England's only hope of surprising a resurgent Australia this summer is if the ECB makes its peace with Kevin Pietersen, writes Lawrence Booth in his blog in the Guardian.

When news emerged of Pietersen's fateful email to the England and Wales Cricket Board – the one in which he explained he couldn't work with Peter Moores – the feeling was that the coach would probably go on the basis that England needed a happy Pietersen more than a happy Moores. But England, being England, over-reacted and sacked Pietersen too, thus alienating their best player in a bid to avoid the perception that players dictate to boards – this, despite Pietersen being asked to outline his thoughts on the way ahead. Beckoned forth with one hand, he was stabbed by the other.

When he was seven years old, Abhimanyu Yalamanchili lost his left hand in an elevator accident. Now 19, he has been a regular in the Andhra Pradesh junior teams for several years. Devendra Pandey relates the inspiring story in the Indian Express:

When he first decided to play serious cricket in his home town Bangalore, Yalamanchili encountered a series of problems. “Whenever I tried to bowl fast, I used to lose my balance and fall down,” he recalls. He was given no chance by most coaches in the region. But one of them, Amit Pathak was convinced that Yalamanchili was ready to do the hard mile, and took him under his wing. “He introduced me to a physio Badrinath who prepared some special exercises for me. He made me work on my body to get the right balance while bowling and bat ting,” he says. Later, Pathak altered his bowling action by reducing his run-up and the two spent long hours together to get his balance right. The revised action was straighter, with a modified follow-through. Fielding was a big problem area as well. “I knew that if I had to play top-level junior cricket, I had to improve myself in every aspect. During the off-season, I underwent rigorous fielding sessions,” says Yalamanchili.

By shifting the IPL, Indian cricket has put itself at the mercy of forces beyond its control. It is a mistake. Suppose everything goes along without a hitch in South Africa. What then? And when might India next be considered safe enough for international players? asks Peter Roebuck in the Hindu.

In the Indian Express, Firdose Moonda looks at the logistical challenges of shifting the IPL to South Africa.

A source close to Cricket South Africa (CSA) said the magnitude of the event hadn’t hit home just yet, but hoped that when it did, the organisers would not find themselves in an administrative tsunami. But CSA, which has successfully hosted a World Cup in 2003 and a T20 World Championship in 2007, believes it has the capacity and the infrastructure to organise a multi-team event of this nature with aplomb.

On April 1, when Afghanistan meet Denmark on Day One of the ICC World Cup qualifiers in South Africa, they will do so realising they are one step away from what most would have thought an impossibility — playing the cricket World Cup, writes Kadambari Murali Wade in the Hindustan Times.

Unlike Mangal, most of the players learnt their cricket in refugee camps in and around Peshawar. Fast bowler Hamid Hassan, who reportedly bowls at over 140kmph consistently, grew up there after his family moved from Nangrahar in 1991-92 to avoid the armed conflict. Ditto for Nabi, who says his family moved there from Logar “at the start of the Russian war”. But unlike Hassan, he doesn’t see himself ever going home to Logar. “One day perhaps,” he says, “But it’s not safe there now.” Logar, incidentally, has been a stronghold for various jehadi groups including the Jamaat for years, even referred to by locals as the “Gates of jehad” during the fight against Soviet occupation. For now though, home for Nabi’s family is in Nangrahar district, where there are over 200 registered cricket clubs.

Kevin Pietersen is a charming, engaging, forthright character who knows what he wants and how to go about it. He speaks from the heart and does not worry about upsetting anyone with what he says. I like him and hung on every word when I last spoke to him. But he really must start thinking before he talks, writes Nasser Hussain in the Daily Mail.

Kevin must remember that he has been in Barbados, one of the great places of the world, and that there are thousands of cricket lovers at home who would willingly swap places with him. On many a tour as captain I realised that when it came down to the last couple of weeks, a lot of people — including myself — were desperate to get home, but we kept talk of it down to a minimum as it distracted from the task. Every member of the England team will be looking forward to going home on Saturday to see their families again, but they have not made that public.

If Pietersen wishes to stay part of the team he must change. His runs, his class and his dedication to batting will, on paper, guarantee him a place for as long as he wants but his presence is becoming a tedious sideshow, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

It has also emerged that he asked to have a break from the tour of the West Indies between the third and fourth Tests. This was not unprecedented because Matt Prior, the team's wicketkeeper, went home at the same time to be with his wife after the birth of their first child. Pietersen, however, wanted the break because his wife Jessica was unable to come to the Caribbean as she was appearing as a competitor in the television programme, Dancing On Ice. Pietersen has not been miserable, or at least not in public, but he has been plainly aloof. And he said in his column in the News of the World on Sunday that the England squad was "a lonely place to be". He was doubtless trying to appease the paper which pays him a considerable amount of money and which was miffed that he was so forthcoming to a rival.

Andrew Strauss led by example in Barbados but should he be England's permanent one-day captain? asks Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

To reiterate, though, this was a low target and as such the question remains whether Strauss, in particular on slower pitches, has the weight of stroke necessary to find the really big shots at the top of the innings. Towards the end, with a fielder brought up from the boundary to mid-on, he carted a six over long-on. It was the ninth he has hit in 82 one-day internationals, and, just ­clearing the rope as it did, it had still ­required the kitchen sink being thrown at it. Gayle hit 13 over the weekend. So, brilliantly as Strauss played, we should not be seduced into thinking that all top-order one-day problems have been solved: he may not have a gear beyond that he has revealed.

Nearly three months on, having stabilised affairs from the forced resignation of Kevin Pietersen and sacking of Peter Moores, Strauss can end a discordant winter by leading England to victory in the one-day series against West Indies, writes Richard Hobson in the Times.

A couple of months ago we might have thought that Australia were going to be vulnerable this summer. But that was before events in South Africa, where Ricky Ponting and company beat the world's No 2 side in their own backyard. The Aussies are reminding us all what a resilient outfit they really are, writes Geoffrey Boycott in the Telegraph.

The Ashes are a huge deal for the Australians, as we can see from the fact that Ponting and Michael Clarke pulled out of the Indian Premier League weeks ago. Both men were prepared to sacrifice a hefty paycheck just to make sure that they will be in the best physical and mental condition. After some soul-searching during the winter, Ponting can now be confident of bringing a quality side to England, even if some of the players will be unfamiliar to our fans.

Thomas B. Perry, in his blog on Cricketmystery.com, calls on Shane Bond to return to the national side following New Zealand Cricket's decision to allow players to compete for selection if they end their association with the ICL.

You have no doubt witnessed the fact that event though we had an hour and two full days to get the Indians out in their second innings, our bowlers failed to do so.
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I am sure that at least one IPL team will come clambering for your services, but you know as well as we do that there is far better cricket to be played against the Indians in a game that starts at the end of this week in Wellington.

Gautam Gambhir's determined innings of 137, which helped India save the Napier Test after following on, is a part of a drastic transformation in his game for he had once held a reputation for attractive cameos and little staying power, writes Dileep Premachandran in his blog in the Times.

He has excelled in every format of the game too, playing a vital role in India's Twenty20 World Cup win and finishing top-scorer for the Delhi Daredevils in the IPL. Tellingly, he has scored runs at vital times. His consistency in Galle as Sri Lanka were overwhelmed was largely overlooked because of Virender Sehwag's brilliance, but he came into his own with centuries against Australia at Mohali and Delhi.

The IPL was homeless, not destitute, for its parent is the Indian cricket board (BCCI), whose might has exponentially risen with its wealth—and everyone wants to court favour with the rich. Thus England, former masters, now the poor cousins, and South Africa vied to offer IPL shelter, testifying to the BCCI's formidable clout. Rohit Mahajan senses more political undertones to the switch in venue in his article in Outlook magazine.

Manohar's reputation of being laconic was precisely why many chose to see in his candour a stinging rebuke to the UPA. It set tongues wagging—some thought Manohar, a Nagpur-based lawyer, was acting at the behest of Pawar, who was said to be incensed with the Centre playing tricks with the BCCI over the IPL. This perception gained credibility because of a sharp retort from home minister P. Chidambaram...

Writing in the same magazine, Arindam Mukherjee believes IPL II will neither have the fan following nor make the moolah in South Africa, with franchise owners ready to face a postponement in profits.

Last year the league was an unqualified TV success, but worried advertisers will try and bring down rates. Taking a wider view, the teams were looking at a three-year period to break even. That would have to wait. Much would depend on how the IPL management "accommodates" the franchisees' losses—or next year's tourney could see new faces raising the paddle to pick up yet another star player.

John Buchanan's theory of mutliple captains for the Kolkata Knight Riders has drawn its share of criticism. Suresh Menon in Dreamcricket.com believes captaincy by committee has never worked in cricket; all it has done is allowed the nominated leader to spread the blame when a decision has gone wrong.

For example, the recent England-West Indies one-dayer which England won because the West Indies coach John Dyson read Duckworth-Lewis wrong. Do you need an extra captain for the arithmetic, and if so, isn't the coach ducking responsibility?

As Sri Lanka Cricket embraces yet another change in administration, Rex Clementine profiles it's new chairman, Somachandra de Silva, the former legspinner. One of the bigger challenges awaiting de Silva will be tolerating interference from the country's outspoken sports minister, Gamini Lokuge. Read on in the Island.

With his appointment as the chief of Sri Lanka Cricket, D.S. automatically becomes a Director of the ICC, but it remains to be seen whether the world governing body would accept his appointment due to his links with the betting industry. On his own admission, he has been employed by betting magnate E.W. Balasuriya for a certain period.

Now that the Indian cricket tour is nearing the end, it's time to ask: Why have we been so nice to them? asks Paul Lewis in the Herald on Sunday.

Successive Indian teams here have found unsympathetic pitches and New Zealand's battery of medium-fast bowlers snorting and pawing the ground, knowing the ball would fizz about and make batting uncomfortable ... Yet, for this tour of New Zealand, we have produced good batting tracks, like that billiard table in Napier.

I don't care if Ryder gets grumpy after getting out. I don't care that he's not the greatest media talent, all I care about is that Ryder is one heck of a cricketing talent and I hope to see that talent continues to be realised the way it has been so far, writes Mark Richardson in the Herald on Sunday.

Consecutive test match scores of 89, 57, 59 no, 102, 21 and 201 say something is working and Ryder is in a great space right now. He's an uncut diamond and any attempt to cut and polish him may prove fruitless and even damaging. Yes, getting blind drunk and into mischief is far from ideal, especially from a New Zealand Cricket public relations perspective but such has been the quality of Ryder's cricket that, if the odd late night sighting happens, it only builds on his cult status and his special appeal.

Coach Mickey Arthur, the mastermind behind South Africa’s recent successes, may be the man to revive England’s fortunes, writes John Stern in the Sunday Times.

