding stuff, which he literally waved under the noses of England’s governing body on a day of infamy at Lord’s, he made them dance to his tune.

The Daily Mail's Paul Newman believes that while Giles Clarke's future as ECB chairman may hang on what he can salvage from the Stanford deal, it is the people of West Indies that one must feel sorry for.

Stanford has been playing with people's lives in the Caribbean, giving them false hope that he was bringing professionalism and cricketing pride back to the region. The warning signs were there when he suspended the professional teams he had created in several islands as soon as he made more important friends at the ECB. Those warning signs were flashing like a beacon to the great Michael Holding, who resigned from the Stanford board and told this paper last summer that Stanford was only in it for himself.

Neil Manthorp in his diary for Supercricket, has a rather difficult time dealing with the security at the WACA despite wearing an embarrassingly large which says 'Access All Areas.'

As I step over it, another security guard becomes aggressive and charges me. Harris is outraged and angry. He asks what the problem is. "My job means nobody gets in there!" snarls the official. For once, it's me urging the player to be calm. All part of the beautiful experience of touring Australia, and I mean that. Late at night, as I finish my daily diary, I really mean that it is a great tour. It just has little 'difficulties' along the way.

The Indian Cricket League contract and upcoming beach cricket commitments give off a whiff of superannuation, but Chris Harris is a long way off being retired from the domestic cricket circuit. In addition, he also expects to be named in the Canterbury team for its State Shield campaign which begins with a match against Otago. Hamish Bidwell in Stuff.co.nz has more.

Nayan Doshi created a storm much before Monty Panesar captured England’s imagination. Today, far away from the national team, Doshi is looking to settle his own future, having returned to Saurashtra, with whom he made his first-class debut eight years ago, before shifting to county cricket. Though he’s yet to break into Saurashtra’s first XI this season, he's is hoping for another spin to his story. G.S. Vivek in the Indian Express finds out.

Vodafone's decision to cut its ties with English cricket is unconnected with a desire to save money. The company is anxious to attract more young customers and is thought to be keener on sponsoring music events. It is also keen on sponsorship with international appeal, which is why, for instance, it preferred to sponsor the Champions League rather than just Manchester United. Ian King in the Times says with the UK accounting for only 4% of Vodafone's global business, the cricket tie-up was thought to have run its course.

Cricket sources pointed out the sport in England needs £53 million “just to stand still” and to safeguard investment in grassroots programmes, including the Chance to Shine campaign to bring competitive cricket back to state schools. Ashling O'Connor in the same paper, believes the task may be tough with Sport England announcing a pot of £37.8 million as cricket's central funding for the next four years.

	Monty Panesar needs to turn it on for England © Getty Images

After England's defeat, the spotlight has been trained on Monty Panesar, but before he is condemned to the gallows in the rush to promote Adil Rashid, it might be instructive to compare him with India's spinners. Mike Atherton in the Times believes, in comparison to Harbhajan Singh and Amit Mishra, the difference however, is not so marked.

Although Panesar failed abjectly to do his bit on the final day, bowling 27 wicketless overs, comparing match figures does not show him in the poor light one may imagine. Amit Mishra, the leg spinner, bowled 51 overs, taking four for 165; Harbhajan bowled 68 overs, taking four for 187; Panesar bowled 46 overs, taking three for 170.

Duncan Fletcher in his blog on the Guardian website remembers the hardest loss he had to take during his time as England coach, in Adelaide. This defeat in Chennai was on a par, but in Australia England threw it away on the last morning with the bat. This time, England had more than enough runs to play with. He also expresses concern about the failure of England's three experienced batsmen — Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff.

The same goes for Panesar. As I've said before, it's crucial a bowler understands what batting's about and that's where Monty keeps coming unstuck. Above and beyond understanding the technical aspects of variations — changes of angle and delivery — Monty has to come to terms with the way a batsman's mind works, and second-guess his intentions. But he's just sending down the same ball again and again.

It was the sheer fanaticism for cricket that made Tunku Varadarajan pass the Tebbit Test that decreed that immigrant Britons must not cheer for the land of their forefathers when teams from said lands were playing teams from Britain. In his column in the Times, he explains why he shouted for England in Chennai, after having cheered for India ever since moving to England as a 16-year-old.

S Dinakar in the Hindu says it was an ordinary Test for Pietersen as captain. Tactically, he was found wanting as England neither attacked, nor did they strangulate.

	Rahil Dravid: Down in the dumps © AFP

A lot changed for Rahul Dravid between his two international outings in Chennai this year. In March, after the run-heavy drawn Test against South Africa, he left the city as a man who had made peace with himself. However, a few months older and in the middle of the worst slump of his career, Dravid this time departed with scores of 4 and 3, and Sandeep Dwivedi in the Indian Express feels this is nothing but that inevitable countdown signalling the end of a glorious cricketing career as he takes a look at the period that signalled the fall from bad to worse.

In the past, lots of players have tried to hit out of slumps but Dravid, as was expected from someone as meticulous as him, has opted to take the defensive route. He isn’t hurried in the middle, but he is hesitant. His lbw to Graeme Swann, and his edge off Andrew Flintoff were both examples of a muddled mind caught in indecision.

Tendulkar put a finishing cap on a career of genius when he nudged his way to the century which led India to victory over England via a huge fourth-innings run chase in Chennai. All the more reason for New Zealand cricket to celebrate though, because the first test has been a wonderful reminder that Tendulkar is on the way. Chris Rattue in the New Zealand Herald keeps his fingers crossed.

When he was a young boy, Peter Siddle got stuck in at a woodchopping competition. One trophy and nearly one finger later, the Victorian hung up his axe to pursue a cricket career. Australian cricket can be thankful Siddle still has all his fingers and toes, says Chloe Saltau in the Sydney Morning Herald, because he was given his first tomahawk at the age of two.

Sachin Tendulkar's epic century in Chennai coincided with the fourth-highest successful chase in Test history. It will also go down as among the most significant victories for India in the context of the terror strikes which nearly forced an abandonment of the tour.

	'This one's for Mumbai' © Getty Images

In the Guardian, Mike Selvey writes that it was karma that Mumbai's most celebrated figure should secure a famous win for his nation in the first Test. He adds that the result was simply meant to be and England should not be disgraced in defeat.

It could not have been scripted more perfectly: a boundary to win the match and complete a century. It had to have been preordained. Had to be. And Tendulkar's articulate, measured summary of what it all meant, even as the euphoria reigned all around him and the adrenalin still coursed through his veins, placed it all into a proper context.

Tendulkar and India's masterclass in Chennai won't just bring smiles to a country shocked by terror strikes, but it will also go a long way in preserving the sanctity of Test cricket, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

But what then ensued represented the very best of a brand of the game which has been besmirched by a series of cut price offerings parading as the real thing and remains under constant pressure from shorter forms, which are in truth merely quick fixes. Those among us who counselled further delay before resuming this tour were wrong.

During the climactic moments of the Test, the horrors of the Chennai defeat against Pakistan in 1999 weren't forgotten so easily. Tendulkar tells Clayton Murzello of Mid-Day what went through his mind and what he told Yuvraj Singh to make sure history didn't repeat itself.

"Yuvraj played a shot to Monty Panesar which landed in between short mid-wicket and long on. I told him not to do that"

Andrew Strauss' delicate knuckle-nudge for every boundary scored barely compares to sport's once theatrically rapturous shared celebrations. Frank Keating, in the Guardian, looks back at history's most over the top celebrations.

The first time a jivingly joyous high five slapped into my consciousness was at the Olympic Games of 1964 in Tokyo. I was working then for ITV and remember our cameras, being British, didn't quite know where to look for embarrassment after, in the blistering blink of the 4x100m relay, US true-great Bob Hayes had hurtled through the last leg to win, his three conferes had leapt upon Hayes in midfield to enact this bewildering foursome-reel and, to me, fantastical impromptu routine of turbulently swaying, smiling, swaggeringly melodic hand-slapping highs, lows, in-their-faces, behind-their-backs, upstairs, downstairs and all.

Also read Osman Samiuddin's piece on the same topic.

Reactions from the British press and experts on England's surprise defeat in Chennai

	How do you solve a problem like a KP? © Getty Images

England critics should acknowledge the extraordinary context in which the Chennai Test was played and should also hold their ire before calling for heads to roll, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

It very nearly did not take place. If such contrasting figures as Lord MacLaurin, Geoffrey Boycott and Dominic Cork had had their way, it would not have done. Then for four days England exceeded expectations. Australia, with more ­suitable preparation, hardly had a whisker of a chance of victory in four Tests against India. England had their chance in Chennai but could not take it. But do not question their resolve throughout this week.

In the Times, Michael Atherton feels England didn't do themselves any favours by approaching the fifth day with a fearful attitude. Pietersen made the error of protecting the boundaries a bit too much and that allowed the batsmen to milk the bowling.

In the Times, Simon Wilde writes that Pietersen is just too inexperienced a captain to know just how big a cock- up he made of things, and this defeat will hurt his pride badly.

In making his declaration, Pietersen underestimated India's talent and audacity every bit as much as Andrew Flintoff did Australia's in Adelaide two winters ago, when he similarly thought he had enough runs to be safe. He also underestimated the mental flakiness of many of his bowlers

In the same paper, Patrick Kidd looks ahead to Mohali and wants to see Anderson or Harmison replaced by the reverse-swinging Amjad Khan and Adil Rashid getting in ahead of Panesar.

In the Telegraph, Geoff Boycott salutes England for sticking together as a unit and deciding to play in difficult circumstances. He also praises Andrew Strauss for reading a difficult pitch perfectly.

He came in, occupied the crease and made the bowlers work hard and wore them down. He was very careful in shot selection. He stayed on the back foot and only came forward when he had to. The old English adage of 'if in doubt, play forward' is rubbish. Strauss scored in two areas behind square on the leg-side and square on the off-side. Simply one word. Brilliant.

In the Daily Mail, Paul Newman says England were badly hit by Monty Panesar's ineffectiveness, apart from Pietersen's flawed field placings.

Panesar was unable to produce the goods when it most mattered and he ended up here looking dazed and confused in the outfield, still clapping encouragement to his team-mates but appearing devoid of all confidence and know-how.

Continuing with Panesar, Jonathan Agnew in BBC Sport feels the left-arm spinner has gotten too predictable - virtually every ball is delivered at the same speed and the same trajectory despite the fact that he was barely beating the bat.

For, someone who had held the Indian batting together for almost a decade with his steely resolve and watertight technique, to be now considered the weak link in what is emerging as a champion side is, of course, replete with sadness and irony, writes Ayaz Memon in Daily News and Analysis.

Inexplicably, his form started to wane from the series against South Africa in late 2006 just when he looked set to rule, as batsman and captain, for a long time. It is a moot point whether there was not something on that tour which affected him badly mentally, because clearly, Dravid’s poor run of scores since is located more in the mind than in his technique.

	Kim Hughes was always happy to leave the WACA nets © Cricinfo Ltd

It’s impossible to go to Perth for a Test without bounce being a big issue. Even standing near the nets still worries the former Australia captain Kim Hughes, according to Peter Lalor in the Australian.

Hughes saw Dennis Lillee in a marquee on the same spot where they once practised and began to have flashbacks to a dark place. "I always get a bit nervous when I come here," Hughes said. "The sea breeze would be blowing and Dennis would be bowling and I always thought I was pretty lucky to get out of the nets with my head on my shoulders. Because when he did say 'sorry', it was 'sorry I missed your head'."

If you watched closely yesterday there was a hint of the old days during the Australian net session. Mitchell Johnson and Brett Lee were bowling in the net farthest from the oval and Ricky Ponting drew the short straw. It wasn't pretty and there wasn't anyone padded up and ready to replace the captain when he was done.

The Australian bowling attack has lost its aura following the retirements of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne and the time's right for South Africa to cash in, writes Robert Houwing in Sport24.

Johnson, Siddle and Krejza? Their Test experience against the Proteas amounts to a collective, fat zero. So as much as they will be intriguing “unknowns”, they will also sport no history of psychological advantage whatsoever.

Alex Brown writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about Makhaya Ntini, the leader of South Africa’s attack.

Respected cricket writer Lynn McConnell, writing on sportal.co.nz, says that New Zealand Cricket is in a mess of its own making.

It is all to do with the administration of the game and the leadership style of chief executive Justin Vaughan.

In the years since the radical restructuring of the game that occurred as a result of the Hood Report which was produced in the aftermath of the centenary season, it is clear that morale among the administrative staff of NZC has never been lower.

Already a significant number of staff have left the organisation and an ongoing fiasco over the status of New Zealand team manager Lindsay Crocker is holding the organisation up to ridicule

McConnell, never one to rock the boat unless it needs rocking, concludes by calling for change.

It is time for some real leadership for emerge in cricket or the game is doomed to suffer potentially irreparable damage, not so much at the upper levels of the game, but in those areas below which are so dependent on public support for their very survival.

The prospect of the fallout from that damage does not bear thinking about, but unless there is drastic change then it will be more than thinking that is required.

Oodles of talent, consummate self-confidence and an insatiable hunger for success have enabled Cheteshwar Pujara score hundreds of Bradmanesque proportions in the Indian domestic season. Having scored 130 and 132 in the Buchi Babu tournament, he followed it up by back-to-back triple hundreds (386 and 309) in the C.K. Nayudu Trophy. Though a double failure followed, against Gujarat in the Ranji Trophy season opener, he came back with three consecutive centuries (302 not out, 189 and 176), and staked his claims for a place in the Test team. Excerpts from an interview to Haresh Pandya in Sportstar.

I don’t believe in comparisons. I don’t think you can have two similar individuals. Though I idolise Dravid, I must say I’ve never tried to imitate him even in my wildest of dreams. It just isn’t possible. He is a great batsman, a living legend. I’m my own man and I always try to be as natural and original as I can.

	The review system is being trialled for the first time in New Zealand © Getty Images

Who would possibly want to be a cricket umpire these days? If you're covered by the game's new provisions you invite humiliation from a multi-million dollar video replay machine; if you operate under the old rules you leave yourself open to widespread public ridicule, writes Richard Boock in the Sunday Star Times.