While Andy Flower’s England were capitulating to the latest embarrassing defeat of their ill-fated winter in Bridgetown, Mickey Arthur’s South Africa were securing a tense, come-from- behind victory in Johannesburg in their first Twenty20 international against Australia. On results and track record there is simply no comparison between Flower, England’s acting coach, and Arthur, the man who has taken South Africa to the top of the world one-day rankings and masterminded a Test series victory in Australia over Christmas and New Year.

After this latest humiliation, the concept that England will regain the Ashes appears to be beyond rational hope, writes Scyld Berry in the Sunday Telegraph.

England have no momentum, no head coach, no crackerjack bowler, no consistency – and, to be brutal, such moderateness has prevailed throughout the last generation, since other Test-playing countries became full-time professional, except when Duncan Fletcher defied the English system.

The ICC must quash any future plans of the referral system, and leave the judging to the grey-haired chaps in the middle, writes Lungani Zama in the Witness.

Chief amongst my reasons to dislike the system is the ridiculous amount of time it takes to make a decision. First the no-ball must be cleared, then the actual dismissal must be viewed from a variety of angles, heights and hypotheses before the trembling third umpire presses the green or red button.
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Human error is a part of life, and if the modern fan cannot deal with that, then they are perhaps best served sticking to sci-fi films for entertainment, because in that field technology has really taken huge strides.

Lalit Modi has proved his point in recent days as he has sought to play the England and Wales Cricket Board and its South African counterpart against one another as possible hosts for the travelling circus of the IPL, writes Owen Gibson in the Mail and Guardian.

When England Cricket Board (ECB) chairperson Giles Clarke celebrated in Sydney with the World Cup-winning women’s team on Sunday, England were being talked of as favourites. By the time he landed in London on Thursday morning and headed to Lord’s for a reception in their honour, Cricket South Africa chief executive Gerald Majola was organising a press conference to declare victory
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In the end one of the key deciding factors was the most mundane one -- the British weather. While it can also be unpredictable in South Africa in April, the average temperature is 10 degrees higher and the odds of rain-free days are lower. But there were other factors at play.

Edward Griffiths, writing in the Witness, examines some the reasons why South Africa is one of the most preferred destinations for hosting international sporting tournaments, including the IPL.

“See yourself as others see you” is a useful maxim, and even the most genetically cynical, miserable and negative citizens will surely reflect on this past week and accept that, notwithstanding enduring poverty, crime and corruption, somebody must be getting something right within these borders.

Robert Houwing analyses each IPL team and tries to pick out which ones fans in South Africa can support. Read his piece on the Sport24 website.

After a great run in New Zealand, India had their first two poor days in Napier when MS Dhoni was forced to sit out of the match due to back spasms, and at a time when John Buchanan is advocating more power to coaches, the inexplicable influence of Dhoni’s captaincy must be reinvigorating for skippers around the world, writes Kunal Pradhan in the Indian Express.

Slowly, evidence is emerging to suggest that somehow the life gets sucked out of the team when Dhoni is not on the field. It’s not about field placements and bowling changes, there’s something more, something intangible, that seems to walk off with him.

And the really strange part is that there aren’t really any obvious signs of his genius when he is marshalling his resources in the middle. There are no famous trump-card decisions to be quoted — nothing like Don Bradman inverting the line-up on a wet pitch, Martin Crowe opening the bowling with a spinner, Clive Lloyd allowing Geoff Boycott to bat on, or Sourav Ganguly making Steve Waugh wait for the toss.

In its second year itself, the Indian Premier League (IPL) is up for multiple tests—is it recession-proof, devaluation-proof, politics-proof and now, outsourcing-proof? asks Ashok Malik in Mint.

For the eight franchisees, 2008 saw a rough outflow of Rs75-100 crore per team and an inflow of Rs80 crore, maximum. No team other than actor Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders is believed to have actually broken even, though it was reported that Rajasthan Royals, the first-year champions, and finalists Chennai Super Kings had done so too. In 2009, the first blow came when the rupee crashed from 40 to a dollar to 50. Franchise royalties—the 10-year payments range from $67 million (around Rs 340 crore) for Rajasthan Royals to $112 million for Mumbai Indians—and player fees (each team was allowed to spend a maximum of $7 million in 2008-09 on contracting cricketers) were denominated in dollars.

It has been a week spent in blabbering to others and listening to their harangue. The IPL debate rages on: on television channels, in newspapers, and in private conversations. The young are stung at the dent India's image has suffered in the world but the judgment on who is to be blamed is not as straightforward as one would have believed, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.

Steve Bucknor, for 20 years the master of the long, slow decision, stands in his last international match tomorrow. Cricket will miss him, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

To be given out by Steve Bucknor is death by torture. First the appeal, loud, prolonged, imploring. And then nothing. Only a tense stillness. Time is suspended. Packed stadiums freeze. The bowler grimaces in hope, the batsman tries not to look.

Bucknor's brain computes. Where did the ball pitch, how much did it move? Or could it have taken the edge? Was there a noise? Or a deviation? You can hear the cogs turn. He betrays no emotion. And then the slow nod. Usually, it is just one movement. Slowly comes the final blow, the raising, almost reluctantly of the index finger as if to say: "This is hurting me far more than it's hurting you. But sadly I have no choice."

However, life doesn't promise to get any less hectic for Bucknor, who's in big demand for football and track and field events back home in Jamaica. The Jamaica Gleaner has more.

There comes a moment when a team have had enough chances. It is that time when all the goodwill has been used up, when all the idle protestations about talent simply waiting to be fulfilled are falling on deaf ears, when the suspicions about mediocrity are proven. For this England team it was yesterday at the Kensington Oval, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

It was the second worst day of England’s tour. Only being rolled over for 51 in the first Test in Jamaica was more humiliating than succumbing to West Indies, and to their own ghastly shot-selection, in the third one-day international, writes Scyld Berry in the Telegraph.

All the West Indian pace bowlers had to do was bang the ball in short and watch England’s batsmen spoon a succession of catches. Five of England’s top eight batsmen were out hooking, while Matt Prior steered a short ball on the offside to point. At least lemmings don’t hook before they leap.

This was an all-round duffing of such massive proportion that it is hard to see how England can recover, least of all in Sunday's match in the same conditions on the same ground. It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Cry with laughter might be the best option, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

England supporters sat in a considerable minority, but a small section made themselves heard with boos and shouts of “rubbish” while Strauss was interviewed at the presentation ceremony, writes Richard Hobson in the Times.

What lasting good would an English IPL – even the phrase is internally contradictory – bring to English cricket? Would it enhance our chances of winning the Ashes? Would it improve cricket in our state schools? Would it bring into our game lasting money and broader support? asks Ed Smith in the Telegraph.

Perhaps some counties, as Surrey have argued, would have been able to fill their grounds and their coffers. But has it comes to this? That we are willing to shuffle around an entire Ashes summer in order to appease an Indian entrepreneur who has shown little or no interest in the health of English cricket? It is worth adding that I am not an opponent of the IPL. I wish it every success. But I am more concerned with the state of English cricket and of world cricket. To my mind, though apparently not in the minds of those who count, the success of the IPL's second season is a peripheral matter.

Australia may not see another decent Test spinner for 15 years because it has forgotten how to raise them, writes the Courier-Mail’s Robert Craddock after speaking to the spin coach Terry Jenner.

When Shane Warne bowled legspinners to motor racing ace Lewis Hamilton in a promotion this week it was enough to moisten the eyes of Australian cricket fans. That's because apart from the Indian Premier League it will be the last time Warne bowls to an Englishman all year. It's been just over two years since he retired and the six spinners chosen in his place have suffered all sorts of physical and psychological damage.

In the Age Richard Hinds looks at the Bryce McGain conundrum. "Is it better to have bowled and been tonked than never to have bowled at all?"

Moving the IPL to South Africa isn’t the best thing that could have happened, but as a fall back option it has much merit, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.

Mr Chidambaram, like a bowler does, used his prerogative to set the field. Now that was given. He wasn’t going to provide central forces (and what a sad moment in itself that the availability of anti-terror forces should be the deciding factor in our game!), and he wasn’t going to allow state governments to take policemen away from election duty. Now faced with this, the IPL could either have conceded defeat or played a shot, which is the prerogative of the batsman. They have chosen to play an unconventional shot, a switch hit if you choose, having used up other options. So now, Mr Chidambaram has what he wants, which is the forces he needs to conduct an election and Mr Modi has a sub-optimal result, not a boundary maybe but a three, but at least he is batting.

The Kookaburra ball gets ridiculously soft after very few overs and kills the game dead once the swing has gone. The Duke and the SG stay harder longer, but they react differently to similar conditions in, say, the subcontinent or England. The answer lies in producing the ball that which bowlers can work and good batsmen can profit, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

... it should not be beyond the wit of manufacturers, backed by the pocket of ICC, to make a series of prototypes using larger cores, artificially made if necessary, with tighter winding and a leather that will suit all conditions. Something that will deteriorate gradually but not to excess, offering orthodox swing at the start, reverse later and grip for the spinner.

In an interview to the Daily Mail, Kevin Pietersen comes out in the open about the trauma of the events of January which led to him quitting the captaincy, why he does not want to be England captain again, his verdict on Andrew Strauss and the performance of Andy Flower, a man he wanted sacked along with Peter Moores, as stand-in coach, the Allen Stanford fiasco and more.

England's best player was never going to rock the boat despite the fears of those who do not know him. He has retained his dignity and moved on but the pain remains barely concealed beneath the surface. Now, in his first in-depth interview since losing the England captaincy so controversially, he is telling his tale.

We meet in one of the finest restaurants in Barbados at the request of Pietersen. The setting is the millionaires' playground of the west coast of this most affluent and attractive of West Indian islands. He is at home here, enjoying the success he has achieved since serving a long qualification period to play for England.

Mickey Arthur may find the idea to use multiple captains, a brainchild of Kolkata Knight Riders' coach John Buchanan, confusing but the editors at the Kolkata-based Telegraph believe the role of a cricket captain as player, strategist and tactician, goes against the simple rule for running an efficient organisation: that one person should not perform more than one function.

Translate this principle into the cricket field and it means that a player should only be a player, a captain should only be captain. A violation of this rule results in pressure on individuals and the consequent decline in performance. A player-captain combination also produces prima donnas, which create major problems in any organizational structure. Let the players do the batting, bowling and fielding and the thinker do the planning off the field. All this may appear as too alien to the cricket purist (or even to those who are lamenting Sourav Ganguly’s loss of captaincy), but the winds of change are blowing over the cricket fields. That wind will make the ball of cricket swing in various unexpected ways. Twenty20, and its popularity, are products of the change affecting cricket. Others will follow. Refashioning the definition of a cricket captain is another radical change. Mr Buchanan has taken a step in the right direction. Pioneers never make a virtue of patience.

Sharda Ugra, on the other hand, writes the idea of having multiple captains comes with its problems, the first of which is accountability. Read her blog in India Today.

Also read Dileep Premachandran's views on the multiple-captains issue on cricinfo.com.

Sufiyan Shaikh is bound for Australia with the Indian Under-19 team as its wicketkeeper, but for a change, he won't be sneaking off without his father's knowledge. When he used to return home from sub-junior matches, his father used to beat him up because he could never understand his son's wish to play the game. However, he has now turned a new leaf. G Krishnan has the full story in the Hindustan Times.

Sufiyan Shaikh will play cricket for India, but he just can't talk to his father about it. Shaikh's journey from the labyrinthine lanes of Crawford Market to wicketkeeper of the India under-19 squad that will tour Australia next month speaks of rare grit and a whole lot of pain.

With Rahul Dravid in world-record catching territory, Andrew Stevenson, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, takes a look at the worth of the slips.

Some reckon it looks as easy as shelling peas. You stand in the slips, the ball comes your way, you generally don't have to move, you make the catch and the batsman begins the long, slow march to the dressing room. While few who've ever stood in a slips cordon for a Test match would rate it easy, Cricket Australia fielding coach Mike Young has the bar up much, much higher. "I truly believe slips catching in Test cricket, mentally, is the hardest thing I've ever seen in sport, when you consider you're out there all day and that you've got to be ready every ball.”

	Lalit Modi: foresight, decisiveness and staggering self-belief © Getty Images

A tournament that was in danger of collapse because of Indian security issues has been rescued by Modi's foresight, decisiveness and staggering self-belief. It is one thing to recognise a solution, it is quite another to make it happen. England may talk at times of his arrogance, but his dynamism has lessons for us all.

But Modi's approach does have lessons for Britain. He saw a problem and dealt with it: rapidly, straightforwardly, emphatically, with not a sub-committee or viability report in sight. He deserves a tournament to remember.

Rush to accomodate Indians suggests the Allen Stanford experience has not had any effect on English cricket's thinking, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

Indeed, the IPL was, and may well be again, a magnificent success, bold in its conception, brilliant in its inception and dramatic throughout, a testament to the innovation, drive and financial muscle that sums up modern-day India. Twenty20, the best players in the world and Bollywood proved to be an alluring mix. But the IPL is not a gift to the game as a whole. Nobody, except the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the franchise investors and the players, makes a bean out of the IPL. It is, put simply, a private commercial enterprise, an utterly ruthless one at that, and, because there can be only one of its kind, owing to the crowded nature of the international fixture list, it is in competition with every other member nation of the ICC.

James Anderson's career was slowed by attempts to change his action. But if it isn't broken, don't try and fix it, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

Seven years or so ago, not long after Jimmy Anderson burst so ebulliently on to the international scene with a seam position to die for and a host of wickets as he swung the ball round corners, it was clear he had a flaw in his action, in the sense that it was not textbook. Yet it produced. Fast forward a few years, some tinkering behind him, and what worked was broken, literally in the case of his back, which sustained stress fractures that sidelined him for most of the 2006 season. It has taken years of hard work, disappointment, inconsistency and a total rebuilding of confidence to get him back to where he started.

Jimmy Anderson is not even sure yet that he is the leader of the attack. Maybe he would prefer that he was not, or that it had not been noticed. But he is and it has, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

The recent gifting away of the first one-day international to England by the management of the West Indies cricket team once again raises the question of the administration of the game in the Caribbean, says an editorial in the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian.

In some parts of the cricketing world, both Dyson and Khan would have been looking for jobs the following day. But West Indian fans have grown so used to the self-generated, off-field distractions from within the administrative ranks of the West Indies Cricket Board that it is no surprise that neither was called to account for their shortcomings in calculation. This, coming on the heels of the abandoned Test match in Antigua, was another well-directed bouncer at West Indies cricket which clearly struck the target. Such indiscretions continue the blunders of the current and past regimes of West Indies cricket and provide major challenges to the game in these parts.

	One of the best series wins in Ponting’s reign as captain © AFP

Australia found out that they didn't need so many old hands to remain successful, that in fact their domestic cricket was strong, certainly with regards batsmen and fast bowlers, and that they will continue to be close to, if not at, the top of the Test tree for the foreseeable future ... South Africa will know that to dominate the way Australia did for a decade is not easy. After winning in Australia, it was felt that with a side with so many young players in so many important positions - Hashim Amla at three, JP Duminy and AB de Villiers in the middle order, and Dale Steyn and Morné Morkel as fast bowlers, they could start to define their own era of dominance.

On iafrica.com Dan Nicholl reports back from Newlands after four days of Test cricket that saw a triumph of good over evil, a welcome appearance of Smurfs, and further confirmation that Ricky Ponting is far more deserving of the moniker liberally applied instead to his team-mate Peter Siddle throughout the series.

In the South African-based Times Alex Parker calls Australia's series win one of the best in Ponting’s reign as captain.

Australia are indeed a new, young side, but it’s clear the depth of talent in Australian cricket is enormous. A couple of injuries and defeats left South Africa scrambling for ideas. Australia, on the other hand, turned to a seemingly bottomless pool of talented cricketers and within weeks turned their fortunes around. In a flash one had the feeling that some of the new boys — Philip Hughs and Marcus North foremost among them — will be playing Test cricket for some time.

We begin this week with a spot of nostalgia. Ladies and gentlemen, the Spin gives you Gooch, Botham, Stewart, Hick, Fairbrother, Lamb, Lewis, Reeve, Pringle, DeFreitas and Illingworth. As only the youngest among you will need telling, this was the side that should have beaten Pakistan in the final of the 1992 World Cup. It is also the last time England had a one-day team consistently worthy of the name, writes Lawrence Booth in the Guardian.

Money is being pumped into English cricket like never before. The back-room staff could form an XI of their own and still have men left over to make and serve the drinks. Central contracts briefly coincided with an upturn in the fortunes of the Test team, although hindsight makes you wonder whether that had more to do with Duncan Fletcher and the partnerships he formed with Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan. Yet the one-day team continues to blunder its way round the world like a bunch of accidental tourists, losing six games out of 10 against meaningful opposition and forever tripping at the first hurdle of a World Cup.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that one-day cricket is not our game. The delicate and/or flamboyant skills required to win one-day matches seem beyond traditional English play, writes Simon Hughes in the Telegraph.

Think of the IPL as a maker of biscuits (or fruitcakes, if you like) and the Season 2 migration as merely a means of staying in business, writes Sharda Ugra in India Today.

IPL's second season has become clouded in other issues like political equations, security logistics, a tussle of ego and territory but eventually a pragmatic, economic reason has sent it to another place where it will simply be less hassle to do business. It is a gamble, but the entire event was a gamble based on the Indian audience's appetite for instant cricket. So now, overseas Indians may well find their way to what is nowbeing called the NRI-PL but more importantly, satellite television should keep the TV ratings high.

Amid the madness that began with the Mumbai attacks and was further complicated by the announcement of the general elections in India, at last one can spot some semblance of common sense. The biggest credit goes to the IPL committee for acknowledging that they could not use millions of cricket fans and the cricketers themselves as collaterals in a bid to prove its organisational prowess, writes Sreyashi Dastidar in the Guardian.

Cameramen, crews and technicians in India were placed on standby yesterday, ready to travel thousands of miles in a scramble to ensure that the Indian Premier League (IPL) games will be on television for fans in the cricket- mad sub-continent to watch, writes Dan Sabbagh in the Times.

The smaller size of the country makes England an easier logistical proposition than India, although filming in Britain is more expensive. It costs about £80,000 to £90,000 to produce a typical day’s cricket in England, rising to £120,000 if you include extra features such as Hawk-Eye. That is more than in India, where a cameraman might work for £100 a day, compared with £350 a day at Lord’s. IMG’s real problem could be finding enough UK-based, experienced camera crews and production teams able to handle cricket if it cannot ship the Indian teams over cost-effectively.

We spent last night celebrating our victory. Drinks in the hotel bar with the management before heading out to a local pub for a few more drinks and a dance. Members of the other teams were out as well and there was a great spirit among all the players. I called it a day at about 2am and walked back to the hotel to call friends and family; completely exhausted but elated, writes Claire Taylor in the Telegraph.

England's World Cup winning cricketers follow in the footsteps of Myrtle Maclagan, pioneer of the women's game, writes Frank Keating in the Guardian.

England's 22-year old luminary on that first unbeaten Australian adventure was, happily, to become a friend and neighbour of mine in the last couple of decades of her life. Myrtle Maclagan was both opening bat and demon spin bowler. In the first Test at Brisbane, she scored 72 and took seven for 10. In the second at Sydney she made 119, the first Test century by a woman. England's men had lost their Ashes that summer of 1934, so Myrtle's feats had the Morning Post crowing back home

At the risk of creating the impression that I lead an empty and idle life, I admit that I did watch Sky's highlights of the England women's victory over New Zealand. I soon realised why the vast North Sydney Oval was almost deserted. The standard seemed little higher than that of a good club cricket game, of the sort which is played in villages up and down the country every weekend in summer; but no one except for friends and families would actually think of going along to watch such matches – let alone pay to get through a turnstile, writes Dominic Lawson in the Independent.

India’s first Test win in New Zealand in 33 years was momentous on many levels not least of which the fact that the side started a series abroad assuredly, writes S. Ram Mahesh in the Hindu.

India’s last two away series, in Australia and Sri Lanka, saw it lose the first Test. It isn’t a weakness unique to India: despite the unhealthy trend towards homogenisation of conditions (which gladdens broadcasters who benefit from games lasting the distance, but detracts from cricket’s essential appeal), every team on tour takes time settling.

Andy Burnham, writing in the Independent after England Women won the World Cup final against New Zealand Women, tries to explain the reasons behind the lack of publicity for the women's game in England.

One of the arguments that comes back from the media is that the interest in women's sport is simply not there. I don't buy this. It's a self-serving argument. There will be no interest if broadcasters do not work to build it. History shows that the British public have the appetite to become absorbed in any sport if it is promoted in the right way. It wasn't long since we were all fascinated by curling. Activity at the grassroots shows there is real interest out there.

The achievement of England's women in lifting the World Cup goes beyond the mere winning of a big final, writes Simon Wilde in the Times.

An editorial comment in the Indian Express criticises the BCCI on its decision to stage this year's IPL outside of India and says the Indian fans' interests were simply kept out of the agenda while making this move.