It doesn't take much head- scratching to realise that, if cricket chiefs really want to reintroduce an element of credibility to officiating, it would make much more sense to simply allow the bowlers' end umpires to call for video assistance whenever they felt the need. In an environment in which the benefit of the doubt has now been replaced by a forensic audit, the umpires at least deserve the opportunity to refer the close-calls upstairs themselves. Forcing them to guess first is simply perverse.

The review system is also part of Sideline Slogger Paul Holden's 10 frustrations from Dunedin.

It is there to stop cheating and incompetence, not transform the umpires into a jury of three. My view is that it shouldn’t be used in relation to LBW decisions where there is no bat involved, as there is no certainty around where the ball will end up. The umpire in the middle should be left to make these calls with no further correspondence entered into. The gogglebox should only be called upon around dodgy catches, feathery nicks to the keeper and bat-pad howlers.

Cricket has been rich in human drama and controversy. It is integral to the appeal of the sport. But the invasion of technology has the potential to strip the sport of its colour and reduce the umpire's role to that of a ventriloquist's dummy, writes Adrian Seconi in the Otago Daily Times.

Remember folks, it's only a trial. Knickers can be untwisted, at least for the moment, writes David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald.

The umpiring referral system is having its second tryout during New Zealand's series against the West Indies. The evidence so far? Yes, it has promise, certainly it adds a measure of theatre and undoubtedly it helps get decisions right. But without question, rough edges need smoothing off.

Also in the New Zealand Herald, read Chris Rattue's take on the ground staff using kitty litter to dry the University Oval in Dunedin.

	Virender Sehwag's brazen assault has given India a shot at an improbable victory © Getty Images

A typically meandering third-innings performance from England contrasted with the most thunderous message of all, which came towards the end of the day from the frenzied blade of Virender Sehwag, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

The effect on the mood of the moment was startling. The crowd, restrained, by Indian standards, for most of the match, suddenly hit full pitch with the growing awareness that a miracle was unfolding. The biggest effect was on England, though. The bowlers, Andrew Flintoff apart, wilted under the onslaught. James Anderson and Stephen Harmison sent down dross with the new ball and Panesar was forced into his best Ashley Giles impression, bowling way outside leg stump into the rough. England were on the defensive and panicking, and no amount of faux smiling from the captain could fool anyone that it was otherwise.

Unlike some of his peers, Sehwag has never obsessed over technique or mind games, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian.

If not for his mother's encouragement, however, Sehwag might never have made it this far. His father, Krishan, who died last year, wanted the boy to focus on school and take over the family's grain-trading and flourmill business. Children are resourceful, though, and Sehwag used to conceal his kit on the terrace to make sure his father never knew. Today there was no hiding his unique talent, as a crowd of more than 20,000 cleared their lungs to deliver Cacofonix-like decibel levels.

The cameras caught Kevin Pietersen smiling. Well, that was a much better reaction than swearing and cursing — at Virender Sehwag or Steve Harmison or Alastair Cook. This smile did not express contentment; it was probably designed to express calm. But it did not fool anyone, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

Sehwag now deserves to be properly recognised for what he is: since the retirement of Adam Gilchrist, the most exciting batsman on the planet, writes Simon Wilde in the Times.

Until yesterday, Kevin Pietersen’s team had bossed this Test but it was India, resurrected when Virender Sehwag’s thrilling coup de foudre upstaged hundreds from Andrew Strauss and Paul Collingwood, who could still sneak the win, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph.

England's bowlers, Andrew Flintoff apart, were mugged. If Sehwag played like this at Lord's, a shirt-sleeved constable would probably stroll on and serve him an Asbo for rowdiness in a public place. Someone should have told him that the one-day series is over, writes David Hopps in the Guardian.

Over the last four days England have contributed much more than half of their match fee to the Indian public. They have played a huge part in restoring the Indian people's faith in Test cricket. Their resourceful efforts have set up a denouement of enticing possibilities, writes Simon Hughes in the Telegraph.

Monday's outcome will determine if England can look forward with optimism to regaining the Ashes next summer or whether India, having beaten Australia last month, are on an inexorable path to finally establishing themselves as the best in the world.

	Andrew Strauss was the first England batsman to score two centuries in a Test in India © Getty Images

Andrew Strauss has joined the select club of double centurions by playing his natural game, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

Strauss was not born to hit the ball straight, he was made for the less exalted, but no less profitable areas. But one of Strauss's many enviable qualities, perhaps the most enviable, is his phlegmatic state. During the good days which formed most of his first two years as a Test cricketer he often alluded to the truth that it would not always be this good. It was as if he was preparing himself for the hard times and preparing the selectors for them as well.

Also read the Brian Viner interview with Alastair Cook in the Independent.

On 26 November Cook was on the England bus, asleep, when mobile phones started ringing with the first reports of the atrocities in Mumbai. Pretty soon he was awake, caught up in the maelstrom of horror, uncertainty and fevered speculation that would propel the team home with what some have suggested was undue haste. "Yeah, the decision was made pretty quickly," Cook says. "But it was the right decision, in my opinion. It gave everyone a chance to take stock. On tour you're in a kind of bubble. Being home meant you could give it some clearer thought."

	Everybody hurts: Hansie Cronje © AFP

Hansie Cronje was so desperate to beat Australia that it hurt, Robert Craddock writes in the Courier-Mail. Craddock warns the current squad that “sometimes you can want something too much”.

That, quite simply, is the story of South Africa versus Australia during the past 14 years. Cronje against Australia was Greg Norman at the Masters, Adam Scott at a major, Ivan Lendl at Wimbledon, the New Zealand rugby union side at any recent World Cup.

And this is the challenge South Africa's coaching staff have in front of them this tour - rousing their side to peak performance but somehow steadying them so they don't snatch at victory and stumble like so many South Africa teams before them.

Peter Siddle has been recalled to the Test squad and the Age’s Chloe Saltau speaks to him about his rise.

Damien Fleming writes in a column in the same paper that genuine pace with late swing is kryptonite for Australia’s batsmen.

In the Australian Malcolm Conn looks at Graeme Smith, a captain who has relaxed since being full of bravado three years ago.

Barend Prins in iafrica.com dissects the captains on either side. He believes Ricky Ponting's Australian side is one of the all-time great sides, but not because of 'Punter's prowess as a captain — rather due to the brilliance of the individuals in the team. For Graeme Smith, victory in Australia will go a long way in enhancing the reputation of a South African skipper that already possesses an impressive résumé.

Iafrica.com's Dan Nicholl is optimistic about South Africa's chances of a series win in Australia for the visitors have a settled batting line-up, a pace attack that can be destructive and most importantly, the guiding hand of Duncan Fletcher, who led England to the Ashes win in 2005.

Mitchell Johnson has already tried to talk up himself, Stuart Clark and Brett Lee as equally potent, and he has a fair point — Lee at full steam with a new ball won't be the most welcome of sights for Smith and Neil McKenzie. But the adrenaline and the competition — as well as the sledging, which has the potential to reach the standard India and Australia set earlier this year — is exactly why this series will be so fascinating; that, and the test that is represents for the true measure of Australia at the moment.

The website awards the Sports Rookie of the Year to Ajantha Mendis. Barend Prins takes a look at the other nominees as well.

An off-spinner who is willing to flight the ball, Jason Krejza was selected in the Australian cricket team to tour India from relative obscurity. Australia persisted with the part-time spin of Michael Clarke and Cameron White for the first three Tests, but desperately needed a win in the final Test to square the series and Krejza finally got his chance (at the expense of Stuart Clarke). He didn't disappoint, taking eight wickets in the first innings and 12 in the match in total ... Mendis made his debut against the West Indies in April and burst onto the international scene during the Asian Cup in June. His 6/13 in the final — against Indian players that have played spin their whole careers — was remarkable, with Indian captain MS Dhoni stating in the post-match press conference that even a team with 11 batsman would not have been able to play him on the day.

	Rudi Koertzen is the third umpire in Dunedin where the review system is being trialled for the first time in New Zealand © Getty Images

The new umpire referral system offers plenty to the game, minimising unjust dismissals or unfair non-dismissals and adding a little drama, writes Mark Richardson in the Herald on Sunday.

I originally thought it would not work simply because of the defensiveness in the world of adjudicating officialdom, in all sports. I questioned whether umpires would be prepared to have their decisions overturned for fear of being left red-faced out in the middle. It would appear, following a meeting between the ICC officials and the Sky TV commentary team before the current Test, that the umpires are quite happy to accept their mistakes so long as the right semantics are adhered to.

The referral system in operation here for the first time has generated plenty of interest, but the possible spinoffs might end up being more fascinating than the concept itself, writes Dylan Cleaver in the Herald on Sunday.

You may well see batsmen taking guard on off stump when playing the likes of Daniel Vettori, who possesses a wonderful arm ball that often cannons into the front pad with no reward. An off stump guard will help them get their front pad outside the line of off stump, negating the chance of a leg before as long as they're playing a shot.

In the same paper, Dylan Cleaver also looks back at some of the great moments in cricket history which might have ended differently if the umpires of yesteryear had access to video reviews.

A definition of irony is learning about batting from Chris Martin. And that's just the kind of comment he probably doesn't want to read, writes Michael Donaldson in the Sunday Star Times.

Is Martin upset he's so maligned?
"Kind of," he says, scratching his shaved head. "I always feel like my wicket sums up our whole batting performance `here comes the No11, he's not going to be around long' boom, gone and we're all out in 50 overs and that sums up our whole day. I'm the exclamation mark on a poor performance."

In the Sunday Times, Simon Wilde revisits England's tour of India in 1981-82 when Geoffrey Boycott broke the world batting record but left his England team-mates underwhelmed.

The record came at 4.23pm with a leg-side single off left-arm spinner Dilip Doshi. Asked to describe the reaction in England’s dressing room, Taylor said: “It was moderate. Had it been someone else, we would have been ecstatic, but because it was ‘Sir Geoffrey’ it was somewhat different. He wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, particularly not among the England players.”

	Kevin Pietersen was dismissed by Yuvraj Singh's first ball in the second innings © Getty Images

Mahendra Singh Dhoni's introduction of the part-time spinner Yuvraj Singh was an astute exploitation of Kevin Pietersen's Achilles heel, writes Mike Brearley in the Observer.

There is rumoured to be no love lost between Pietersen and Yuvraj ... Over the past three days, Pietersen has been thrown and reduced by someone he cannot rate as a bowler. On Thursday, he had tried early on to hit Yuvraj over long on, smeared the ball horribly, and was lucky to away with it, the ball just evading mid-wicket. Thereafter he treated him with all the respect he said England have for Dravid, scoring a mere four runs off 34 balls. Yesterday, the outcome was starker. Pietersen pushed forward to Yuvraj's first ball, played for non-existent turn, missed, and was lbw. It was a prime case of the batsman playing the man and not the ball.

England were praised for their courage in returning to India in the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist attacks and have been saluted for the character of their cricket since. But if they are to win this Test, they may have to rely on the player whose confidence is the most fragile and whose character the hardest to fathom. It is D-Day for Monty Panesar, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times.

Panesar has more than 100 Test wickets to his name yet doubts are being expressed about his future, even though at 26 he should have many good years ahead of him. Shane Warne hit the nail on the head when he said Panesar had not played 33 Tests but the same Test 33 times. In other words, he wasn’t learning anything.

If England do push on over the next two days to script a victory at this famous old stadium, it will be India’s fifth defeat of 2008 and a crippling blow to their ambitions of taking top-dog status from Australia. Great teams don’t lose that many Tests in a year and they most certainly don’t lose at home, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Sunday Times.

	The champion and the challenger © Getty Images

Since the retirement of Shane Warne, Australia are no longer the complete team. If South Africa were to beat them, then we can realistically anticipate a new world order, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.

South Africa have not lost a series since they toured Sri Lanka in 2006 so they have every right to be bullish. But do they really believe they can win against Australia? They have never managed a series victory against them in eight attempts since their readmission to world cricket ... In this era South Africa have won just one Test in Australia - in Sydney on the 1993-94 tour. In all, these teams have played 25 Tests against one another since readmission, Australia have won 15, South Africa four. So we can understand how the phoney war is playing out.

We have been here before but there is a general expectation - outside Australia, at any rate - that in Graeme Smith's South Africans a visiting team is about to embark on a Test series on Australian soil that they are genuinely capable of winning, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times.

If they were to win the series that opens in Perth on Wednesday, South Africa would be the first side to win series in England and Australia in the same year since West Indies 20 years ago, and that would represent a significant "double". But they have so many times flattered to deceive that it will take more than a recent run of good form to convince sceptical Aussies that this time things will be different.

In the Sunday Herald Sun, Rod Nicholson profiles Cricket Australia's new chairman Jack Clarke and finds him to be an upbeat man who declares: "Just put a beard on me and I'd be Father Christmas."

Clarke is a likable bloke who is right at home having a beer with his mates. So much so that to outsiders he will come across as "one of the boys" - a vastly different perception to former board members who mostly were regarded as faceless guardians of the game.

But for all the jolliness, bubbling beneath his rotund physique, the 54-year-old is one of Australia's most astute cricket administrators whose grounding has been fashioned to accept the current role.

In the Sun-Herald, Daniel Lane meets one of the young up-and-coming allrounders in Australian domestic cricket, the New South Wales legspinner-batsman Steven Smith.

	Andrew Strauss' century partnership with Paul Collingwood ended India's hopes of a fightback on the third day © Getty Images

As if Test cricket was not already the most exacting test of temperament that sport can offer, as the only one that is spread out over five days, the horrifying events in Mumbai only a fortnight ago have made this first Test even more demanding: and in these circumstances it is no surprise that the coolest and calmest head has belonged to the England opening batsman Andrew Strauss, writes Scyld Berry in the Sunday Telegraph.

Strauss, since September, has had no match-practice apart from three quick innings in Antigua but, as he said after his century, a fresh mind was more than adequate compensation. The pitch has been essentially slow, except on the few occasions the ball has spat (at Ian Bell and Graeme Swann), and Strauss was able to learn how to walk again, before running, by quietly picking up his first 31 runs of the match on the legside.

They must be glad they came. A famous, unexpected victory is within their compass. And instead of the names of the administrators Reg Dickason, Sean Morris or Lalit Modi slipping from everyone's lips, we are talking of Andrew Strauss and Paul Collingwood. Cricketers. This is progress, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.

It has been like the old days, the ones he must have feared would never return. Andrew Strauss chaperoned England yesterday to within sight of a historic, wholly unexpected victory, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday.

Strauss did nothing that could remotely be conceived as flash. It was the innings of a fastidious banker (and there are not many of those to the pound these days), determined to ensure that all the figures balanced precisely, taking no risks, steering clear of fancy-dan hedge funds.

If Duncan Fletcher has been watching on his television in Perth, where he is helping South Africa prepare to meet Australia, he must have been delighted with what he has seen from Andrew Strauss, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times.

Strauss was one of the players Fletcher worked most closely with in his time as England coach and had he still been with the team now, Fletcher would have implored the left-handed Strauss to sweep the Indian spinners time and again. But Fletcher did not need to be here. Because Strauss knew. And he has executed his strokes with such unwavering skill and concentration that he has given England a terrific chance of a wholly unexpected win in this first Test.

In seven months' time the next Ashes series begins and, in the context of a rivalry over 120 years old, a lot more than $20 million will be at stake. Only the strongest temperaments and minds need apply to represent England against Australia, and this winter's cricket – in its various formats – has already gone a long way to sorting them out, writes Scyld Berry in the Sunday Telegraph.

Kevin Pietersen was long since booked in as England's world-class batsman; and on Saturday Paul Collingwood added himself to the list. It was a tough situation, 118 ahead and the last pair of specialist batsmen together, but Collingwood was built for tough situations. If he was called up, he would be flown in behind enemy lines because he knows all the dirty tricks; and if he was captured, he would not so much as squeak.

Collingwood looked as if he took himself back to Edgbaston last summer. Then he was in the last chance saloon. Michael Vaughan had a word with him; he told him to trust his instincts, to play with freedom, to be more positive. Don't go out poking and prodding, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

The former South African captain Clive Rice will go down in history as among the finest allrounders who never played Test cricket. In an interview to the Weekender, he looks back at his career, motorsport, involvement with Kevin Pietersen, a battle with brain tumor back in the 90's, posing 'naked' for a magazine and more interestingly, a duel with Joel Garner during the Packer series,

So at the changeover Tony Greig called his bowlers, Imran Khan, Garth le Roux, Mike Proctor and myself, and said, “You see what they have done to Majid? We will get them back.” Well, just like us, the Windies struggled with the wicket; it was just so damn quick.

Anyway at about 75 for 9, with four balls left in the over, Joel Garner came out to bat. Tony shouted across to me, “I want four bouncers.” My first ball was a bouncer and it was a good one, it was going straight for Joel’s Adam’s apple (laughs). It smashed into his hand, sent his bat to midwicket and his gloves almost to extra cover. Joel just turned, picked up his bat, his gloves and walked off the field.

	Paul Harris wasn't too ‘cricket-aware’ on an earlier visit to Australia © Getty Images

Sometimes you need to look below the “big name radar” to see where the game is won and lost, and Neil Manthorp sees potential in left-arm spinner Paul Harris, who been to Australia before, but not for cricket. Besides his surfing experience, he tells the Weekender about his "friendship" with Dale Steyn:

“Actually, that’s a myth. We’re not good friends at all, I just pretend to get on with him because he’s bloody fast and I don’t want him to hurt me in the nets. Fortunately, he’s very gullible so it wasn’t hard to convince him that we were mates,” Harris says, deadpan.

“He can be a bit hot-headed — much like me a few years ago. I think I know my way around his control panel, I know which buttons to push. He needs calming down more than firing up but there was one time, against New Zealand, when he was a bit flat. So I walked over to him and slapped him, hard! He was furious, really pissed off. But he couldn’t kill me so he killed them — they were 97-7 at lunch,” Harris says, chuckling.

	Will South Africa's top gun be more of a scattergun in Australia? © Getty Images

A lot of hype has been generated about South Africa's pace attack, but former coach Eric Simons believes it could prove to be the team's weak link. He writes on iafrica.com:

The biggest concern is our bowling unit. We have POTENTIALLY the most devastating attack in world cricket, but there is some distance to go before we reach that potential.

Our control is a huge concern — I saw Dale Steyn and Morné Morkel bowl more balls down leg in one Test match against very weak opponents than Shaun Pollock bowled in his entire career. Bangladesh could not punish the wayward bowling but Australia will.

I must, however, commend the selectors for picking specialist in key positions. We can debate whether they have picked the right players but their strategy has been to select what they believe are the best bowlers and not have not tried to fill gaps by giving too much consideration to their batting ability. Bowlers need to take wickets and their runs, while vital, should be seen as a bonus.

Daryl Cullinan, the former batsman, has a few interesting observations in the Weekender.

A feature for both teams is the wicket-taking abilities of their spinners. Paul Harris and Jason Krejza are still not getting serious mention in the media.

Fielding is often neglected in pre match talk, and I think it may well come down to which team holds its catches best.

SA has never caught well in Australia, particularly behind the wicket. When it comes to skills and talent both teams have enough.

Ultimately it will come down to who has the better discipline and who can sustain that discipline for 15 days of cricket.

There have been delays upon delays in Dunedin for New Zealand and West Indies' Test match, and Dylan Cleaver, writing in the New Zealand Herald, has slammed the authorities for their lack of preparation.

At Brisbane, it rained so hard the Gabba was reduced to a lake. The next morning, play started on time at 10am. Yesterday, despite there being nary a spittle of rain since the previous evening, a ball was not delivered until 2.45pm.

That borders on farcical.

Until such time as the Otago Cricket Association or New Zealand Cricket invests in a decent drainage system and super-soppers, the University Oval should not host another test.

Bad weather is one thing, bad resources quite another.

Business is dwindling across the world, and in hard times, industry duly moves away from play, to focus on the core business, writes Rohit Mahajan in Outlook.

The meltdown came even as IPL team owners were taking stock, glumly accepting that their projections were wide of the mark. The CEO of one of the IPL teams would privately admit, months before the meltdown, that the picture painted to his franchise was rosier than it actually was, that the talk of break-even timelines and monetising opportunities didn't have a strong basis. The downturn has now forced several rethinks and mid-course corrections.

A satirical show about Shane Warne's life proves he can draw a crowd anywhere, even if it left Australians uncomfortably aware of the void he has left on the field, writes Gideon Haigh in the Guardian.

In the climactic scene, Warne/Perfect cavorts with a fluorescent stump, à la the cricketer's uninhibited celebration of retaining the Ashes on the Trent Bridge balcony 13 years ago. Treading softly on to the stage, the man himself looked rather more abashed, mainly because this was hardly his crowd.

He was carried along by the attention, and perhaps also by the sheer improbability of it all — that he can still pull a crowd while not, strictly speaking, even actually having to be there. As the comedian and his muse stood arm in arm on stage, indeed, it was momentarily a selector's dream: two Shane Warnes! One could forget for an instant that Australia will next week take the field against South Africa with none.

It was at Lord's more than 12 years ago that Rahul Dravid took the first tentative steps of an epic journey that has encompassed more than 10,000 Test runs and 25 centuries. And as the sand trickles slowly and cruelly into the bottom half of the timer, there is every chance that his final game will also be against England, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian.

These days, though, he starts so slowly that all the momentum generated by the helter-skelter opening partnership of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir is inevitably lost. And all too often a couple of hours of toil is followed by a lapse and the sort of stroke that he would not even have contemplated in his halcyon days.

In Yahoo Cricket,Partab Ramchand looks at India's spin departement and wonders why Murali Kartik time and again gets the cold shoulder from the selectors, despite winning the praise of his county team-mates at Middlesex.

Has the younger brigade passed him by? That would seem to be the case though Kartik at 32 is still fit, hungry for success and as competitive as ever. He is still determined to play for the country and is only eager to be given an opportunity. His overall figures are not bad – 24 wickets from eight Tests at just over 34 apiece. Moreover, he is a bowler in the classical mould.

Adil Rashid's peculiar presence in the England team's travel arrangements to India is an innovative new measure by the ECB, writes Barney Ronay in the Guardian.

What does "*also travelling with squad" mean? England's squad for the current Test match tour of India, announced earlier this week, included the bowler Adil Rashid accompanied by, and asterisked with, the mysterious phrase "*also travelling with squad". This was something new, something thrilling, something pointless involving specialist punctuation. At a stroke the England management had introduced its major innovation of the Peter Moores era.

But what does it mean? So far Rashid's asterisked status has been described as "back-up", "not officially in the reckoning" and, best of all, "also travelling to India" — as though he just happened to be getting on the same plane and then it turned out he was sitting a few seats away so they had no choice but to say, "Oh, wow, it's you," and then make small talk for 11 hours. But they're not together or anything.

	Graeme Swann took two wickets in his first over in Test cricket © Getty Images

England’s resurgence against South Africa at the end of the summer was based on the principle of a five-man attack, and it was this that stood them in good stead again yesterday, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

Having waited a decade after his first tour to receive his cap, Swann needed just three balls to make his mark. Gautam Gambhir cut the spinner’s first ball for four, survived a confident appeal off the second then decided, strangely, to let the third ball hit him tamely on the pad in front of off stump without playing a shot — generosity to a debutant of the most extreme kind. Three balls later, Swann had an even bigger feather to adorn his new blue cap when Rahul Dravid was defeated by sharp turn and bounce. Swann’s celebration this time had as much to do with umpiring as a batsman’s generosity.

Vic Marks describes Swann's performance in detail in the Guardian.

To the next ball the little Indian left-hander, the scourge of the Australians, decides not to play a shot. The ball thuds into his front pad. Swann swivels and pleads. Pause, pause... come on Daryl, come on Daryl… and the antipodean digit is raised, a decision vindicated by the replays ... To the next ball the little Indian left-hander, the scourge of the Australians, decides not to play a shot. The ball thuds into his front pad. Swann swivels and pleads. Pause, pause... come on Daryl, come on Daryl… and the antipodean digit is raised, a decision vindicated by the replays.

Graeme Swann is the sort of bloke most other blokes want to go out for a pint with, the sort of bloke who would take two wickets in his first over in Test cricket with a pile of pretty unmitigated filth, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

It took a regime change – perhaps both in Swann as well as the England selectors – for him to be given another England chance, in the one-day squad for Sri Lanka last year. Almost eight years after he made a solitary appearance in South Africa, and only then because of injuries, he was back. This time he did not blow it. He might not, quite, have made every bus precisely on time but he has proved himself to be a thinking cricketer, and as always a jolly presence in the dressing room. And when an Indian tour came, England, for once, needed a second spinner.

The catalyst for England's jubilant dismantling of India's top order was Graeme Swann. A swan song properly occurs at the end of a Test career but Swann, a great extrovert and not a man to be restrained by tradition, chose to have his at the start. One over into his Test career he had the wickets of Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid. It does not get much better than that, writes David Hopps in the Guardian.

One minute Graeme Swann is a big dog sweating with nerves about playing India in Chennai, the next he is setting off like a greyhound with his England team-mates in tow having taken two wickets in his first over in Test cricket, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph.

In the Guardian Rob Smyth looks at the other remarkable first overs in Test cricket.

Also in the Guardian, Mike Selvey says that he knows from experience that a successful first over is not a guarantee of future wicket-taking riches.

The cult of feedback and questionnaires is killing sporting instinct and individualism and in danger of dragging outstanding young players into the pack of mediocrity, writes Ed Smith in the Telegraph.

I'm all for introducing scientific rigour into sport wherever possible. It would be mad not to. Modern training techniques have undoubtedly made players stronger, fitter and more powerful. Some areas of sport do suit quantitative analysis. But data and measurements get us only so far – the human dimension never goes away. In our computer age, when information is getting easier, cheaper and more worthless by the minute, we should be wary of allowing ourselves to become slaves to what the computer tells us are 'the answers'. Systems shouldn't become a cop-out from judgements.

	'Mate, we have more in common than you think' © Cricket Australia

Do cricket and politics go hand in hand? It certainly has in Australia and history will tell you how. Tim Blair, in an editorial for the Daily Telegraph, draws up some interesting parallels, chronicling the fortunes of Joseph Lyons and Don Bradman and later with that of Kevin Rudd and Ricky Ponting. There's plenty more. Read on.

Rudd lost his first bid for a Federal seat in 1996. Ponting was dropped from the Test team in 1996 after two Tests against the West Indies. Ponting has captained Australia in 20/20 games, a form of the sport many find pointless, distracting and dominated by players not fit for serious contests. Rudd led the 2020 Summit.

But it wasn't always so coincidental.

Australia's stock markets lost nearly half their worth in the last two weeks of October, 1987, yet on November 8, Australia won the World Cup against England. It was the beginning of a revival for the team, which two years later regained the Ashes.

	Morne Morkel © Getty Images

Alex Brown, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, finds out what makes Morne Morkel tick.

Morkel modelled his game on Glenn McGrath, and, like his Australian idol, the South African paceman does not lack confidence. Asked whether his pace combination with Dale Steyn and Makhaya Ntini was the best in world cricket, Morkel did not hesitate. "Yes, right now, we are definitely the best," he said. "And looking into the future, I can see us only improving."

These comments were not intended as boastful, but rather an honest assessment from an earnest young paceman. Morkel's entire career, after all, has fallen within a period of sustained South African success - eight wins from 12 Tests - and the towering 24-year-old clearly carries none of the psychological baggage of his fast bowling forebears.

Graeme Smith is the subject of an interview in the Herald Sun.

	Bryce McGain has had time for other things since his early return from India © AFP

The legspinner Bryce McGain almost played for Australia in India but had to go home for shoulder surgery. Despite the untimely setback, McGain, 36, tells Peter Lalor in the Australian he is enjoying the break.

In between books and rehab he has found afternoons and weekends free to watch son Liam play his first season with a junior suburban side. Dad delights in the young fellow's love of the game but winces at every enthusiastic slide toward the ball. "All I can think about is 'how I'm going to get the stains out?"' McGain says.