Cranking up the ego war with the Government on the logistics of this IPL season, he [Shashank Manohar, the BCCI President] apologised to the “people of India”, but comforted himself by saying that at least they’d now be able to watch the tournament on television. Really, Mr Manohar? Is this truly what’s behind this effort to start a bidding war between England and South Africa to host the IPL? Because if it is the Indian fan’s benefit that’s on the agenda, the BCCI’s latest announcement amounts to little less than the cricketing equivalent of high treason.

England has been tipped as a possible host to the IPL but Patrick Kidd, in the Times, writes the ECB must overcome a whole host of problems including scheduling and TV rights in very little time before staging the tournament. Instead of getting embroiled in the chaotic mess, he feels the ECB's time and attention is better spent on preparing its team for the Ashes.

Another pothole is the question of TV rights, with the IPL coinciding with West Indies’ tour to England. Sky has the rights for the exclusive coverage of England internationals and would not welcome the competition from Setanta, which has the IPL rights and feels it was poorly treated over the bidding for England games. The ECB is in no position — or mood — to upset Sky.

David Hopps, writing in the Guardian, says the ECB will have to move quickly to make the boldest decision in its history and host the IPL.

Mike Norrish writes that with all the hurdles ahead of the ECB in trying to the host the IPL, it's perhaps better that South Africa gets the nod for staging the tournament. Read his blog in the Daily Telegraph.

In England's freakish victory over West Indies in the first ODI, where coach Dyson called his players back after miscalculating the D/L par score, regulation took precedence over common sense once again, writes Vic Marks in the Observer:

No doubt there is a logic to the ICC regulations with which the umpires work during these one-day matches, but they do not appear to take into consideration that it gets dark quite quickly in the Caribbean and that teams in the field in the second innings of a close contest take longer than they should to bowl their overs. After the interruption for rain, common sense required the interval between innings to be 10 minutes rather than 30. Common sense also required the match to be played to its conclusion even if it was murky, but the regulations said something else and the umpires regrettably followed them.

In the Sunday Times, Simon Wlide hopes the England board will not be interested in John Dyson coaching the national side.

His ingrained negativity is the last thing this England team need; they are naturally cautious enough. In his time as coach with Sri Lanka and West Indies, not to mention as a crabby opening bat for Australia, Dyson has shown himself oblivious to cricket as entertainment.

	India should give their opponents little leeway © Getty Images

For New Zealand, the one-day series demonstrated that the "fighting fire with fire" method is largely futile. You could not hope to dry them up and frustrate them as well, as witnessed in the first Test at Seddon Park. So captain Daniel Vettori and Andy Moles are left with an unenviable task. Dylan Cleaver in the Herald on Sunday believes the hosts need to get clever, get creative.

India out-thought New Zealand; they out-hustled them. Find a word prefixed by 'out' and India did it to New Zealand.

They know that India don't do holding patterns; that the only time the switch flicks off is at stumps.

So crushing was the victory at Seddon Park, it underscored the fact that India had not beaten New Zealand in New Zealand since 1967. Indeed, on the evidence of this performance, Dan Vettori must now fear the worst while MS Dhoni can only fear that the prodigious form of all his players does not lead to complacency. Ayaz Memon in his column in Daily News & Analysis has more.

HG Helps, writing in the Jamaica Observer, describes the scene outside Sabina Park where the striking Combined Campuses and Colleges team stayed in their team bus while their opponents Jamaica didn't even show up.

A call to one senior member of the Jamaica squad confirmed that the only way that the local cricketers would be at Sabina Park that day was if someone other than Allen Stanford arranged a winner-take-all US$10 million match.

The players refused to leave their hotel and there appeared to be an arrangement for their opponents not to go onto the field of play, as they could claim the points if the other team did not turn up.

The IPL may well have become an albatross around the government's neck, but to treat security concerns as trifles is in nobody's interest - neither the nation's nor cricket's. Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times elaborates.

One can understand that everyone wants a bite of the large, juicy pie that IPL is assumed to be, but should it be at the risk of diluting security arrangements for the elections? Anyone who has a voice seems more concerned about IPL and, in this din, the Indian public's democratic right to vote in a free, fearless atmosphere does not seem to bother most of us.

Sachin Tendulkar being 70 not out at the end of day’s play isn’t merely a line on a scoreboard but a situation pregnant with possibilities. At Seddon Park, below the surface of calmness, there was a distinct drone reminiscent of the familiar noise one hears on such days back in India. Sandeep Dwivedi in the Indian Express tunes into the cricket mania of a different kind.

England women will be looking for their third World Cup win when they take on New Zealand in Sydney on Sunday. Andy Bull previews the game in the Guardian:

For the England team this final is the culmination of a run that began by retaining the Ashes in Australia last winter. "Last year was a massive turning point for the team, coming to Australia and being so successful gave us a real belief. Since then we've overcome all the challenges that are being put up against us, which is the true test of any team. I'm not surprised we're here in the final because over the last year we've played some really good cricket. But, if you'd asked me what our chances were two years ago, I wouldn't have imagined we would be here.

In the Times Patrick Kidd does a 60-second interview with England captain Charlotte Edwards.

In the same paper, Jenny Roesler draws up a cheat sheet that you can use to impress friends with trivia from the 2009 World Cup.

Also read Will Luke's interview with Edwards' on cricinfo.com.

Coach John Dyson's miscalculation of the D/L chart cost West Indies the first one-dayer against England in Guyana but the Times' Patrick Kidd wonders whether it was not all part of a cunning plan by Dyson.

By allowing England to win a game - and win it in farcical almost miraculous fashion - Dyson knows that the English media, which had been getting a bit down on their team, would start to ramp up their claims that now England are ready to win back the Ashes. Stuart Broad would be hailed as a new Botham, Andrew Strauss a new Brearley and Matt Prior a new, if less reliable, Bob Taylor. We'll all get carried away, England will get their hopes up and Australia will be inspired to rub our noses in it.

Richard Hobson says in the Times it has been a good few days for Andy Flower as he presses his case for England's revamped head coaching position. Hobson points out the decisions of the other contenders, Kent’s Graham Ford and Dyson, over the past week.

Firstly, Kent, where Graham Ford is coach, decided this week to sign Stuart Clark as overseas player for the start of the county season, thereby giving Australia a pre-Ashes lift by helping one of their frontline bowlers to gain match practice after injury. Kent may well benefit, but that may not be answer Morris wishes to hear from Ford if he is called to interview.

And now Dyson, another man linked to the post after his role in supervising West Indies to their success in the Test series. Duckworth/Lewis tables are not easy on the eye - those of a certain age before calculators will see comparisons with logarithm books - but to mistake victory for defeat by reading the wrong column of figures does not say much for his ability to work under pressure.

	Bryce McGain has struggled on debut © Getty Images

Greg Buckle, writing for AAP, says fans at Cape Town's Newlands ground have given Bryce McGain, the debutant legspinner, a new nickname and it's not a welcome one - Mick Lewis.

McGain's fellow Victorian infamously took 0 for 113 in the one-day international in Johannesburg three years ago when South Africa scored 9 for 438 to win. Lewis holds the world record for most runs conceded in a one-day innings and McGain's Test debut was shaping up like a similar shocker after Friday's second day of the third Test against South Africa.

In the Australian Mike Coward says Phillip Hughes is not the only cricketing prodigy whose life has been transformed in an instant this summer.

JP Duminy is not the same young man who went to the wicket in Perth three months ago. Known as Jean-Paul to his family and social intimates but JP to his cricketing mates and the game's community, Duminy is being hailed in South Africa much as Hughes is being lauded in Australia.

Malcolm Conn writes in the same paper that Australia’s preparation for the Ashes and Twenty20 World Cup in England will be hampered if the Indian Premier League is cancelled or postponed.

Philip Derriman remembers in the Sydney Morning Herald what it was like to sit beside Bill 'Tiger' O’Reilly, Australia’s former legspinner and journalist, and hear him analyse what was happening in the middle.

O'Reilly had an ability to read the play that left everyone else in the press box for dead. But for an odd quaver in his voice, O'Reilly would probably have done well on TV if he had wanted to. Interpreting the play is the TV commentator's stock-in-trade, although some, like O'Reilly, have a special gift for it.

In the Age Charles Davis looks at how left-handers are prospering in the modern game.

India have the first Test firmly in their grasp and Adam Parore looks at what New Zealand can do in the following matches to avoid a series loss. In the New Zealand Herald, he suggests a re-look at the middle order and moving Brendon McCullum up to No. 5.

It's difficult to see McCullum maximising his test potential batting at number seven. It just doesn't give him the opportunity to make the centuries that his talent is capable of because the players around him can't stay at the crease long enough.

Peter Bartlett, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, laments the poor reception for the Women's World Cup though the tournament witnessed some great cricket.

What is it about women's cricket? This is, after all, the game's showcase. It can only be the poor public perception and, alas, perception is everything. It is entertaining but try telling that to anyone, let alone convincing them to come along.
.......
In women's sport, various codes have been unfairly branded as enclaves of hard-nosed lesbians. My first response to that is: who cares? However, it simply doesn't apply. Just as we tell our kids not to generalise with nations, the same applies to sporting codes. Maybe women's cricket still suffers from a lingering element of that perception. Good on Cricket Australia and Cricket NSW for using the likes of Ellyse Perry to try to break that stereotype. The women deserve more respect.

Jenny Roesler, Cricinfo's former assistant editor, in a guest blog in the Times, writes the Women's World Cup has compared favourably to the men's version in 2007 in West Indies, and thinks England have the edge going into Sunday's final against New Zealand

Steve Bucknor opens up during an interview to Nitin Naik in the Times of India on various topics like his toughest game as umpire, the routines he goes through on match days and his partnership with David Shepherd with whom he umpired in three successive World Cup finals.

What is the toughest game you’ve had to umpire?

It would have to be the Ashes Test of the 1998 series in Melbourne. We’d lost the first day to poor weather and on day four we were on the field for eight and a quarter hours. It was challenging in many senses, with the decision making and the length of time on the field. But the media’s comments at the end of the day were extremely positive of the umpiring which was a nice thing.

	The verdict's out on referrals © Getty Images

The ICC is now discovering that the umpire referral system, thought it had merit, isn’t the solution to every moment of discontent in the game. The world criticised them for not using technology and now that they are, they are being criticised for everything that comes along with it.

Speaking of outcries against the system, the extraordinary language used by a newspaper in New Zealand against the Indian manager, calling him a 'goon' is certainly unacceptable,

These are two issues Harsha Bhogle focusses on, in his column in the Indian Express.

I don’t think anyone was referring to the last meaning but to call anyone a thug or a gangster is not on. It reminds me of the words used by visiting journalists against Indian umpires from the days when there were no replays. It shouldn’t have been acceptable then and it cannot be acceptable now. Have we gone beyond disagreeing with people without calling them names?

Staying with the referral system, to see the umpire’s decision - and the reaction of 25,000 fans - overturned, negates the excitement and expectation of the game, points out Arthur Turner in Sport24.com.

The excuse that that technology is not always foolproof must be dispelled once and for all. If the ICC wants to make use of technology they must go all the way with it, if not, rather abandon it. This quasi approach will not work and is only complicating matters further.

The endless flip-flop over staging the second season of the IPL takes us into the theatre of the absurd - where the politics of a game have an impact on the politics of a nation - writes Kadambari M. Wade in the Hindustan Times.

With her vision of the game expanding ever since her husband Mukesh Ambani bought the Mumbai Indians team, Nita Ambani speaks to K Shriniwas Rao of Times of India about her plans for this IPL season.

Andrew Strauss returns to one-day cricket for the first time in almost two years against West Indies with the added responsibility of captaincy, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

Quite simply, the captain has to be worth his place in the side as a player. There is no room (or ought not to be), as Michael Vaughan ultimately found out, and before him Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton, for a captain just to maintain continuity. This is not to say that Strauss cannot adapt. His absence from the team after the World Cup, was predicated in part on his own basic decline in form that has taken 18 months to rectify

Andy Flower's good relationship with Andrew Strauss should not disguise England's failings against West Indies, writes Duncan Fletcher in the Guardian.

I've said before that the England coaching role is the top job in world cricket because of the scrutiny you come under and the expectations involved. I find it odd that the England and Wales Cricket Board needed to employ a firm of headhunters to get their man, but now that's the case you would imagine an impressive CV would be one of the chief requirements. I know Flower has worked a bit with Essex, but surely the ECB are looking for more than that. I may be wrong. Flower may be worth a gamble. But the facts are that England have so far struggled against a pretty ordinary side out in the Caribbean. If by the end of the one-day series there are still no signs of improvement, it would feel very strange indeed to name Flower as coach.

The BCCI has forced New Zealand Cricket's hand in keeping out ICL players from being associated with India's tour to the country. The Indian Express editorial remarks that the BCCI has always been brash in showing its clout. But its hyper-obsession with punishing anyone associated with the ICL indicates its tunnel vision on developing the game.

The New Zealand cricket press has reacted by calling BCCI officials “travelling goons”. Rude words those, but look what the BCCI’s doing by enforcing such degrees of separation from the ICL. It is actually ordering cricketers to be put out of work — not just from the field but also places as removed as television studios.

As defeats go, England’s humbling by West Indies in the Twenty20 match in Trinidad on Sunday was just one more black mark on a one-day landscape that, for nearly two decades, has looked dark indeed, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

Two things continue to hold back England’s one-day cricket, one that can be sorted out with enough will and one that cannot. Dodgy weather is a hindrance, producing pitches that favour honest trundlers and batsmen wary of hitting through the line of the ball, both a rare breed in winning international teams. But New Zealand have a similar problem and when Strauss did service for Northern Districts two winters ago he proclaimed the standard of New Zealand’s domestic one-day cricket to be far superior to England’s.

David Lloyd, in his article on the Sky Sports website, writes that England's defeat in the Test series was a result of West Indies being the better side. He feels the quality of the team could only improve if there was a change in mindset on the field, and in the domestic structure off it.

County cricket clubs are falling over themselves to get Australians ready for the Ashes. Good for the game, or a sure way of derailing a return to the glory days of 2005? Former England bowler, Angus Fraser, and Independent cricket correspondent, Stephen Brenkley, join the debate.

Angus Fraser: I want the series to leave a similar mark on the game as the 2005 encounter, and if that is to be the case we need two well prepared and evenly matched sides lining up against each other in Cardiff on 8 July. Indeed, if the ECB were so worried about the first Test why is it being played in Cardiff, a virgin Test arena and therefore a ground where Strauss' side will feel as unfamiliar as the opposition? There is the small matter of the Twenty20 World Cup, too. The Indian board did not seem too worried about England's top players gaining valuable experience in the IPL before the tournament.

Stephen Brenkley: All the trouble started in 1988. All the present row confirms is the inability to learn from history. That year, the captain of Australia, Allan Border, returned to Essex. Part of the reason may have been that he was pining for the architecture of Harlow and was desperate to win the Refuge Assurance League. But he had other business. Border spent the summer not only scoring runs, but gathering information, on pitches, on players, on the thought processes in English cricket.

It was sporting espionage of the highest order. The following summer, with Border leading, hard-nosed and uncompromising, Australia regained the Ashes in a series they had been confidently tipped to lose. Things were never the same again.

Malcolm Conn, writing in the Australian, looks at how the umpiring referral system is faring in its Test trial.

Justin Langer once felt sorry for batsmen. Now he feels sorry for umpires. Darrell Hair believes the system is overturning good decisions and Channel Nine fears that it will further hinder an already slow game. While the cricket community appears to broadly endorse the concept of using more technology to improve decision-making in Test cricket, the reality is that as many problems have been created as solved.

Kaleem Omar, writing in Pakistan's The News, presents a satirical take on the state of affairs in Pakistan cricket post-Lahore. The scene of action is the country's first international game at home against a visiting Mongolian cricket team.

Lahorites are also over the moon that hundreds of fur-clad Mongolians have travelled all the way from their distant country to watch their team play its first-ever cricket match. The fact that nobody in Mongolia knows anything about the game is another matter. It doesn't bother Lahorites that there are no Michael Holdings or Javed Miandads in the Mongolian team. What has the good people of Lahore dizzy with delight is the enthusiasm being displayed by the Mongolians for the forthcoming match.
........
Pakistan Cricket Board officials, however, are worried sick that something might happen to the Mongolian team. That's why they have decided to hold the match in the Lahore Fort, instead of in the Gaddafi Stadium. As a further precautionary measure, the PCB has arranged for the Mongolian team to stay at an undisclosed underground facility. The walls of the secret facility are 10 feet thick and are made of heavily steel-reinforced concrete.

South Africa may have developed into a good team, but not a good international squad. Now that certain players have retired, been injured or lost form, there are no experienced players to replace them. Arthur Turner in Sport24.com believes their reserve strength has been badly exposed.

CSA also needs to abolish the quota system at franchise level like rugby has as soon as possible to ensure the development of their future players. They need to avoid the situation where a South African 'A' opening batsman like Blake Snijman cannot play for his franchise because of the quota system.

CSA needs to develop all its resources on an equitable basis to build a quality and experienced squad for the Proteas to remain a leading team in international cricket.

While Johan Botha grew as a person and a cricketer in his new role as South Africa's ODI captain, reflected during their performance in Australia, Prince’s decision to decline the Test captaincy in order to concentrate on his own batting is a curious one. Neil Johnson in the Natal Witness considers the move all the more inappropriate given that it would send a wrong message to his team and youngsters such as Imraan Khan, who will be relishing their chance to play for the country.

With no international cricket to be played in Pakistan in the forseeable future following on from the attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore, the Gulf would be the closest thing the team would soon have to a ‘home ground’. Kamila Shamsie, writing in the Indian Express, feels a great sadness as she recalls the particular history of her hometown, Karachi, and international cricket.

I found myself thinking of the status update on a friend’s Facebook page which declared she was “already missing the sound of plastic bottles hitting stadium chairs.” There are, of course, plastic bottles in Dubai, and Pakistanis enough there who will know that the true sound of cricket spectatorship, particularly during the ODIs, is not cheering or applauding but the thwacking of those empty bottles against the backs of chairs. But even so, there is a sadness to outsourcing that noise, that jubilation.

	Rahul Dravid: Strong bonding © AFP

Going into the Test series against New Zealand, India's composed, technically-proficient No. 3 batsman looms as a massive figure. In a line-up replete with glittering stroke-makers, Rahul Dravid is the adhesive that binds the batting together, the rock which gives others the liberty and licence to indulge themselves, writes R Kaushik in the Deccan Herald.

Amidst a plethora of cavalrymen, the one-time general has been happy being the foot soldier, taking it upon himself to bat long periods almost inconspicuously, ungrudgingly ceding space and limelight to the headline boys, content in the knowledge that the men that matter, his team-mates, appreciate, admire and respect his efforts.

The past experience of players who have stood in the catching zone in New Zealand suggests that the frequency with which balls fly towards them is very high in these parts. A quick check of past scoresheets proves that those with butter fingers have no place to hide.Sandeep Dwivedi in the Indian Express has more.

Daniel Vettori will have spent months planning the dismissals of Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Dravid and it is of utmost importance that the New Zealand captain is given the quiver he seeks. Hamish McDouall in his blog Googlies and Grass Stains takes a look at selection issues for New Zealand ahead of the Test series.

I have less truck with a captain wanting a batsman - Fleming obviously would have preferred to have Cantabrians at various times during John Bracewell's rein - but quite frankly most of a captain's control is abrogated when any side goes into bat. But bowlers? That's micro-management. Give them everybody they ask for.

India's three-Test contest in New Zealand will determine just how far this Indian team has progressed over the past two years, writes Dileep Premachandran in his Guardian blog. Over the last decade, India have always lifted their game against the best in the business, winning seven and losing nine of their Test matches against Australia. But when it comes to touring New Zealand, they have have often been suspicious victims of the Hollywood syndrome.

The Test series that commences in a few hours is perhaps the biggest test of the resolve that has been the most eye-catching aspect of India's cricket on the road to redemption. It started in England a few months after the World Cup debacle. Talk of that series win usually centres around Zaheer Khan's superb spells at Trent Bridge, but the spadework had been done at Lord's, with a combination of rain and obduracy keeping a rampant England at bay. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, derided as a show pony by some in the media, was the unlikeliest of heroes on that final day, stonewalling with a strength of purpose that had seemed beyond his Russian roulette style of batting.

Darren Pattinson’s journey over the past year has gone from England Test bowler to Victorian club player. The roof tiler by trade, who was sensationally plucked from obscurity to make his Test debut for the land of his birth, England, against South Africa at Headingley, tells the Wisden Cricketer that returning to England for another season, this time as an established county player and main character of a remarkable chapter in English Test history, will not be different.

Excerpts:
Are you still astonished by your Test appearance?
[Big grin] Yeah, pretty much. It’s sunk in a bit now and looking back, it happened so quick I didn’t get to really enjoy the time. If it ever happened again I’d be a bit better prepared and be able to enjoy it more.

What’s your most vivid memory of the Test?
Just being told I was opening the bowling [Pattinson replaced the injured Ryan Sidebottom]. It was an hour before the game. I went up to Headingley and I didn’t get up there until 10.30 the night before, so I hadn’t met any of the guys and I went down to breakfast and met a few of the guys I didn’t know and then went straight to the ground. It was a bit of a whirlwind.