With his right arm out of action, McGain has been bowling with the other to the boy in the nets. "He hits me all over the place, we're having great fun." Injuries, McGain says, aren't all dark clouds and he's even enjoying monitoring his own progress.

Phillip Hughes is only 20, but the push is growing for the New South Wales opener to be part of the Australian set-up. Jamie Pandaram meets him for the Sydney Morning Herald.

Batsmen have usually enjoyed the rub of the green in doubtful appeals but the new umpire referrals system will only make batting a lot harder, writes Adam Parore in the New Zealand Herald. They will have to get bat on ball around the off stump and that is going to create a lot more opportunities for other types of dismissals.

In a decision such as Flynn's, I believe the ball needs to hit the pads in line with the inside half of the off stump to allow for the batter to get the benefit of the doubt - but that's not what happened to him. Flynn was struck on the outside half of the off stump - only just in line with the stumps by even the most precise measure. Perhaps the answer may be to only use the referral system to determine if the ball has touched the bat, but leave any other part of lbw decisions to the men in the middle.

In the same paper, Adrian Seconi meets Kern Tyson, a blind West Indian commentator who never let his disability get in the way of his passion.

He began working at FFBN in 2002 and it was there he was able to put his passion into practice. "Every time I went on air I spoke about sport. So eventually I said, 'This is my passion and I need to get into writing about sport and become a sports analyst."

	How will South Africa's fast bowlers deal with the on-field banter? © AFP

Neil Manthorp writes in the Mail & Guardian that Australia is an intimidating place to tour where the people and players are aggressive on some occasions and affable at others. He says the chances of South Africa tasting success on the tour are linked to how well they cope with the “Aussieness” they will encounter.

Ricky Ponting was quick to point out that neither Steyn nor Morkel had played Test cricket in Australia before -- he wasn’t referring to their knowledge of pitch conditions.

Both men will field on the boundary and will encounter verbal abuse previously unimagined, let alone encountered. And there will be more in the middle, too.

How the two young fast bowlers cope with it may play just as big a role in determining the series outcome as any other criteria.

The deadline for applying for the post of Zimbabwe coach is today, and ZC is looking for someone with at least five years “senior coaching” and a recognized Level 3 coaching certificate. The Zimbabwe Independent looks at possible candidates for the hot seat.

On the local front, the last two national coaches, Kevin Curran and Robin Brown, meet the requirements… The only former player with the right credentials who has maintained some sort of links with Zimbabwe cricket is Alistair Campbell, the former national team captain. ... But again, the question is: does he want the job or does ZC want him?

	Who's the boss? © AFP

If Vettori casts his mind back to the latter part of the Trist reign and through the Aberhart years early in this decade, he'll recall Stephen Fleming demanding a greater say in operations. By that stage he felt confident in his abilities, both as the team's leading batsman but also as a captain growing into the job and backing his judgments.

His influence on this New Zealand team is growing. His job is doubly difficult in that bowlers rarely make top captains.

Daniel Flynn's first crack at No. 3 saw him score 95 against West Indies in Dunedin and his knock should come as a relief for New Zealand's struggling top order. One-drop has been a problematic position for New Zealand in the past and in the same paper Leggat looks at examples of players in the past who've graced it, in particular Andrew Jones.

After making his debut in Sri Lanka in 1987, Jones became a highly productive batsman with his own idiosyncratic style. The Australians took potshots at him on his first trip there in late-1987 but Jones did his talking with his bat.

Read Iain O'Brien's take on the first day's play in Dunedin in his cricket blog.

	Can sport do anything to ease the pain? © AFP

Sport and terrorism are two of the main growth industries of the past 40-odd years and it is inevitable that they have from time to time come together. More often than not, sport has responded by carrying on, writes Simon Barnes in the Times.

Sport is a weapon against terror; a weapon on the side of the ordinary, the amusing, the trivial. That is not to deny, still less to trivialise the devastation caused by the terrorists, rather, it is to put them in perspective. There are wicked people in the world, but there are also people prepared to graft out 123 runs in a day's cricket. Sport can't defeat terrorism unaided, but it can certainly celebrate the truth that terrorism doesn't create anything but terror. So three cheers for the England cricket team, and three more for the India team; I hope they both win. But then they already have.

Can two teams playing a cricket match overcome the wounds of terrorism? Can they make the world feel a more secure place? Can they deliver a slap on the face of a terrorist? As my sport so beautifully takes centrestage once again, I debate these questions endlessly, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.

Yes, I tell myself but I am not sure if cricket can bring solace to those that are hurt. Cricket can uplift me because I have lost nobody. I played a game against Ashok Kamte, the brave officer of the Mumbai Police, and we laughed between deliveries. Can I go to his wife and say that Harbhajan bowling to Pietersen is our response to the man who killed her husband? That everyone is being brave, that the show must go on? Which show? ... So let us put the imagery behind us, rein in our adjectives a bit, and watch cricket for what it is.

It's almost 20 years since a student team containing Mike Atherton, Nasser Hussain and, er, Treherne Parker made history — and struggled to get into nightclubs, writes Rob Smyth in the Guardian.

It was a very talented squad — all were affiliated to counties at the time — and Atherton and Hussain were called into the Test squad later that summer. The strikingly mature Atherton led the team outstandingly: if not a boy among men, he was at least a postgrad among undergrads. "He was such an impressive figure," says the opening bowler Alan Hansford, who picked up the wickets of Alec Stewart, Graeme Hick, Tim Curtis and, er, Courtney Walsh during the tournament. "Even then, his sense of destiny was apparent."

	Andrew Strauss used the sweep effectively during his century © AFP

England batting coach Andy Flower was a master of playing Indian spin and he has passed on his secrets to Andrew Strauss, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

But here we could see shadows of Flower in the batting of Andrew Strauss. Flower, the batsman, tormented even the best spinners with his variety of sweeps. At Chepauk Strauss dutifully followed in his coach's footsteps. Strauss swept hard, he swept gently, he swept in front of square and behind. He swept Harbhajan Singh and he swept Amit Mishra. And when he didn't sweep he nurdled the ball in the same direction. Flower has been pining for hundreds — as batting coaches do — and Strauss obliged.

Strauss is not and never will be pretty to watch. Nor is he blessed with an array of elegant strokes, but he makes up for these shortcomings by being mentally tougher than most, writes Angus Fraser in the Independent.

“Best when fresh” was one of Ian Botham’s favourite aphorisms, though it probably works better for the mind. Strauss has certainly been well rested and with the conception of an innings more important in India than just about anywhere else his use of the old grey matter was the principle key to his success, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph.

Zaheer's idol is Wasim Akram, and his bustling run-up and aggressive method often led him to be a called a poor man's Wasim. Not any more, writes Simon Hughes in the Telegraph.

A relatively late developer, having been forced in his early 20s to move state from Bombay to Baroda to earn first class recognition, Khan is ready. He is very much the heartbeat of the Indian bowling now and, judging from the way he advises others, its mind as well.

The searing intensity that had overwhelmed the Australians a month earlier was not evident in India's performance, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian.

When the Indians ran out to raucous acclaim a while later, they still seemed in contemplative mood. It was not that England's openers started like a runaway train or that India bowled badly - only 63 runs came in the opening session - it was just that the searing intensity that had overwhelmed the Australians a month earlier was not in evidence. Tidy and restrictive, yes. Menacing? No.

It would be easy to underestimate Kevin Pietersen's contribution to this day's play. A tortuous stay of 33 balls for four runs was not what he had in mind for his first innings as England captain in an overseas Test. But his effort with the bat was insignificant compared to what he did before play by winning an absolutely crucial toss, writes Simon Wilde in the Times.

To describe the pitch at the MA Chidambaram Stadium as underprepared is more a statement of the obvious than a criticism. Fifteen days ago, the groundsman was working on getting his square ready for Champions League Twenty20 matches, not a five-day Test. Unsurprisingly it was dry and ripe for spin, enough to persuade England to name an XI containing two slow bowlers a day in advance and India to throw the ball to four spinners inside the first two sessions of play. This was not, then, a surface on which anyone would chose to bat second, so Pietersen's success with the coin was vital to England's chances.

What a pity it is that Australia and South Africa no longer play full Test series against each other, says Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald. Although the concurrent cricket seasons in the countries are partly to blame, he prefers a longer contest any day.

Three matches, three rounds of golf, three rounds of three minutes, three sets, three days, three acts, none of it works, none of it is complete. Three matches whet the appetite. Too much depends on the first result because the losers are under immediate pressure. Three is better than two, which is not that hard, and otherwise is entirely unsatisfactory.

...............................................

Test cricket needs to wake up. Night matches, cheaper tickets, faster over rates, fewer silly delays and so forth have parts to play in the revival. But in the end there is nothing to beat a five-match series between two strong sides. Cricket needs to stage proper Test series. The rest is negotiable.

It’s 28 years since Dunedin hosted a test match against the West Indies. Lance Cairns belting the ball into Burns Street, Michael Holding kicking the stumps out. The two tail-enders scampering down the wicket to secure a historic leg-bye. Hamish McDouall in his blog Googlies & Grass Stains believes it was also one of the first times New Zealand cricket showed naked cunning.

New Zealand didn’t want to face all four quicks, so they selected two spinners in their twelve, and then called in a third...the Windies dropped Andy Roberts and selected spinner Derek Parry, whom Lance Cairns sent over the boundary three times with luscious plundering.

Those kinds of mind games can work - the same as leaving documents detailing the Black Caps’ weaknesses at the Cake Tin, the great finesse of John Buchanan in 2000. Make the other team concentrate on weaknesses and you have won the battle, no?

After five years and 34 Tests in the West Indies team, Fidel Edwards is within five wickets of joining his brother, Pedro Collins, as the only such blood relations in the history of Test cricket to both pass 100 wickets. Tony Cozier in the Nation News looks at more such famous pairs.

Also, Paul Holden in his blog Sideline Slogger has a peripheral take on a potential starting XI for West Indies.

The England coach has been in the job for 18 months but has faded so much into the background he is hardly visible. Some think the team is lacking leadership and more poor results in India will put Moores under considerable pressure, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

During England's abandonment of their tour and the subsequent regrouping, Moores has been more or less overlooked. The talking has been done by Pietersen or Hugh Morris, the managing director of England cricket who has been earning his corn and showing his colours for the first time. In these circumstances, Moores has faded into the background and if the team continues to lose he might recede further than that. Do not, however, underestimate his strength of purpose, or his ability to forge a bond with Pietersen.

It is 32 years all but a month since England - in Madras as it then was, Chennai as it is and where they are now - took the series in India by winning the third Test, an unprecedented three straight wins on the subcontinent, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

It was Bedi who fanned the flames. On the second evening of the first Test match in Delhi, a change of ball had seen India's first innings plummet from a healthy 43 for no wicket to 49 for four as the replacement, from Lever's very first delivery, swung alarmingly. Lever went on to take seven wickets in the innings, 10 in the match and England won by an innings. England, meaning Lever, had been using Vaseline all along to help shine the ball, alleged Bedi, including at Delhi, a preposterous notion given the way the first delivery with the second ball swung so far down the legside from the line Lever had been ploughing for five fruitless overs, that it almost missed the return crease. "It is disgusting," said the beleaguered skipper," that England should stoop so low."

	Kevin Pietersen: The most powerful England captain for a generation? © Getty Images

For a virtual war zone - the description of Madras (Chennai) given by Stephen Harmison as he pondered whether to return - it has been pretty calm here, writes Michael Atherton in the Times.

The most tempting thing in the aftermath of terrorism is to exaggerate the danger and the effects on daily life. After all, if you want to drive into Lord's the day before a Test match, you have to let the sniffer dogs do their bit there as well. As it happened, I didn't have my pass on the day I arrived here, but I managed to walk through the gates of the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium and out to the middle without anybody asking to see it. The chief sports writer from the Daily Mirror (and you know it's a big story when the “chiefs” arrive) got in by showing his FA Cup pass.

Would you enjoy watching a cricket game surrounded by 5,000 soldiers and 300 commandos, or whatever the numbers are? Heck, there would be more armed soldiers in the stadium than spectators, and nobody enjoys cricket more than Indian spectators, writes Geoffrey Boycott in the Hindu.

There is one golden rule in India: expect the unexpected. So it was entirely in keeping with a city where all police leave has been cancelled, that the scariest moment an England player has had here so far came on Wednesday in the securest place possible - the pavilion, writes Simon Hughes in the Telegraph.

At about 11am in a small conference room the trophy for the series was unveiled in the presence of the two captains. A posse of photographers and cameramen surged uncontrollably forward amidst a cacophony of shouts of "Over here Kevin!" and "Look this way Mahendra!" and a scrum ensued, exceeding anything the England rugby team have produced of late. For a moment the rifle-bearing security personnel were flummoxed and there were a few alarmed faces. Order was soon restored.

India have more important things than world rankings to consider tomorrow, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian.

Dhoni undoubtedly spoke for Tendulkar and many others when he said on the eve of the game: "The best thing that I could give to India at this juncture is a good game of cricket. That is what we are here to do as professional cricketers." In some ways, there are echoes of Liverpool Football Club and what happened at Hillsborough in 1989. Both tragedies could have been avoided with greater foresight, but after weeks of grieving, Liverpool's footballers decided that the best possible homage to the 96 that lost their lives was to go on and win the FA Cup.

It will be the biggest achievement of Pietersen's career. Millions of Indians will never forget that KP and his England team had the courage to turn up, just as the Irish have never forgotten what happened back in 1973 at the height of those euphemistic "troubles", writes Mark Reason in the Telegraph

That day the England rugby team played the most significant match in their history. Over the previous 12 months Ireland had been crippled by violence. Both Scotland and Wales had refused to travel to Dublin. On 'Bloody Sunday' the British army had shot dead 13 people. The IRA then set off 22 bombs in Belfast on 'Bloody Friday'.

Andy Flower, England's batting coach has been this way before. In Delhi in March 1993 he batted in a Test match, Zimbabwe's first overseas, just days after explosions in Bombay (now Mumbai) had killed more than two hundred people, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

"I think living in Zimbabwe gave us a different perspective. Sometimes I watch our guys [the England squad] and don't quite understand their skittishness about some of the situations they find themselves in." But Flower acknowledges the huge difference in upbringing. "In Zimbabwe we used to travel around with a pistol in the car. On a long trip, say to Bulawayo, we'd travel with a shotgun. We would drive in convoy and we would have machine guns on some of the vehicles. So we became hardened to the harsh facts of life. It is tougher for these guys to adjust to all the guns around."