Mihir Bose, the BBC's sports editor, writes in his blog that the ICC never has, and never will, have the powers to come up with a solution, let alone impose it. While the world waited to hear how the cricket's governing body would deal with the security threat posed by sport being targeted for the first time since the Munich Olympics in 1972, the ICC told us where the next Champions Trophy, a 50-over tournament that many feel has outlived its usefulness, will be held. The trio that effectively run cricket, says Bose, is India, Australia and South Africa. But India, the economic powerhouse, needs to show it can live up to universally accepted international standards in terms of timing, location and security arrangements.

	It was a rough day in the office for the England team on Sunday © Getty Images

It may seem an outlandish notion to make a greenhorn in international cricket like Dimitri Mascarenhas captain, but Paul Newman makes a plausible case for him in the Daily Mail.

There are three former England captains(Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff and Paul Collingwood) in the current squad who are all guaranteed a place in the Twenty20 team as long as they are fit, but none would relish a return to the helm.

Cricket365's Tim Ellis presents a hilarious account of England's miserable performance in Sunday's Twenty20.

Not even Don King could promote the rabble of a team (and let's face it, there wasn't a million dollars on offer). Even the captain had to borrow Matt Prior's shirt. What was all that about?

England will begin the hunt for a new coach at the end of the West Indies tour and Mike Atherton feels assistant coach Andy Flower would be the ideal man in charge. He writes in the Times:

There have been signs in the Caribbean that Flower's no-nonsense approach to cricket is beginning to hold sway, which will pay dividends in the medium term. The sense of cosiness that pervaded the team in the years since the Ashes win of 2005 is gradually being stripped away ... He is incredibly loyal and discreet, knows cricket inside out, having been a player of the highest class, and, having travelled around the world, he knows intimately the various playing conditions.

Robert Craddock says in the Courier-Mail that Australia’s victory in South Africa should have solved all of their problems.

But it's simply made them murkier. Australia's stunning series win over South Africa has, in fact, scrambled the pecking order for the Ashes tour party which is now clouded with intrigue.

Does Brett Lee replace Ben Hilfenhaus in the bowling attack? Should Stuart Clark be picked ahead of both of them? Can Bryce McGain be picked with confidence? Is Andrew McDonald worthy of a place as an allrounder?

Peter Roebuck feels Brett Lee will be hard pressed to regain his place in the Australian Test team. Why? Because Lee is 32, he does not scare batsmen, he has less room for manoeuvre than peers with similar track records, he has not bowled a ball at full pelt for arguably an entire year, and in the meantime another generation has risen. So, says Roebuck, the desperation to restore Australia's only experienced pace bowler has diminished. He writes in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Now Lee is trying with might and main to secure a place in the Ashes touring party. It is something he needs in his life, to retain the ready smile. However, recent results confirm he can no longer command a place in the starting XI. It's not easy for a 32-year-old pace bowler to break back into a Test team.

Nor will Lee be able to prove his worth in domestic matches. Injury has removed that opportunity. As if the odds were not already stacked against him, Lee failed with the ball on his last Ashes trip in 2005, taking 20 wickets at 41.10 in the five Tests. Indeed he has never succeeded in England. Presumably the pitches are not firm enough for his purposes.

England batsman Claire Taylor has been picked for the International Registered Testing Pool to be monitored for drug use. She explains what the protocol includes, how she worries she might mess it up, and why it is a burden for women cricketers, who need to take time off from work to turn up for tests and account for their whereabouts.

... for three months at a time, supply information to a central body with the following compulsory facts for each day:

a) Where I will be sleeping that night
b) What is my appointed hour for that day
c) Where I will be during the appointed hour.

Then I have to supply information about all my competition time; every England game, every club, county and MCC game. Then more information about my training time. They even asked me to supply information for all significant periods of time (who decides what's significant?) just in case they decide to visit me outside the appointed hour or outside training or competition time, which they are entitled to do.

The lady who explained all this to me said that the players' unions had been consulted. I don't belong to any union! She said that I could nominate someone with agent rights to load up all the information to the database for me. An agent? That sounds suspiciously like something someone who actually earned money from the sport would have!

Is the current Indian batting line-up the best ever to visit New Zealand? Dylan Cleaver asked John Reid, Warren Lees and Mark Richardson for their opinion in the New Zealand Herald.

All three agree this Indian line-up compares favourably with any team that has toured here before, though Lees and Reid are both dismissive of the attack they are about to face and the conditions in which they are predicted to make hay.

In the Times of India, Bobilli Vijay Kumar writes that the flexibility within India's batting line-up is a major reason for their success.

India open in T20s and Tests with Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir; in the in-between, however, there is a minor change with the arrival of Sachin Tendulkar. Gambhir usually bats at No. 3 in such a scenario; but he drops down like a potato if the team gets off to a bumper start, as it happened in the first ODI at Napier. Captain Dhoni himself came in at that position in that intriguing game; he has, however, batted at No. 5 and 6 in other games too.

England could not even bat out their 20 overs, so overwhelmed were they by the atmosphere and their own ineptitude. Trinidad does parties like nowhere else has done since Bacchus drained his last dregs, and the Queen’s Park Oval was filled to the gunwales with 21,000 swaying inside, at the pitch of excitement which comes only from having people milling outside desperate to get in, writes Scyld Berry in the Telegraph.

Having played some fine cricket as the Test series wore on (and on, it seemed), England reverted to a red-shirted shambles. The captain, Andrew Strauss, did not so much not know what he was doing – this was a trying match for him such was the way his team responded in the field – as not know who he was, wearing the absent Matt Prior's shirt. His kit had been lost in transit apparently, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

Perhaps England's affairs have to become truly appalling before improvement can begin. Perhaps they must hit rock bottom. Perhaps they have. It felt as though they were plumbing those murky depths yesterday in losing the Twenty20 international to West Indies by six wickets, says Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

Andrew Strauss was pictured with the ICC World Twenty20 trophy on Saturday morning as part of a promotional drive by the governing body, but the England captain will not be lifting the silverware again in the summer unless his side can bring about a marked improvement over the next three months, writes Richard Hobson in the Times.

Peter Roebuck, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, likes what he sees in South Africa’s line-up for the third Test against Australia in Cape Town. Four of the top six batsmen will be non-white, which Roebuck calls a “remarkable achievement”.

And it has been effected without a bloody revolution. The rise of the current crop confirms that the game is rising in all groupings - only the English have fallen back, largely because many South Africans have moved to England or Perth. It'll take more than a few bombs in Mumbai and Lahore to defeat cricket's cosmopolitan ideal.

WV Raman writes in his column for Sportstar that the decline in the quality of pitches can contribute to the decline of cricket. The pitch is an integral part of the game, says the former Indian batsman, and as such the quality of pitches needs to be good if a game of cricket has to provide real entertainment to the public.

There is some merit in the ICC wanting pitches across the world to be reasonably similar but I believe the idea behind this is to eradicate under-prepared pitches that the countries in the sub-continent sometimes dish out for Test matches. However, there is still room for every nation to retain its uniqueness when it comes to the nature of pitches that international matches are played on.

Former Indian captain Bishan Bedi is typically blunt in his criticism of the IPL, and the BCCI's insistence on holding the Twenty20 event at the same time as the general elections in India. He writes in Outlook:

Terror clouds are hovering over the subcontinent ... But if some are least bothered about the dangers lying ahead, they are the BCCI and its ancillary, the IPL governing council. They're blissfully unaware of terrorists who might lurk in general elections booths as well as in IPL venues.

The BCCI is adamant that both the elections and the IPL can run smoothly with proper distribution of security forces—some wishful thinking that.

SR Pathiravithana, in his column for the Sunday Times, says that Kumar Sangakkara, the heir apparent to Mahela Jayawardene, has finally has got his chance to prove his credentials. As for the newly appointed interim committee chairman D Somachandra de Silva, says Pathiravithana, he bowled a googly well to drive onto the hot seat, but quite a few still wonder how effective he would be in his new role.

In the same newspaper M Shamil Amit reports on the final of the Inter School's Annual Big Match, where true Thomian grit prevailed at the SSC as the lads from Mt. Lavinia, led by Faahim Saleem, halted the Royal victory charge with a clever display of patience at the crease.

Ricky Ponting has plenty of reasons to set his sights high in defence of the Ashes, believes the Sunday Times' Simon Wilde. While he savours his team’s triumphs in Johannesburg and Durban, and watches the South African selectors panic, Ponting can say to his players: Look at the poor old Poms. They appear more confused than ever.

England are now ranked sixth in the ICC's Test table and any expectations of a repeat of the drama of the 2005 Ashes series are receding fast. England's temporary coach Andy Flower needs a victory to earn the job permanently, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.

The Independent's Stephen Brenkley says the countdown to the Ashes has begun but Andrew Strauss must not panic. Barring resignation or catastrophe, Strauss is certain to be in charge come 8 July. England do not need, cannot afford, a fourth captain within a year.

In the Sunday Times, Martin Johnson looks at England's performers in the Tests and says they were not the biggest failures in the Caribbean capers.

Ramnaresh Sarwan’s role will be crucial to West Indies’ resurgence, writes S Dinakar in Sportstar.

	Call me Phillip © Getty Images

Will Swanton writes in the Sun-Herald about Phillip Hughes’ name request.

P. Hughes prefers to be called Phillip rather than Phil in print. Originally this seemed a bizarre request given Hughes - unshaven, a fan of shorts and thongs, the son of a banana farmer, vertically challenged, and a country bumpkin to the bone - is about as prim and proper as a stubbie-holder.

"Phillip" carries the outdated formality of a bygone era when players wore pencil-thin moustaches and paraded an almost mystical aura. Given the events of the Kingsmead Test, however, Phillip it is. Certain achievements command respect.

In the Sunday Age Tim Lane says the resurgence of Ricky Ponting's team in South Africa has diverted so dramatically from the script.

Its off with the pyjamas and on with the flannels, says Mark Richardson in the New Zealand Herald. Test cricket is still the ultimate challenge for a cricketer, says the writer, and in New Zealand's case the team must earn respect in the five-day format.

Can we put up a better showing in the test matches than the ODIs? Well, if the wickets are juiced up, we can. But if that becomes the directive, the groundstaff must get it just right. If they overdo it, the result would be an even worse evil than being dressed up by the Indians on flat ones.

By unwisely scheduling the IPL during India's general elections, the tournament organisers have placed the government and its security bureaucracy in a cruel dilemma, writes B Raman in the Outlook magazine.

If they suggest a postponement of the tournament, they might give the impression that they have allowed themselves to be intimidated by the terrorists. Such an impression could give added oxygen to the terrorists. If they go ahead with the tournament, despite its clashing with the general elections and despite the deterioration in the security situation, , they could be playing with the security of the lives and property of the citizens of this country.