Also in the Guardian, David Hopps says that Pietersen is fast becoming the most powerful England captain for a generation.

Michael Vaughan and Nasser Hussain were tough cookies, but they were answerable to Duncan Fletcher, the coach. Pietersen makes no such concessions to Peter Moores. He talks of "my team" and he won the argument for a less intensive training regime than in New Zealand last winter. And, in a major political crisis, while Pietersen has held counsel, Moores has remained in the background.

Pink stumps will be used at the SCG for the third South Africa Test and the players will also wear the logo of the McGrath Foundation, the Daily Telegraph reports. Glenn McGrath’s wife Jane died from cancer earlier in the year and he was at the ground for the announcement of the support for his charity.

The third day of the Test, which has traditionally been known as Ladies Day, will now be called Jane McGrath Day and McGrath said he was "blown away'' by the support for the foundation. "It will be amazing to walk out there and see everything is pink and I am not sure how I will feel on that first day of play,” he said. “Jane would have been so proud.”

	Chris Rogers is having an incredible season © Getty Images

There’s nothing like a bit of state parochialism when it comes to pushing players for the Australian side. But the Herald Sun’s Michael Horan has a point when it comes to Victoria’s Chris Rogers.

Can anyone answer why there is not a peep from the "in-the-know" quarters about Rogers? You know, the left-hander playing for Victoria who will take the field against Western Australia at the MCG on Monday as the most productive Sheffield Shield opener in the land.

Like team-mates Brad Hodge, Cameron White, David Hussey and Peter Siddle, the 31-year-old Rogers seems to be just another Bushranger hovering on the fringe, while yet another young New South Wales player is earmarked for express passage to the top.

In the Age Jesse Hogan also writes about Rogers’ impressive start to the Australian summer.

	Keep them gloves handy, mate! © Getty Images

On the BBC website, Tom Fordyce asks Justin Langer, Mike Gatting and Shaun Udal about the things England must do to win the Test series against India.

Preparing for the task on hand is perhaps half the battle won.

"You know it'll be hot in India, so for example you have to bring enough pairs of batting gloves so that you've always got a dry pair," says Gatting.

"Get yourself well organised and you'll have fewer dramas.

"A lot of touring India is accepting what you're getting in terms of the cricket and culture. Accept the sort of fields you're going to get, the conditions you're going to find, and select players who can deal with that."

Read South Africa coach Mickey Arthur's ten tips to win in India on Cricinfo.

	The reason for Flintoff's yes: Team unity or IPL lure? © AFP

In his post on the Wisden Cricketer blog, Lawrence Booth says the decisions and statements made by the England team in the past few days will provoke different reactions from the media. Here's one of the three examples he provides:

Event 2: Andrew Flintoff sings the praises of team unity

Interpretation A: Flintoff’s contention that “one of the reasons I decided to go was for my team-mates” is a glowing endorsement of England’s team spirit and a sign of the increasing maturity of our sportsmen. After all, seven years ago Andy Caddick and Robert Croft pulled out of the tour to India in the aftermath of 9/11. This time, and without pressure from their bosses, England’s cricketers have embraced the bigger picture.

Interpretation B: Flintoff and his mate Steve Harmison could not afford to miss out on the opportunity to impress in the home of the Indian Premier League. A fortnight’s window in the IPL remains open to England’s players in the spring and runs and wickets in Chennai and – fingers crossed – Mohali could catch the franchise owners’ eyes. Would such unity have been on display in, say, Pakistan?

Chris Lewis, the former England allrounder, has been accused of attempting to smuggle cocaine with an estimated street value of £200,000 into the United Kingdom. Mike Atherton, in the Times, says Lewis was the supreme athlete who underachieved; the intelligent man who more than once punctured a hole in his career through sheer stupidity; the warm, friendly face who was also a committed loner, for whom controversy was never far away.

In the Daily Telegraph, Derek Pringle recalls touring with Lewis.

Talented, narcissistic (he once posed naked in a magazine), frustrating, though never anything but unfailingly polite, Lewie, as he was then known, had the anti-social habit of ordering just about everything on the room-service menu, tasting a mouthful of each, and then leaving it to smell out the room. He also owned a hairdryer that gave off electric shocks, but he didn't tell me that until after it had made me and my hair stand to attention one day.

In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley offers another view.

He was one of many cricketers in the decade following Ian Botham's decline who was dubbed the new Botham. Lewis was one of the few who had the all-round gifts to succeed. He could bowl fast and with swing, his batting was swashbuckling, his fielding both in the deep and at gully was almost ahead of its time. But he never came close. Nobody seemed truly to know him in the dressing room. He was hardly aloof but he did not give much of himself; he was not unfriendly but he did not show much inclination to make friends.

	Congratulations, England, and welcome to India ... it's never been safer © AFP

Christopher Martin-Jenkins, in the Times, says it is good that England are in India because it shows that normal life can proceed even after the horrors in Mumbai. On a more mundane cricketing level, it is good also because India’s recent Test success must be helping to put the Twenty20 bubble into perspective.

All this ought to get everyone talking about Test cricket, which is what anyone who understands the game wants. That is not to denigrate the new spectators who have been attracted to the more superficial excitements of the aggressively marketed Twenty20 version.

But exciting, competitive Test cricket ought to teach them that the two-innings game is subtler, tougher, more profound, interesting and satisfying. The trouble is that Test cricket, or rather the administrators who have let it drift on too aimlessly in too much profusuion for too long, have pushed their luck too far.

Mike Atherton, who replaced Martin-Jenkins as cricket correspondent of Times last year, says in his column that a shabby bit of paper, A4 size, with ragged edges as if it had been torn from a notebook in haste, relayed England’s message of unity and commitment.

The last handwritten note of importance by a member of the England cricket team was from Mike Gatting in Faisalabad in 1987 when he was forced to apologise in writing to Shakoor Rana, the umpire, after their infamous altercation. Unlike on that occasion, however, when Gatting misspelt Faisalabad, the spelling and syntax were perfect.

Duncan Fletcher believes England have made the right decision to return to India, but it should never have been as big an issue as it became. If you don't visit India now, you may as well never visit, says Fletcher in his Guardian column.

In the same newspaper, Rob Bagchi takes pride in the land of his father. For those once politely known as an Anglo-Indian, the India v England Test in Chennai is a resonant one, he says.

At Headingley I got my chance to see India in the flesh and my first impressions were far from favourable. Only a year before Iqbal Qasim had been skelped by a Bob Willis bouncer and looking at these apparently frail men — short in stature, some bespectacled and the majority irredeemably square when compared to England's young cavaliers, Ian Botham and David Gower — I feared for their safety.

With many hoping Monty Panesar plays a key role for England in the spin-friendly conditions of Chennai and Mohali this series, how can he go about realising his undoubted potential? Sam Lyon in BBC Sport believes it may appear churlish to pick holes in Panesar's game so early into his career.

While much of the focus has, inevitably, been on the England team's decision to return to India despite the recent Mumbai attacks, the attention must now switch to the real reason for them being here. Jonathan Agnew in his column on BBC Sport believes it is easier for England to come and play these games because, ultimately, they have no real bearing on anything. Perhaps, because this series needs to be played - just as cricket has to continue in Pakistan, too.

If the BCCI has learned anything from this tragic affair, it should be that it needs all of its friends and allies all of the time and, occasionally, that it must listen to them.

In England's case, that means the entirely reasonable request made before every tour for the major matches to be staged in large centres so the many thousands of England supporters can come to watch.

The Daily Telegraph sits down with Imran Khan, the Pakistan legend, and gets him discussing Jemima, fatherhood and the war on terror. Despite his playboy reputation, The cricketer-turned-politician claims he was shy and introspective as a cricketer, with a small circle of friends and little appetite for socialising in pubs after the game.

Player workload is becoming a big issue in Australia and the Daily Telegraph’s Iain Payten uses Ricky Ponting as a case study.

If Ponting glances at his calendar today, he'll struggle to find a spare weekend for a barbecue. For about a year. A backlog of postponed tours and tournaments will see Australia's cricket team embark on arguably their busiest year on record in 2009. Ponting's Test, one-day and Twenty20 sides will play up to 140 days of cricket across six countries and be on the road for a whopping 318 days in a gruelling itinerary ...

Players are currently negotiating with Cricket Australia to cut back off-field commitments for more free time. On the face of it - in 2009 at least - the players have a decent argument. An average worker works about 230 days a year, with weekends, annual leave and public holidays off.

	Shane Warne thinks the musical based on him makes for enjoyable viewing © Getty Images

He was angry when he first heard of the launch of a musical based on his life, but Shane Warne finally decided to see the show, a decision which made him "more edgy, even, than facing Pakistani quickie Shoaib Akhtar on a green, seaming deck". He passes his verdict in the Herald Sun.

I reach the interval and think this is pretty good - and fair - but I'm getting nervous because the so-called "scandals" are about to happen. Buckle up the seatbelt, I think to myself, and count to 10.

There are a few more chuckles and the odd cringe - but not too many, I must admit. Then, it's over.

My life in two hours has just flashed before my eyes. Again I felt weird but, in a strange way, proud of what I'd just witnessed.

Puttivat 'Parn' Poshyanonda, 54, is a legend in Thai cricket. The first cricketer of Thai descent to play cricket in Bangkok, he created the Thai Cricket Club in 1983 to represent the cricket of Thais, while also playing football and rugby for Thailand. In an interview on the Asian Cricket Council website he goes down memory lane and speaks of his big plans for Thai cricket.

I was keeping wicket and didn’t sight the ball out of the trees and was hit in the face. I’d come up from Bangkok that morning and I hadn’t packed a toothbrush, so had asked my wife at the start of the match to kindly go and get one for later. When she came back, waving the toothbrush, it was too late.

It's tough going for Iain O'Brien, both with his blog and after the trying series in Australia, but scoring 36 in partnership of 80 while playing 'Club Cricket' should do wonders for him, ahead of the first Test against West Indies in Dunedin on Thursday. Read more.

	Since Giles Clarke became chairman, the ECB has found itself being increasingly out-manouvered by India on just about every major cricketing issue © Getty Images

Cricket may be the oldest of ball games - indeed the English County Championship was the template for the English Football League - but as a truly international sport it is a mere child when compared with others, not much more than a couple of decades old. Before then, cricket revolved around the Ashes series between England and Australia. Many of the greats of English cricket never played a Test in the subcontinent because B teams were sent between 1934 and 1976. Nigel Howard has the unique record of having played for England only as captain in India. As for Australia, they were so dismissive of their neighbour, New Zealand, that after touring there in 1946 their next visit was in the 70s. Essentially, India, Pakistan and New Zealand made up the B league, tolerated but not important.

In his blog on Daily Mail Paul Newman finds it hard to accept that England have returned to India for the 'good of the game' and 'for the Indian people'.

It seems to me that England are being put forward to be sacrificed, in a purely cricketing sense, in the name of what is best not for the game but for the money men. And for the ECB who, since Giles Clarke became chairman, have found themselves being increasingly out-manouvered by India on just about every major cricketing issue. This, surely, is their way of clawing back lost ground, of getting back in Modi's good books in the hope of attracting Indian players to the new English Premier League in 2010, a commercial necessity, and clearing the path of England's players to the Indian Premier League next April. Not to mention the ECB's hopes of getting a share of the vast television fortunes on offer if and when the Champions League eventually gets off the ground.

The Hindu's Nirmal Shekar writes that Kevin Pietersen’s team rallied with clear-eyed pragmatism and chose the difficult yet correct path which will be a lasting testimony to their sense of duty and professionalism.

In cricketnirvana.com, G Rajaraman writes that to suggest money is the only reason for England's decision is to foolishly overlook the symbiotic relationship between sport and civil society.

What happened to Beau Casson? It’s one of the big questions of the Australian summer after Casson, the left-arm wrist spinner, careered from first-choice slow bowler to forgotten man in a couple of months. Daniel Brettig talks to Andrew Hilditch, the chairman of selectors, about it for AAP.

Far from knowing that Casson was confused, Hilditch believes the left-arm spinner "knows exactly where he stands". "When anybody goes back to Shield cricket, they've got to perform, they've got to be at their best and they've got to be knocking on the door," Hilditch said.

Alex Brown, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, reports on how Neil McKenzie overcame some strange habits to become one of South Africa’s best batsmen.

McKenzie's international career seemed to have terminated in 2004 when, after 41 moderate Tests in the Proteas' middle order, he was cut adrift by national selectors. By then, the Johannesburg native was in the grips of what he believes was obsessive compulsive disorder, and enslaved to a series of bizarre superstitions - including the taping of his bat to the ceiling before each innings and insisting every toilet seat in the dressing room was down when he went to bat.

McKenzie now concedes his complex set of rituals overwhelmed him, and might have cost him his career. But after four years of toil and self-discovery in South Africa's domestic cricket, the then 32-year-old was handed a lifeline in January when called in to replace Herschelle Gibbs.

The allrounder Jacques Kallis is a player Australians don’t generally warm to. In the Herald Sun Jon Anderson looks at some of the reasons why.

Robert Houwing believes South Africa may not really need Jacques Kallis' runs at the moment, but he is a long way from being dispensable just yet. Read him on cricinfo.com

Writing a bestseller is a piece of Christmas cake if you are a well-known cricketer and have a good ghost writer. And more the controversies, better the sales. Kersi Meher-Homji provides a blueprint in Mid-Day.

After a tour of bitterness and rancor, the player heavily involved in the hullabaloo hires an experienced ghost writer and instructs him to be as ruthless as possible.

"Find me a good quote which will make the front page of leading dailies in Australia and around the cricketing world," he instructs his ghost.

"But I gave you a nice one for your Diary last year," suggests the ghost. "Do as you are told," the star hits back.