Andrew Strauss made three centuries in the Test series to answer doubts over whether captaincy would await his batting form. However he hasn't played an ODI since the 2007 World cup, which makes the Daily Telegraph's Nick Hoult think the one-day leg of the Caribbean tour will pose a bigger challenge for Strauss.

In the Times Richard Hobson says England could be helped by the fact that the prize money for Sunday's Twenty20 is approximately US$20 million less than what was on offer in their previous Twenty20 match.

After taking Australia to a series win over South Africa, Ricky Ponting has some advice for the country’s business leaders in his column in the Australian. He spotted newspaper references to trouble when it came to the economy and the cricket team, but says his side did not panic.

I kept repeating that we knew we were a team in transition, that we had a plan and that while little things might go wrong in the short term, I knew if we did not do anything silly, we would be back on track very soon.

These are the same principles I reckon business leaders in Australia should be staying true to in these troubled economic times: keep working on your plan, believe in the people around you and, most of all, don't do anything silly when it comes to your leadership activities and beliefs.

In the Age Greg Baum writes a moving story about his trip to Pakistan with the Australian team in 1994.

Peter Roebuck, writing in the Hindu, says Australia's resurgence lies with the decision to gamble on bold youngsters and bowlers prepared to put in a hard day's work.

Lalit Modi may be about to face his biggest challenge in the IPL yet and it may come from the source he would least expect, the players. Or at least, the international players, writes Neil Manthorp on Supercricket.

By stating that he "does not talk to FICA" he may just have bitten off more than he can chew. FICA's strongest member is the PCA of England, closely followed in strength by South Africa's SACA and Australia's ACA ... How can Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene seriously take the money on offer in season two of the IPL when the man in charge of the league rudely refuses to even speak to the men they have elected to be the guardians of their collective fate?

A chilling phone conversation with an Irish terrorist four decades ago convinced Ted Corbett that sportsmen will never be the target of terror attacks because the people the terrorists want to impress love their sports stars. But the Lahore shootout has changed everything and the vision of Chris Broad in his blood-stained shirt has only dampened Corbett's wish to see the world. Read on in Sportstar.

One morning I arrived at the office to be told that our man in Belfast had died suddenly and that I had been chosen to cover football in that city until a permanent replacement could be found. There had been threats to newspapermen in the city, two had been kidnapped when they wandered into forbidden territory and the hotel they all used had been blown up a number of times. I left the sports editor’s office full of joy, sure my family would understand this brief posting, glad to have a proper job instead of sitting round the office waiting for one of the big name writers to give way to me.

As I got back to my desk, my phone rang....

There is a secret to Virender Sehwag's fearlessness, a trait that resides in all those who are happy to live with risk; or indeed risk as most of us perceive it. Sehwag is not afraid of getting out. It doesn’t mean he is lackadaisical or that batting is a reckless, momentary pursuit. It is just that his mind is free from the fear of defeat, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.

My guess is that he now has a greater variety of shots, especially on the leg side. He always flicked the ball well off his pads but could be kept quiet by the ball that bounced into his rib cage. Now he seems to have a couple of shots for balls in that area. First, the trademark straight jab through mid-wicket, a shot achieved through his incredible bat speed. But more important, when it gets higher, he has started pulling the short ball. And anything that comes off the middle of the bat and achieves decent elevation goes out of the ground in New Zealand anyway! I also suspect he is being given the space that every performer needs.

In the Hindu, S Ram Mahesh is also of the opinion that Sehwag has "transformed his batting with the addition of pull stroke".

The pull stroke is a versatile, valuable weapon, and in cultivating the stroke, Sehwag hasn’t merely added a dimension — he has transformed forever his batting. As he said with typical economy of words, “They are bowling into my body and I’m playing my pull shot to get boundaries. There is no other way they can bowl to me.”

Read Mike Ticher's satirical take on the thinking behind Australia's squad selection in the Guardian.

Why choose only Mike Hussey when you can get his brother David as a matching pair? Is Nathan Hauritz really the best spinner in the country? Who exactly are Ryan Harris and Moises Henriques? This season Australia have picked 10 players whose names start with H. Who could be behind such a policy? Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I suggest the chairman of selectors, Andrew Hilditch, and his offsider Merv Hughes. Even when Matthew Hayden's retirement left a big H-shaped hole at the top of the order, Phil Hughes filled it. If Brad Hodge makes the squad, we'll know why.

I am sure the England captain and the England Cricket Board spin doctors will tell us there are lots of positives to take out of this tour. Well there aren't, writes Geoffrey Boycott in the Telegraph.

We had six batsmen and only four bowlers on easy batting pitches in Antigua and Barbados. Sending Jimmy Anderson in as nightwatchman in Antigua when we had lots of runs on the board was ridiculous. Only when England had to go for broke did Strauss play five bowlers and show some urgency. Will he get better? I bloody well hope so.

There is evidence that Strauss and Flower, still officially assistant coach, will be able to forge an accomplished partnership. They have become close allies in the past few weeks and together have begun to establish where England have been going wrong and what they need to do to put it right, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

Ben Laughlin thought he was in trouble when ordered for a chat with Trevor Barsby, the Queensland coach, on Thursday. Not quite, reports Jamie Pandaram in the Sydney Morning Herald. Laughlin learned he was being sent to South Africa with Australia's one-day team.

"I thought, 'Here we go, I'm getting dropped for the Sheffield Shield final ... It was a numbing feeling. I had maybe some slight hope in the back of my mind but there'd be a few jokes among the boys and you wouldn't think about it. This is totally unexpected."

In the same paper Will Swanton says Peter Siddle is heading for the beach with Phillip Hughes after strong performances in the opening two Tests against South Africa.

Both have made names for themselves in South Africa, Hughes for his remarkable batting performances, Siddle for being such a confrontational and successful fast bowler. He's annoyed South African crowds to the point of distraction. The reason? They never knew he was this good.

India's comprehensive ODI series win against New Zealand, their first noteworthy achievement in the country in a long time, augurs well for the Tests where the gulf in the basic ability of the two teams will be highlighted even more, writes Sharda Ugra in India Today.

Unpredictability and inconsistency were old and faithful companions to Indian cricket but Dhoni’s team have made the Yo-yo Years, full of heaving, high drama and the birth of myths and legends, seem like a distant, historical curiosity

Duncan Fletcher writes in the Guardian that two of England's main concerns are the identity of their fourth seamer and No. 3 slot in the batting.

With England having slipped to No. 6 in the Test rankings after the defeat in the Caribbean, Michael Atherton says in the Times that they should realise they aren't one of the best teams in the world any more.

Two things were fundamental to that failure: an inherently cautious attitude, born of a team not used to winning and unsure of themselves, and a bowling attack that is worthy in its endeavours but lacks the magic ingredients to dismiss good players on good pitches.

	Andy Flower has grown in stature over the series © Getty Images

The England press has been mightily impressed by the performance of former Zimbabwe captain Andy Flower as the interim coach during the Caribbean trip. Michael Atherton writes in the Times that Flower has all the necessary ingredients to be a successful full-time coach for England, including the backing of Kevin Pietersen.

Flower will have the advantage of Andrew Strauss's good favour - the bond between captain and stand-in coach was obviously strong throughout the tour - a key consideration after the Moores-Kevin Pietersen fallout. Pietersen, too, has spoken publicly in favour of Flower, which is some turnaround from two months ago, when Pietersen wanted him out.

It's a view shared by the Guardian's Mike Selvey.

"It has been instructive watching Flower grow into the role, to witness at first hand the close working relationship with Andrew Strauss, and the mutual admiration they share, and the respect he has gained across the board, even from those who might before the tour have been regarded as potential dissidents."

England were denied in Trinidad for plenty of reasons, but the most galling was their failure to grasp the umpire review system. If the players keep misapplying the system by gambling with it, they will have to keep their grumbles to themselves, writes Lawrence Booth in the Wisden Cricketer.

This system was brought in to avoid a repetition of Andrew Symonds’ nick off Ishant Sharma at Sydney prior to a series-winning hundred. It was not intended to over-rule questionable lbw shouts. The sooner England realise this, the more chance they’ll have of keeping Australia at bay this summer.

Ashwell Prince, South Africa's captain and opener for the third Test against Australia, may well be scratching his head, wondering whether he has been handed a garland or a hand grenade, writes Rob Houwing on Sport24.

It is true that Prince has often encountered the second new ball from his more customary middle-innings role, but that is still rather different from tackling it at the very outset. Ironically he is now going the way of the axed McKenzie, who had made the Test move from a lower spot to the front strikingly successfully until this season, where he has looked scratchy and vulnerable both away and home against the Australians.

The current referral system that has been used by the International Cricket Council has some very serious shortcomings that they will have to address, writes Arthur Turner on Sport24.

The third umpire acting as a consultant and feeding the on-field umpire certain pieces of information based on what he sees and then letting him review his decision makes no sense. This method further complicates the situation and can further embarrass the umpires. Once a referral has been made the decision must be taken out of the on-field umpires' hands and be left to the sole discretion of the third umpire. His decision must be based solely on technology and have no human influence if the system is to work.

The top and tail of the New Zealand test team will be the focal points for the national selectors when they get out the whiteboard in Hamilton today, writes David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald.

The lack of first-class cricket in the past few weeks means they may be forced to pick some players on trust, and past performances. They are relying on evidence from one-day matches - domestic and international. The season schedule has done them no favours.

The ICC should be urgently investigating safety measures in India – instead, it is discussing the weather, writes David Hopps in his blog in the Guardian.

What cricket must ensure is that the IPL does not present its security arrangements in brochure form. There is merit in the argument of Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, that India is safer than Pakistan, but only a man of such audacity would proclaim it so confidently so soon after the horrors of Mumbai.

	Chris Gayle's tactics after securing a 1-0 lead in Jamaica came in for criticism but they helped West Indies win their first Test series in more than four years © Getty Images

The thriller in Port-of-Spain defied the behaviour of the pitch and delivered a fitting end to the series, writes Vic Marks in his blog in the Guardian.

The pitch did not change that much yesterday but the match situation did – deliciously. Criticisms of this surface or the one in Barbados should not be swept away amid the excitement of a Test match, which briefly wobbled from moribund to mesmerising on the final afternoon.

Cricket becomes fascinating when the mind games begin, when each side can either scent an unlikely victory or fear the worst. Then the brain starts to play its tricks. We were in this territory after lunch yesterday.

The series triumph was long overdue for West Indies, writes Tony Cozier in the Independent, and the tactics, despite the criticisms, justified the end result.