When India take on England in the first Test at Chennai, they will have a heavier responsibility than usual. After the atrocities in Mumbai, it's perhaps time to look to sport to heal wounds. As history has taught us repeatedly, sport gives us the opportunity to be together, grieve together, feel together and hope together that somehow, tomorrow will be better, writes Kadambari Murali Wade in the Hindustan Times.

On September 21, 2001, ten days after the world's biggest-ever terrorist strike, 41,235 people turned up to watch the Mets - sporting Fire Department of New York caps - take on and thrillingly beat the Atlanta Braves. It was a game that reportedly saw everyone, including the players, go through a range of open emotions - grief, rage, pain, the sheer happiness of celebrating something as simple as sport. It was also about the sheer happiness of being together for something unrelated to death, as many of those gathered had moved from funeral to funeral, grieving home to grieving home.

	Amjad Khan has been very much on England's radar since he was awarded British citizenship two years ago © Getty Images

What Harmison and Flintoff have done in the end is what all lovers of English cricket hoped they would do from the start. They have responded, at a difficult time, to the responsibilities that come along with fame and its various rewards. James Lawton in the Independent believes whatever lies behind England's decision to return to India, it is the right choice and restores respect.

For this the players, who were described as fainthearts on one famously august editorial page when they returned home for their week-long agonising about what to do, deserve a word of gratitude, if not garlands of flowers in streets of the troubled land they vacated so sharply.

The other hope, of course, is that the woeful lack of competitiveness displayed in the truncated 5-0 one-day series defeat, will not descend into new levels of disaster.

Amjad Khan, the latest addition to English cricket's vibrant multi-cultural tradition, has been very much on England's radar since he was awarded British citizenship two years ago. And his selection is entirely justified in cricketing terms and yet perhaps it also has the advantage of underlining a subliminal message, writes David Hopps in the Guardian.

In the Times, Patrick Kidd studies the mood of the England camp during the course of the two-hour briefing.

Another half an hour passed and Harmison came out from the lift with Sean Morris and went over to the desk to sign his bill. Harmison’s face was grim. “He looks p***ed off,” one journalist said. “Must be going [to India], then” another added. And so it proved.

Off the beaten track, Kidd reveals in his Line and Length blog for the same paper how technology ditched him for more than a few anxious moments in his hotel room - any journalist's nightmare.

I got into my room, unpacked my bag and pressed the on button on the computer. That was when my rather temperamental laptop went on strike. One press, nothing. Pressed it again, a slight whirr and then nothing. I kept on trying, fiddling with the cable in the back of it, all the time being aware of the passing minutes and the fact that I had a lot to write in not much time.

Taking on responsibility is nothing new for Amit Mishra. As India's new legspinner prepares for the two Tests against England, Mishra recounts how cricket managed to transform the fortunes of his family and give them the good life they always dreamt of. GS Vivek of the Indian Express caught up with him in Delhi.

“I have seen life in a one-bedroom flat with four brothers and three sisters sharing space. There were times I used to go for practice without money to even buy a bus ticket. I have seen my brothers and parents struggle to make ends meet. All that made me more determined, it made me sweat extra hours because I knew if I made it big in cricket, I could fulfill my responsibility towards my family."

New Zealand’s team to face West Indies from Thursday is not a bad one, but “an odd one”, according to Jonathan Millmow in the Dominion Post.

Chris Martin dropped when he is running into form, Aaron Redmond passed over after getting within touching distance of a century against Australia at Adelaide.

Filling out forms became an issue at the end of John Bracewell’s reign and Chris Rattue looks at the situation in the New Zealand Herald.

Tim McIntosh would have been within his rights to be disappointed and disillusioned with being continually overlooked, especially when you consider the procession of openers through the Test selectors’ turnstile since he debuted for Auckland in 1999. Paul Holden in his blog Sideline Slogger digs deeper.

Hamish Macdougall in his blog Googlies and Grass Stains congratulates the new selectors for showing chutzpah, confidence and courage and hopes the batsmen play with similar virtues after the 'spring cleaning'.

Yabba, the supporter who used to have the SCG Hill named after him, will sit in the stadium forever after a statue of him was unveiled on Sunday. In the Sydney Morning Herald Peter Roebuck takes a look at “the most famous spectator any game has known” – and his new image.

Cast in bronze, he sat still and silent beside the white picket fence under the imposing stand that has replaced The Hill. Hat tilted at a rakish angle, hand providing a foghorn for his mouth, the old rabbitoh watched impassively as the cricketers went through their paces. Although capable of taking most things in his stride, Yabba might have been startled to hear his praises sung by politicians, army chiefs and descendants but he'd have enjoyed the yellowed pictures and re-enactments that brought the ceremony to life.

Peter Hanlon, writing in the Age’s tongue-in-cheek Chucker column, decides to interview Ricky Ponting’s wrist.

In the Sunday Telegraph, Scyld Berry looks back at some key cricketing events from 2008 and casts his eye on the year to come. He wonders whether Graeme Smith's 154* in the Edgbaston Test is the finest captain's innings of all time and whether Kevin Pietersen will still be captain if England lose the Ashes next year.

Graeme Smith and his team arrive in Australia with all to play for. They carry the hopes of many who love to hate anything Australian in sport. Pat Symcox in the South African daily, the Sunday Independent, highlights four components that need to be running hot if the visitors are to establish some dominance right at the start of the tour.

The first is the top four batters. Smith, McKenzie, Amla and Kallis will need to ensure they build solid foundations. Two of the four cannot have a poor series. Smith being the only left-hander becomes even more important in the context of the strategy.

The second aspect is the opening spell of 12 overs. Too many times Steyn and Ntini have wasted the new ball opportunity and allowed opposing batsmen to settle. They need to hit their lengths early.

	'As captain, Kevin Pietersen must take some of the credit for the outcome' © AFP

England players need only turn up for Test in Chennai to achieve a result, says Vic Marks in the Observer. A return to India would be the most positive outcome of a ghastly winter for England so far, says Marks, and both Kevin Pietersen and Hugh Morris, England's managing director, must take some of the credit for the outcome.

We can quibble about the excessive agonising of the England squad and their demands for presidential levels of security. We can speculate about the horse trading that may have gone on after Dominic Cork had warned us that five players would not be returning to India. But the bald fact is that they are going back to India, provided their security adviser, Reg Dickason, gives his final thumbs-up. For that they should be applauded.

In his Sunday Times column, David Gower says so far, so good for Pietersen, but he is likely to face much tougher tests on and off the field this month.

Over in the Independent, Stephen Brenkley says England's top order must stand up and sit in. A Test is actually going to take place so attrition is key for England's batsmen while bowlers with nous must act as leaders.

The mutual pats on the back for a job jolly well done will last until the finish a week tomorrow. This is a return to normality which is abnormal. It is engineered, sculpted to fit pressing needs, it is cricket that is force-fed, battery farmed, genetically modified, artificially inseminated.

Brenkley also feels that this tour is strictly business, because England's return to India will be rewarded when multi-million-dollar IPL contracts are handed out.

Quite unlike their footballing cousins, cricket players can’t put a foot even slightly out of place on the field without being charged for some or other indiscretion under a wide-ranging code of conduct. Surely, in modern sport (and indeed in society as a whole), this is an attribute worthy of high praise? Ryan Bubear in iafrica.com has more.

Yet in cricket, a batsman who merely shakes his head (sometimes almost imperceptibly) after getting another roughie from the umpire is charged for dissent, fined and sometimes even banned! Never mind the fact that the ball was missing a second set!

And if a bowler even points a finger to the pavilion, guiding the dismissed batsman back to his seat, he is hit with a Level 1 offence and a fine of up to half of his match fee. What’s so vile about a quick send-off? To me, that’s good TV!

	Lone Ranger: Kumar Sangakkara © Getty Images

In his column in the Sunday Times, SR Pathiravithana says Sri Lanka shone like a beacon in world cricket until the last fortnight. A 5-0 ODI sweep of lowly Zimbabwe recently did little for Sri Lanka, rather it exposed how horribly wrong some experiments went, says the writer. Neither Upul Tharanga nor Mahela Udawatte batted with a semblance of any confidence, Mahela Jayawardene's form was deplorable, Kumar Sangakkara batted under sever pressure, and Chamara Kapugedera failed to live up to expectations once again.

In the same paper, Ranil Abeynaike says that from a relaxing, noble sport, cricket has reached a stage when it’s fully involved professionally, wrapped in political and thriving financially. Little wonder then, that Sachin Tendulkar has managed to cross 12,000 Test runs, turning a dream into reality.

Sri Lanka Cricket is already in a mess and saddled with a load of problems leading to disunity amongst its members following the appointment of former captain Arjuna Ranatunga as interim committee chairman. Ashantha de Mel's suspension from the post of Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) chairman is further proof that cricketers cannot be good administrators. Sa'adi Thawfeeq has more in the Nation on Sunday.

It is seldom that outstanding cricketers like Ranatunga and De Mel had enough time on their hands to become erudite individuals because their cricketing talents exceeded all of them. Therefore whatever employment they got soon after leaving school was purely because of their cricketing background and to a great extent had nothing to do with their academic qualifications, if any.

In the next couple of days, if not sooner, Indian fans will know for sure if England's aborted tour is revived or not; but Bobili Vijay Kumar in the Times of India says by just agreeing to come back to India, to the last man, they have shown that they still have a 'heart' somewhere in there.

Either ways, there is no doubt that the country will turn every stone to make this trip memorable. People, angry people, will surely turn out in huge numbers: and it will not be just to distract themselves from the pain or the fear; they will do so to show their new we-won't-take-cow-dung-anymore attitude.

On November 30, USA clinched the CC Americas Division 1 title with an 87-run win over the Cayman Islands at Brian Piccolo Park, thus finishing their campaign unbeaten. In Dream Cricket, their manager, Imran Khan, recalls each match accurately and offers a little of the USA's perspective.

Forces of evil in various guises have always represented a significant danger to elite cricketers visiting the Indian subcontinent, writes Mike Coward in the Australian.

While the notion of cricket diplomacy is laudable, countries with a history of unstable government and inured to civil unrest and violence make problematic hosts for Tests and limited-overs matches. And while it is so that cricketers, indeed sportsmen, have never been targeted by those wreaking death and destruction, the England, New Zealand and Australian cricket teams have all been confronted with the outrages of extremists, be they in India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka.

	Tim McIntosh will make his New Zealand debut at 29 © Getty Images

In the New Zealand Herald Mark Richardson believes McIntosh will have an advantage making his debut at 29.

The advantage of making one's debut a little later in life, and I speak from experience here, is you are most likely to be pretty set in your ways. You know your game by that stage and have a sound set of basics you know work for you. You would have experienced form fluctuations and should be able to minimise the troughs by referring to the past. You know you are about to take your game to the next level but understand that it is the only game you have and just have to rely on it.

In the same paper, Paul Lewis reviews John Bracewell's tenure as New Zealand coach and writes that his biggest failure was not to instill in his team the same fighting qualities he possessed as a player.

Craig McMillan is surprised at Southee's absence and wonders what sort of a message it will send to the young player. He also disagrees with the selection of McIntosh in his Sunday News column.

I would still have gone with Matthew Bell for his experience over Tim McIntosh coming in for Aaron Redmond. Aaron was probably our best test performer in Adelaide, so many might consider him unlucky. But after seven tests I'm not convinced he's got the technique to be a long-term test opener.

The Waikato Times' Ian Anderson has devised a 12-step recovery programme for New Zealand which includes asking coach Andy Moles to solve the team's inability to get big scores, find a bowler to spearhead the attack and find players who have shown they are willing to fight hard enough to win Tests.

In the Sunday Star Times Richard Boock writes that though Bracewell didn't have the results to show, no one could doubt his commitment.

But his colleague John Dybvig disagrees. In the same paper, Dybvig criticises Bracewell's methods and writes that filling out forms, evaluating your peers and touchy-feely discussions about how your inner self is doing will not erase the one simple fact about sport: hard work and fundamentals never die.

What the Black Caps need is Mark Richardson. The other night on The Crowd Goes Wild Richardson poured withering scorn on the batting efforts of the Black Caps in their second test against Australia ... he actually used the medium (pictures) to explain several points on batting technique he showed what they did correctly and then showed footage of incredibly crap technique (his words) and plainly shouted with passion that it wasn't good enough because it was "batting 101" and that the Black Caps were in reality just slack.

Adam Parore, the former international wicketkeeper, is picking New Zealand to win the Test series against West Indies 1-0, despite their batting horrors in Brisbane and Adelaide. The two-match contest is shaping as a pretty even battle between the number seven and eight sides in world cricket, which is a bit of a sad proposition, but Parore feels the big interest will be what impact the new New Zealand coach Andy Moles has. Read his column in the New Zealand Herald.

In the same newspaper, Chris Rattue catches up with Steve Folkes, the former Canterbury Bulldogs coach who swapped the hard yards of rugby league for the wonders and mysteries of the West Indian cricket team. Just a few weeks into the gig, Folkes is still feeling his way into a job that might evolve or else turn into an interlude before he coaches league again, his main aim.

In the Times of India, sports historian Boria Majumdar says that England's return to India for two Tests poses a series of critical questions for cricket administrators and fans.

Is the BCCI justified in hastening the resumption of cricket ties on home soil? Are the English coming back to India because money continues to talk and talk strong? Is the resumption an aberration and will subcontinental cricket never be the same again following the Mumbai horror? And are we confronted with the possibility of a racial divide in world cricket with India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka having lost appeal for players from the rest of the world?

England's hesitant cricketers have been left embarrassed by a lack of perspective, says James Lawton in the Independent.

Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison are pacing the opulent grounds of their Abu Dhabi hotel wondering, like Hamlet, whether to be or not to be. To be, that is, at least as heroic as any other traveller to any of those large swathes of the world map that offer something less than guaranteed safety.

In his column for the Hindu, Peter Roebuck says England's decision to return to India is a gesture worthy of appreciation. The heroes of those ghastly hours in Mumbai need to be backed up, writes Roebuck.

In Abu Dhabi, the Times' Patrick Kidd watched England practice at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, and says that sunburn is the only threat for the players.

In the Hindustan Times, Kadambari Murali Wade comments on England's travel habits and Pakistani hospitality. The question is whether England will be able to look beyond their Playstations once they arrive in India.

In the Age, Greg Baum recalls his memories of Paul Hibbert, the opening batsman who played one Test for Australia in 1977-78.

Hibbert came from an earlier and different time and place. He began with Victoria in 1974-75, as an opener. In the first season of the World Series hiatus in 1977-78, against the touring Indians, he made a century — his first — without a boundary, a feat of fastidiousness managed by only one other in cricket history.

The early '80s were lean years, both for Australia and Victoria, but Hibbert was one who dutifully kept the flame alight. He was a cricketer of his time: orthodox, patient, fatalistic, with a distinctive moustache. A left-hander, he was a clean striker who perhaps should have hit out more often, but that is wisdom in hindsight.

"The secrets to decoding Australia's top order are scribbled on Kleenex, scrawled on coasters and written on top of utility bills. Technical flaws are highlighted. So, too, bowling strategies, field settings and other annotations. Viewed as a collection, they just might be the most important body of cricketing work produced in a decade. Finding them, though, might prove difficult."

That is not a description of South Africa's coach or any member of the support staff, nor is it what the inside of some hackneyed laboratory looks like. That's what Dale Steyn's two-year analysis of the Australian batting line-up, charting everything from trigger movements to temperament, appears like. Alex Brown tries to pin him down in the Sydney Morning Herald.

In the Age, Charles Davis says that Michael Clarke's numbers don't add up. Clarke's average when Australia loses is a respectable 38, but the pattern is one of moderate scores, often reaching 20 but with a top score of 81.

Remember Darren Pattinson? Think back to July, when two weeks away from his 30th birthday, having spent the last 24 years of his life in Australia, a roof tiler with just 11 first-class matches made his Test debut for England. Six months on, a younger Pattinson, James, was plucked from the Victorian Bushrangers' rookie list to make his first-class debut in Perth against Western Australia. It's all in keeping with family traditions, finds out Michael Horan in the Herald Sun. Ironically, it was Darren's groin strain that created a spot in the squad for young James.

The concept of bits and pieces cricketers is a thing of the past in limited-overs cricket and it's time to develop multi-dimensional cricketers with substantial skills in more than one discipline, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express. He suggests that India's National Cricket Academy should step up in this regard and hold batting camps for bowlers.

This development of a second skill has long been practiced by good companies who, for example, get excellent software engineers to learn communication skills which will come in handy later on in their careers. I believe cricket is ripe for such specialised second skills coaching. It might have been a hindrance all along when the academy didn’t have either the desire or the manpower to do anything significant.

With a rare weekend off, Ricky Ponting says cricket won't be too far from his mind. There is plenty to think about, some good, some not so good. While Ponting has to think about tactics fr the big series against South Africa starting next week, he cannot stop thinking about the tragic events in India recently. Read his column in the Australian.

Whenever you go to an Indian hotel they always have the same staff and it's chilling to think that the people who looked after us so well may have been, in fact almost certainly were, among the dead. It is incredibly sad that something like that has happened in India. It is a country I have really enjoyed touring over the years, even though personally I have never had the best results over there, I think all the players have always enjoyed the place. It's certainly the centre of the cricketing world at the moment, so the attacks are upsetting for the players and for the game as well.

He says he gave it an "honest shot" but John Bracewell admits his stats as New Zealand coach are far from impressive in an interview to Jonathan Millmow in the Dominion Post.

"I feel as though I've given it a honest shot but in terms of pure statistics or results New Zealand Cricket wanted us to be No1 in world cricket in both forms of the game and we didn't reach that, so if you look at it like that I've been a failure."

The match-fixing scandal at the turn of the decade led to the downfall of Hansie Cronje and Mohammad Azharuddin, among others, and brought home to officials and the public just how big the issue was. Over the past few years it has almost disappeared from the agenda - but hasn't gone away, Peter Roebuck writes in the Sydney Morning Herald. The game, especially the Twenty20 format, is once again in danger of being overrun by bookies and match-fixing, he says.

But 20-over cricket has lured them from their hideaways. Conversations with Indian Cricket League players confirm that the bookmakers are running amok in the rebel league, and it'd be the height of folly to assume that the Indian Premier League has remained intact. These players talk about strange events in matches, and one thinks he played in a match both sides were trying to lose. Others speak about batsmen suddenly playing out a maiden or padding up to a spinner, an odd technique to use in a 20-over contest.

Anyone using statistics, form, or any other measurable factor to predict South Africa’s chances on the approaching cricket tour of Australia, is on a fool’s errand, says Mark Smit in Business Day.

What a tour of Australia by SA is about is raw courage and mental steel. Are the South Africans tough enough? Are they able to gain the psychological upper hand over the Aussies? Are they able to grit it out to the last ball of a Test without giving up? Will they be able to stand up to the enormous pressures of touring a country that is mad about cricket and withstand the onslaught of a media known widely as Australia’s 12th man, they are so biased

Should India tour Pakistan or not? Pakistan may still be at the receiving end of the blame game after the atrocities in Mumbai, but it doesn't necessarily mean that India should snap cricketing ties with them in haste, writes Dileep Premachandran, in the Guardian.

Does the cancellation of a cricket tour make the jihadis go away, or does it merely strengthen the hawks on both sides? What does the average Pakistani have to do with Lashkar-e-Taiba or the Taliban? About as much as the normal Indian has to do with lunatic right-wing groups like the Bajrang Dal. Nothing at all.

He also justifies why Pakistan isn't as dangerous as people think it to be.

I've been kicked in the ribs with Doc Martens as a child growing up in England, been treated like vermin by a thuggish Croatian restaurant owner in fashionable St Kilda in Melbourne and nearly mugged in Johannesburg. Pakistan is the one place I have no bad memories of.

Mark Lawson writes in the Guardian that England must tour India for the same reasons that they boycotted Zimbabwe and apartheid-era South Africa. He also explains how the Mumbai strikes are different from the London bombing during the 2005 Ashes and lists some of the challenges facing England's cricketers when they tour India.

The traditional features of the sport - length, leisureliness and lack of physical barriers between players and crowd - conspire to make it irrelevant in the aftermath of a bloodbath. Of all sports, cricket allows most time for thinking, and the negative thoughts that some of the squad will be suffering can not simply be dismissed

In the same paper, Mike Selvey says that there is a recent trend of players feeling the need for excessive security.

While the England team wait for the security report to give them the all-clear, Angus Fraser makes a strong case in the Independent for tour to go ahead.

If there is one thing in India that can help heal the horrific damage that has taken place it is cricket ... India cannot and should not forget what took place last week but it needs cricket to help it recover. If normality is to return conversation has to go back to Sachin Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The price we may have to pay for international cricket at a time like this cannot be measured simply in terms of rupees or dollars, writes Nirmal Shekar in the Hindu.

Can a starry-eyed kid who has dreamed all his brief life of shaking hands with a Pietersen or a Ponting or a Tendulkar ever hope to proffer his shivering, sweaty hand to his idol near the pavilion without a duty-bound commando brushing him aside quickly?

Can a visiting player who has always enjoyed soaking up the local culture through leisurely evening visits to the bazaars and malls and eating places ever think of doing it anymore, unmolested and unguarded and without a million fears haunting him?

As West Indies begin their latest tour of New Zealand today, Tony Robson's memory drifts back to heady days when the Caribbean's cricketers ruled the planet.Since their acrimonious tour of New Zealand in 1979-80, West Indies have held a fascination for those of his generation, writes Robson in the Dominion Post.

In the Otago Daily Times, former New Zealand batsman John Parker tells Alistair McMurran of his involvement in the infamous Michael-Holding-kicking-down-the-stumps incident at Carisbrook in 1980.

"I saw out of the corner of my other eye that Michael Holding was making tracks in my direction and was 10 inches away from me when he booted all the stumps out of the ground."

Holding, whose nickname was "Whispering Death", never said a word to Parker.

"But there were two other tests left and I knew I was going to get a very warm West Indian welcome in the next test at Christchurch."

	New kid on the block: Phillip Hughes © Getty Images

Australia’s next rung of batsmen are putting pressure on Matthew Hayden and Peter Lalor, writing in the Australian, looks at the candidates, including Phillip Hughes, Shaun Marsh and Chris Rogers.

The fresh-faced cricketer speaks of his wizened seniors with respect but eyes his position and status with envy. Australia's band of opening batsmen with an eye on a trip to South Africa or the Ashes seems to grow every day. Their braying increases with every faltering Test partnership.

New South Wales opener Hughes celebrated his 20th birthday by producing perhaps the most outstanding pair of innings played in Sheffield Shield cricket this year ... Hughes has hardened himself by leaving home at 18. He has the talent and the temperament to go a long way.

Hughes’ performance in Hobart also gained him a couple of marks once held by Don Bradman, AAP reports.

Twenty-three former Australia players have called on the Australian Cricketers' Association's hardship fund over the past ten years. Ron Reed reports in the Herald Sun about the rise in requests since 2005.

Reed says the former Test player Paul Hibbert, who died last week and is written about here, was one of them.

Speaking of former players, the Sydney Morning Herald says Adam Gilchrist and Shane Warne will spend time in the Nine commentary box this summer.

Whether or not England’s cricket team returns to India, the Mumbai massacre kills off the idealistic view that sporting events can be hosted by anybody, Jonathan Harwood writes in the First Post.

In an uncertain world, the idea that the global and unifying nature of sport can be reflected in all the venues at which it is practised no longer holds true.

...................................................................

However, the problems are not just related to cricket in Asia. In 2010 South Africa is due to host the biggest sporting event on the planet: ­ the football World Cup. But its ability to do so safely and successfully remains in doubt.

The problems of the Athens Olympics are as nothing compared to those in South Africa. Even today, only 18 months from kick-off, suggestions linger that the event may have to be switched to another country.

That New Zealand have lost an enormous amount of experience over a short period of time is obvious after their latest Test series against Australia. Former players have breathed a sigh of relief that John Bracewell’s controversial tenure as coach is over, as the general consensus is that the failures of Bracewell and his support staff, in terms of developing the Test team, helped New Zealand to their current ranking.

Hamish McDoual, in his blog, Googlies and Grass Stains, looks back at Bracewell's last Test as coach and says it is time for an audit. Using an appropriate “accountant” scale, McDoual starts to assess.

	Kevin Pietersen is trying to unite a wary England as the India tour resumes © Getty Images

The cricket world is a small world, but wherever you look the picture is a disintegrating one, writes Mike Atherton in his latest Times column. While the omens for a good India versus England are not good, says Atherton, now, more than ever, the game needs something to cheer.

An excerpt:

“Take your PlayStations and your DVDs” was the advice given to this newspaper on Tuesday by a security adviser milking the situation for all it was worth, “because you will not be going out of your hotel of an evening.” If he had his way, you suspect body doubles, lookalikes and food tasters would need to be provided before he deemed it safe to go. Mind you, in Australia two winters ago a member of the England team was seen going to collect his laundry with a security guard in tow. Practise, play, room service; practise, play, room service. It is not much of a way to play cricket - not much of a way to live.

According to Stephen Brenkley in the Independent, England should not have been so eager to go back to India while the hosts should not have been so eager to ask them. Far from being played for the right reasons, says Brenkley, the series is being played for the wrong ones.

A greater cause for concern is the World Cup of 2011, says veteran Indian journalist R Mohan in the Asian Age. The England Test series may be resurrected and run under the tightest possible security cover in what may be termed as safe cities, says the writer, but what will the terror scenario be around an event that is to be held 24 months or so down the road in some of the most volatile places?

When the smoke clears and the dust settles cricket may regret the haste with which bags have been packed and matches cancelled, writes Peter Roebuck in the latest edition of Sportstar.

	If Andrew Symonds was a bowler, would he be dropped for Perth? © Getty Images

Andrew Stevenson, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, takes a look at Ricky Ponting’s “horses for courses” selection plans and wonders about the implications.

Take note of who the protected species is here. Who has been safely quarantined from any discussion of the merits of "guys who are going to be able to give you more in different conditions"? Who's immune? Batsmen, that's who.

Jason Krezja has to justify his place in Perth but not, apparently, Andrew Symonds. The Australian top order boasts a phenomenal Test record at the WACA Ground ... but there are plenty of pitches better suited to the rampaging Queenslander. In three Tests Symonds, now being picked as a genuine No. 6 rather than an allrounder, has made a sum total of 144 runs at an average of 24.00 - way down on his career record of 41.90. If he was a bowler he'd be dropped.

In the same paper Paul Sheehan says Twenty20 reflects the mood of the times and may yet dance on the grave of Test cricket.

Michael Klinger was a useful player for Victoria but has turned into an excellent one since his off-season switch to South Australia. In the Age Greg Baum looks at his rise.

In eight years with Victoria, Klinger made two centuries. In eight weeks with South Australia, he has made three already, including a double. His latest, against Queensland at the Gabba on Monday, he cherished doubly, because it was not made at the Adelaide Oval and so could not be written off as cheap, and because it guided his new state to its first win for more than a year.

	Dwayne Smith proudly stands next to Barbados' flag © Stanford 20/20

Cricket in Barbados is currently facing retribution - a situation similar to the past 10-15 years. Mike Worrell, the former Barbados wicketkeeper-batsman, in the Nation News believes the dismal state has been due to a result of poor planning and decision-making by its administrators and poor selection policies.

The worst effort I thought was in the points system this year. I hope next season will see a revision to what is now in place. I hope that as a body the BCA can move away from the present system of electing board members, to one where the best people can be selected.

Also of concern is the selection of the national coaches. This year on two occasions the coach of Barbados' senior team put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the players in terms of their performances in regional competitions.

Centuries by Mark Boucher and Brad Haddin in their last Test innings, against Bangladesh and New Zealand respectively, have set up the Australia-South Africa series perfectly as far as the glovemen go. Rob Houwing in his column on News24.com believes it is a strong mutual signal that in an expected tightly-contested encounter, both wicketkeepers realise that the winner of their own “weight of contribution to the cause” duel may just influence the overall outcome.

Whichever slots they occupy, both players act as important buffers between the batting cream and the tail of the order. The South African tail is the fluffier one, for all the wrong reasons, which only adds to the pressure on Boucher to come to the run-scoring and maybe sometimes strike-farming party in Australia.

	Trescothick's triumph means similar books would no longer be condemned as second-class books © Getty Images

Ghostwritten memoirs are the pariahs of sports literature and and are often judged by critics who have to stifle the urge to squeeze the words "pap" or "vapid" into their reviews. Rob Bagchi in his blog on the Guardian website believes Marcus Trescothick's Coming Back to Life winning the William Hill Sports Book of the Year is a triumph for the particular genre.

There have been so many produced with the titles 'My Autobiography' or 'My Story' over the past 10 years that I have started to suspect that it's gone beyond a claim for definitiveness and has become the crudest Amazon search engine optimisation strategy. Pretty soon all autobiographies will just be called 'The Book'.

Trevor Bailey is 85, without a driving license, but with a firm opinion that England should be captained by an Englishman. The Guardian's Frank Keating calls him up to wish him Happy Birthday.

Ring back in an hour, he says - he's in the middle of cooking lunch (lamb chops and all the trimmings) for himself and his beloved Greta, wife of 60 years. English cricket's one-time doughtiest dead-bat seems in fine nick, except they've refused to renew his driving licence - "far too old," they said. So, car-less, he was unable to attend this summer the 90th birthday party of his long-time new-ball partner and England's most venerable surviving Test alumnus, Sir Alec Bedser.

Bailey's barn-door dead bat had led to a tremendous surge of national jubilation when at Lord's in the Coronation month of 1953 he and Willie Watson had clung together on the burning deck for half a day to save the second Test and so, by August of that year, allow the Ashes to be won. Complete strangers still regularly quiz Trevor for full details. No wonder, for as the onliest Neville Cardus all-hailed in these very pages: "Bailey's bat was not made of the stuff of which lost causes are compounded. It was a truly great vigil, a stand of noble martyrdom on an everlasting afternoon of immense strain."

England could decide to tour India for the Tests but Mike Atherton feels the series, under the current circumstances, will be a joyless one. He writes in the Times:

Lord’s has yet to be given any indication that its requirements are deemed disproportionate, but while its desire to do everything possible to ensure the safety of its players is understandable, the fact that neither cricket nor cricketers have been targeted on the sub- continent gives rise to the suspicion that the Mumbai atrocities have resulted in a high degree of paranoia among England players and officials.

In the same paper Richard Hobson talks to a former counter-terrorism expert who believes England should not return to India because though a targeted attack on the players is unlikely, they could find themselves caught up in a more general attack.

“Although what happened in Bombay was tragic, these acts of terrorism are not isolated,” the expert said. “Over the past two or three years it has been a regular feature of life in India. People are shocked by the events of last week, but I am not. It is a volatile, uncertain country and if anybody thinks that one part is safer than any other, they are living in a dreamworld.”

Nasser Hussain believes part of being an international cricketer these days is the realisation that you could be a terrorist target. He writes in the Daily Mail that England should tour India because the country is so important to cricket and to the Indian people that the players owe it to them to go back and play, as long as every possible precaution has been taken.

When we toured India in 2001 under my captaincy just after the attacks on New York I had no problem accepting the decisions of Robert Croft and Andrew Caddick not to tour. I told them it would not be held against them and it should not be held against Andrew Flintoff, Steve Harmison or any other England players if they decide they are not prepared to go. On that occasion, Mark Ramprakash stood up at a team meeting and said we should go because we were in just as much danger in London as in India. I agreed. I felt no extra pressure as captain because I was desperate to tour India, partly as my dad was Indian.

Iafrica.com's Rob Peters looks back at occasions in the past when sports and politics colllided.

Robert Craddock, writing in the Daily Telegraph, comes up with a left-field solution for lifting the over-rates, which have become a severe problem for Australia.

Of all the measures being contemplated, the one that can achieve the result of quickening up the game without totally destroying its fabric is to send a fieldsman off while the team's over-rate remains at an unsatisfactory low. Sounds dramatic? Maybe.

But the time has come for drastic action and to address the problem as it happens. Over-rate fines to modern cricket captains are like parking fines to a rich businessmen. They are accepted with furrowed brows and mild frustration and are forgotten about the minute they are paid.

In the same paper Iain Payten looks at how much the Australians have been fined since Shane Warne stopped playing.

Since Warne's 2007 departure, Australia's Test side has been slugged with A$130,000 worth of fines for slow over rates. The captain Ricky Ponting has personally had to cough up $23,200 to the ICC after getting fined in five of 16 Tests without Warne - by far the worst record in world cricket.

Writing in The Guardian, Andy Bull believes England should go back to India, and cites the example of the New York Mets baseball team, who resumed playing only weeks after the September 11 attacks, and embarked on a winning run that earned them the nickname "Miracle Mets".

They won, in fact, each of their first six games after 9/11, thrilling their fans and delighting the city as they did so. Back pages were again filled with headlines about the 'Miracle Mets'. Their hitter Mike Piazza commented: "we expect to win every game right now ... because we're playing completely relaxed, even during what should be the most tense of circumstances."

Not just the annual day out with the family when she was young, the Taj Mahal Hotel also provided the setting for Sharda Ugra's grand plan to interview Imran Khan. In her blog on the India Today website, she checks in to a world of happy memories as she recounts how she used the Taj interviews - seven over two years - to beef up her CV and land her first job as sports reporter.

The Imran Khan interview was sold to the Afternoon Despatch & Courier newspaper for which we got paid Rs 200. This financial windfall was celebrated with a lavish gesture we believed emperors would struggle to match. We ascended the marble steps of the Taj foyer (more jauntily than we had ever done), walked right past our favourite lobby sofas, past what we imagined to be the astonished posse of security and sashayed into the Shamiana.

Paul Holden in his blog Sideline Slogger sums up the second Test between Australia and New Zealand in Adelaide and is very relieved it wasn't a three-match series.

Neil Manthorp, in Supercricket, fumes at Cricket Australia's unfair accreditation terms on news agencies covering international games and questions the wisdom of the decision.

But Cricket Australia has now decided that, such is the value of their product, everybody must pay them direct. Uhh? Is Australian cricket really that good? Can we really not live from day to day without paying them? And if they continue to lock out the agencies which have been around for close to a century, will they really be able to control the flow of information out of press conferences concerning the game? I doubt it.

	The need of the hour is not only tight security at the grounds but careful choice of venues © Getty Images

The need of the hour is not only tight security at the grounds but careful choice of venues. The BCCI has been playing populist politics. On paper it seems to be a good idea to take cricket to unconventional places. However, such a strategy exposes cricketers to risks because of divergent standards of arrangement and quality of law enforcement. In some States, the police forces are not exactly known for their professional skills ... Fundamental, of course, is strict access control to dressing rooms and hotel rooms. The Oval has a permanent space for a control room for the Met. Can the BCCI make a similar provision at least in the major venues? It will help infuse confidence in foreign teams. A full-time chief security officer could guide the BCCI in what has become a specialised discipline.

Arthur Turner, in Sport24, writes that the ICC needs to be more pragmatic in a security crisis and he gives the example of its handling of the Champions Trophy.

The tournament should have been rescheduled immediately in another country once it became obvious that Pakistan was not safe to host the tournament. By postponing it they have just created confusion and compounded the future scheduling problems of international cricket.

The Guardian's Richard Williams believes the swiftness of England's return home after last week's attacks in Mumbai suggests the party lacks the sort of authoritative leadership capable of advancing preferable options.

I don't think they're fainthearts. I just think they're indifferently led and prey to the delusions that tend to affect the behaviour of English sportsmen when they enter the celebrity bubble. If the Foreign Office says that the situation is too dangerous, then of course they should stay at home. But I can't help remembering the absurd precautions taken to guard England's footballers during the last World Cup - the helicopter escorts, the squads of mounted police and the street closures that caused inconvenience to bemused German motorists - and I wonder about the quality of the advice the cricketers are receiving from those whose careers are, to some extent, dependent on the existence of a threat.

The editors at Indian Express believe sport is the epitome of the ordinariness, the joy and security of everyday life and in India that representative sport is cricket so it is only fitting the England team return for the Tests.

If Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison choose to opt out of the Test series they can kiss goodbye to the millions pending in the Indian Premier League in-tray, writes Kevin Garside in the Telegraph.

Do Flintoff et al imagine that in five months’ time, India will be any less vulnerable to terrorist episodes, any less of a target? Or that an efficient anti-terror mechanism might be fashioned by the Indian authorities by April? No chance.

Also read Sambit Bal's views on why India must tour Pakistan on cricinfo.com.

Pause a moment before calling India's ODI series win against England a triumph for the opposition was a rag-tag bunch with only one class one-day batsman in Kevin Pietersen, writes V Gangadhar in the Outlook magazine.

During his frequent injury-induced absences from the game, Flintoff appears to have forgotten the art of batting. Bell, Collingwood, Owais Shah, Bopara, Prior and the rest made guest appearances at the crease and disappeared. On the bowling front, James Anderson conceded more than six runs per over and after four matches was yet to take a wicket. And he is their opening bowler! ... Add to their troubles the slow turners, sight screens which seldom worked properly, light which faded around 4 pm, the stupid refusal to switch on the lights and get on with the game.

Jonathan Millmow, writing on stuff.co.nz, watches a child on the Adelaide Oval provide the best batting of the fourth morning of the second Test, which New Zealand lost by an innings.

The wee bloke played every shot in the book over the space of five minutes but he kept the ball on the carpet, ran like the wind and had his socks pulled up. He looked every bit a cricketer, something no one in the New Zealand top order did yesterday. Even accounting for their inexperience and the quality of opposition, New Zealand's specialist batsmen were an embarrassment to their country.

Greg Baum says in the Age international cricket must resume in India as soon as is decently and sensibly possible.

At a wretched time such as India is now enduring, sport has a role to play. It did after after World War II in England, it did after the tsunami in Sri Lanka and it does now. It was not cricket's fault that the bullets and bombs rained down in Mumbai, but cricket can help to begin the process of soothing and rebuilding. India needs to play cricket now and it needs the world to play with it.

In the Daily Telegraph Iain Payten also looks at the situation in India.

Leonard McDonnell, a freelance writer at the Sydney Morning Herald, asks is it any wonder that Test cricket is dying in today's remote-controlled, fast-paced, multi-channelled age of jump cuts, mouse clicks, and mobile media?

A baggy green worn by Don Bradman on the 1948 Ashes tour has an estimated auction price of between A$600,000 to $750,000, Peter Hanlon reports in the Age.

A Bradman bat sold recently at the height of the global financial crisis for a world record A$145,000; "The Don" is still defying convention. "This is the single most valuable item we've ever auctioned — sporting, Australiana, across the board," Charles Leski said before the December 15 auction.

Reports of serious disagreement between Mahendra Singh Dhoni and the selectors during a meeting to pick the team for the fourth and fifth ODIs against England leaked to a newspaper will create an atmosphere of distrust between the captain and the selector in question, writes Sunil Gavaskar in his column on dreamcricket.com.

... make no mistake that selector is already known to Dhoni and he will have warned his teammates about him. It won't be a surprise too if the BCCI removes him at the next meeting because the Board is aware how much of a danger such a selector is to Indian cricket. Sure there will never be unanimity in selection meetings and there will invariably be a difference of opinion especially about choosing the fringe players in the squad. It is for this reason that the argument about the common man having faith in the selectors is important. This is a season where two senior players have already called it quits and there are questions about other seniors being asked. In such a scenario the common man needs to feel confident that those taking the call on the seniors know their onions and are not going to succumb to pressure from anywhere.

On the same website, Suresh Menon explains why there is no point in having televised selection meetings.

... the selection committee comprises five men with one single issue.

There is nothing to prevent the chairman having a working dinner at his house where the nitty gritty of selection is thrashed out, the deals are made so that selectors present a united face at the telecast meetings. In how many places are we to fix cameras to catch the selectors discussing selection?

England have returned home following the Mumbai attacks and though the Tests are scheduled to be played it still isn't clear if the team will come back to India. The Times' Simon Barnes feels England have an opportunity to say something important, loudly, triumphantly and publicly, something that is best said in the most robust language possible, and it is this. F*** all terrorists. You're not going to f***ing win.

When you take a big wicket or score a big century, you are not alone because the country celebrates with you. When you fail, when you mess it all up and, say, get drunk on tour and need to be rescued from a pedalo, the country jumps on you. That's the deal: those who are up to it are paid handsomely, and quite right, too. It follows, then, that an England cricketer is not morally entitled to think like a private person. Like me, for example, or you. An England cricketer can't duck out of a tour like a tourist. He has to think bigger than that. That's the job he signed on for. We pay an athlete to inspire us. Flintoff batting in the Ashes series of 2005, Flintoff taking Australia wickets and inflating his chest like a Lilo, Flintoff consoling Brett Lee in England's victory; these things matter to us. They are the sort of things a great athlete does, and at such times we know they are worth every penny of the money they receive.

The Guardian's David Hopps heads to Ahmedabad to see the preparations carried out for the first Test between India and England scheduled to start on December 11.

England will stay in the Fortune ­Landmark, a 20-minute drive from the stadium which is made quicker when you represent Team England and rush-hour traffic is being cleared by armed police escorts with blaring horns. Behind the duty manager's desk at the hotel today lay a fresh consignment of CCTV cameras, not yet unpacked. While Neerah Gewali, the assistant manager, explained how ­England would be protected, an Ahmedabad crime prevention unit arrived at the front desk to issue new instructions for all.

Peter Lalor, writing in the Australian, tries to remember Australia’s wicketkeeper before Brad Haddin, who broke through with his maiden Test century.

It was in Adelaide last summer that Adam Gilchrist (the name has come back) saw the ball fall from glove and with it the will to go on. Haddin, who waited so long to go from bridesmaid to gloveman, has come of age at the corresponding Test. The New South Wales wicketkeeper smothered his doubts and silenced the doubters with an aggressive 169 ... It was, in the main, as game-changing as anything Gilchrist dished out.

At his best - and we are yet to see his best in Tests - Watson can be a more valuable player to Australia than Andrew Symonds because he is capable of being chosen as a specialist fast bowler. That's gold. Pure gold. The jury is still out on who is the better batsman.