It regained the Wisden Trophy they [West Indies] once securely held for 27 years, but which has been in England's equally firm grip since 2000. In those nine years, they had not won a single Test against their oldest opponents and had endured a raft of humiliations – a two-day defeat at Headingley in 2004, all-out totals of 47, 54, 61 and 94.

The outcome of the series, however it was achieved, has put such memories behind them. There have been unmistakable signs that the fight, so glaringly missing for so long, is returning. It was put to the test time and again over the past six weeks and, even as they collapsed on a wearing pitch, it was evident yesterday.

Stephen Brenkley, writing in the Independent, says the Trinidad Test was not deserving of the thrilling climax given the way it had progressed for the first four days, but that in itself summed up Test cricket's endless possibilities.

Chris Gayle's tactics courted disaster, writes Michael Atherton in the Times, but in the end, England, despite their superb fight on the final day, had themselves to blame for their failure to win the Test.

Jonathan Agnew, in his column on the BBC website, writes about what the outcome means for the England team and what it needs to get right ahead of the return series in May.

	The Australians are back on top © AFP

Ron Reed says in the Herald Sun it looks like the start of a new era for Australia after their win over South Africa.

The No. 1 ranking is safe. Rumblings about Ponting's captaincy have dissipated. Gratifyingly for the veteran leader, all of the new and newish faces responded to the faith shown in them, none more, of course, than opening bat Phil Hughes, with his twin centuries.

Peter Roebuck, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, says Australia will be even harder to beat with a spinner and stronger catching.

Even then Ricky Ponting's side cannot be expected to overwhelm opponents in the old way. South Africa have been trounced but did suffer the loss of their captain and both tosses and could not muster the strength of mind needed to contain a reinvigorated visiting side.

Late on Sunday night, after the crowd — treated to 726 runs in 95.1 overs — had drained, Sachin Tendulkar, in a revealing moment of emphasis, said, “We can change the momentum like that,” and snapped his fingers, writes S Ram Mahesh in the Hindu.

Batsmen, over the last several years, have become accustomed to changing it like that. This is a fine point — little should be detracted from what batsmen have achieved in the last decade and a half in limited-overs cricket. They haven’t been undeserving Shylocks extracting their pounds of flesh. Why, just on Sunday, Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, and Jesse Ryder batted uncommonly well. Each shone with a gem-like flame; the variety and richness of the stroke-making was of the highest order. But there’s no doubt the bowlers have been compromised.

Vic Marks bemoans the lifeless pitches in the Caribbean which have helped batsmen fill their boots. After watching several batathons, he writes in the Guardian that perhaps Duckworth and Lewis should to come up with a new formula.

Often we conclude that so-and-so's runs should count double because they have been scored on a dicey pitch in a taut situation. But in circumstances like these in Trinidad and the ones experienced in Barbados, the value of the batsmen's runs should be halved or reduced by whatever quotient Mr D and Mr L come up with.

After Shivnarine Chanderpaul made yet another century against England, Stephen Brenkley writes in the Independent that "no batsman can have been a greater pain in their [England's] collective backside than Shivnarine Chanderpaul".

Why did some prolific run-scorers in domestic cricket - like Jamie Siddons, Brad Hodge, Martin Love, Jamie Cox and Darren Lehmann - not have long Test careers for Australia? Read Greg Baum's reasons in the Age.

Four peculiarities of cricket weighed against all these men, and many others besides. One is that a cricket team is relatively small, and made up of specialists. Only two opening batsmen can be picked at a time, four middle-order batsmen, three seam bowlers, but perhaps only one spinner and certainly only one wicketkeeper. It means that even for a struggling team, wholesale change is rare.

Secondly, cricket is less dynamic than, say, football, so can be played for longer, 20 years or more even at professional level. It means the rate of attritional change is low, at least among batsmen. Thirdly, it has become such a lucrative profession that none are inclined to volunteer for redundancy. Finally, it draws out a sentimentalism not much evident in the Australian character in other spheres.

Phillip Hughes is a tough, pesky 20-year-old lefty from the sticks who bats and lives by his own lights, writes Peter Roebuck in the Age.

Australia's newest batting prodigy was raised by banana-growing parents in Macksville, near Coffs Harbour on the NSW coast. From the start he was mad on the game. Many fathers hang a ball in a sock so that sons and daughters can practise their strokes. Greg Hughes had to provide three balls before his son was satisfied. When darkness fell across the back veranda he would come indoors, put on his full cricketing regalia and rehearse his shots in front of the mirror until his Italian mother announced that supper was ready.

The draw is heavy favourite but, if England can bowl out West Indies by lunch today, it is by no means curtains yet, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

West Indies were clinging on tenaciously in the face of some beautiful, controlled spin bowling from Monty Panesar, on whom most of all, the evidence thus far suggests, rest England's hopes of squaring the series, and mercurial pace from Amjad Khan, who produced some wicked deliveries, one of which disposed of Ramnaresh Sarwan in between giving Matt Prior a torrid time behind the stumps.

Doubtless if West Indies hang grimly on to win this series there will be dancing in the streets. While they are about it, the revellers might as well jig up and down on the coffin containing Test cricket, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

Test cricket, as patented by generations of battle-hardened players who would no less have recognised the events of the first two days than they would have appreciated them, returned to the Queen’s Park Oval yesterday. Conditions remained batsman-friendly but at least the willow wielders were made to work hard for their runs by bowlers intent on taking wickets, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

Having received an unexpected boost after Chris Gayle, the West Indies captain, retired hurt after taking his hundredth run, England’s chances of levelling the series ran into the brick wall that is Shivnarine Chanderpaul and his apprentice, Brendan Nash, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph.

It has been an agonising time for the Test debutants. In what other sport do they have to wait for two days after receiving that coveted first cap to make any sort of contribution? Lendl Simmons and Amjad Khan were unable to influence events for what must have seemed to them an eternity, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian

For Chris Gayle, the physical pain would have been trifling compared to the mental anguish. As soon as the West Indies captain felt the sharp pain at the back of his right thigh after completing the sharp, risky single to raise his hundred yesterday, he knew his team's chances of protecting their 1-0 lead in the series were out of his hands, writes Tony Cozier in the Independent.

Peter Roebuck watched Phillip Hughes and Ricky Ponting bat together in Durban and says the pair, rookie and veteran, seemed to enjoy batting together, not so much to rub salt into wounds as for the sheer pleasure. While Ponting was in complete command of the bowling, himself, his team and his opponents, Hughes learnt a lot from him, not least about singles and single-mindedness. Meanwhile, the South Africans went backwards. Read on in the Sydney Morning Herald.

SR Pathiravithana, in his column for theSunday Times, says Sri Lanka were compounded by the blight of terrorism at home from their very infancy in Test cricket and 30 years on, they seem to have developed their own antidotes to it.

Sport in the entire region is in real peril at present and the only question that needs an answer is – “Where are we heading and how to get back on the road?” Right now that one voice that was a few years ago is being sung in different pitches and the result has become like the proverbial loosen the pack of sticks and you can break them one by one.

Writing in Sri Lanka's Sunday Times, Chaminda Vaas recalls the horrific shootout in Lahore. The events of March 3, 2009 had an enormous impact on Vaas and as he comes to terms with what happened he realises that cricket is just a game. While he will continue playing the sport he loves, Vaas does not think he will tour Pakistan again.

At first, the significance of what I saw didn’t sink in. We are sportsmen and especially in the Asian region, the reaction that we are accustomed to is one of adulation, where fans seek autographs and some of them even want to touch and feel us. Who, therefore, would want to carefully take aim and fire at us?

Whatever the future, cricket lost what was left of its innocence when the gunmen opened fire near the Gaddafi stadium and the number of security personnel who fired back, in defence of the Sri Lankan players and match officials, was suspiciously few, writes Scyld Berry in the Sunday Telegraph.

Doubts were expressed last week about the second IPL taking place. But Muttiah Muralitharan, due to play with Andrew Flintoff for Chennai Super Kings, joked that he is "going to wear a bulletproof jacket for future journeys on team buses". All the Sri Lankans signed for the IPL will, at this stage, go to India – Thilan Samaraweera, the most badly injured, is not contracted – because they believe security in India will be far tighter than in Pakistan.

Near a place called Liberty Square last Monday, sport lost its freedom. The devastating attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore will change the terms of engagement for players and spectators for as long as terrorism exists. Sadly, it threatens to stretch generations into the distance, way beyond the horizon of the foreseeable future, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday.

As the news of the horrific terrorist attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan reached the England team on tour in the West Indies it was impossible to avoid the feeling that though the game will survive, everything will be different as a result, wrist Steve James in the Sunday Telegraph.

How realistic is the prospect of all forms of the international game being played in the Gulf region? asks Jamie Jackson in the Observer.

West Indies are determined to protect their 1-0 lead, but their defensive strategy has made for some soporific cricket, writes Martin Johnson in the Sunday Times.

Test cricket is already reaching for the snorkel and flippers in its Canute-like attempt to stem the inrushing tide of Twenty20 and, with only a draw needed in Trinidad to win the series, here we have the West Indies appearing to have removed the responsibility for the playing surface from the head groundsman and called in a local undertaker to prepare it with an injection of embalming fluid.

For the first hour yesterday though West Indies came at England with intent, an outfit revitalised, in the knowledge that if they were not careful, the game, and series, could slip from their grasp, writes Mike Selvey in the Observer.

David Gower is feeling envious watching Andrew Strauss pump away hundreds on the tour to West Indies. In the Sunday Times he wonders how Strauss would have fared against Holding, Roberts, Marshall and Garner.

His figures point to powers of concentration and a determination to make the most of his opportunities. England’s lack of hundreds was highlighted last summer and it was part of his manifesto as captain that they sort it out. The message is getting through.

After one of the most desultory opening days to a Test match imaginable, notwithstanding another effortless Strauss century, there was briefly a spark of life to proceedings for an hour on the second morning. Our attention could legitimately meander from the Trini Posse Stand for a while. But thereafter much of the cricket was dire. Much more like this and the game will die, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.

It is an audacious strategy - batting for a draw from the second evening of a five-day game can’t be easy - and if Gayle and his team pull it off they will ignore the purists, having regained the Wisden Trophy that they relinquished to England in 2000 and having won their first series against major opposition for six years, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times.

The middle-rankers continued their humdrum, protracted scuffle here yesterday, while the big boys clashed in Durban. The contrast was stark, not least in the levels of excitement. There is a real heavyweight scrap going on there in South Africa; this is piffling playground posturing. If that is Test cricket, this is no test at all. Not for the batsmen anyway, writes Steve James in the Sunday Telegraph.

Whenever an England captain is appointed, immediate concerns are expressed about what it might do to his batting. Unless it happens to be Bob Willis, who was 15 captains ago and did not count. The cares of leader-ship can weigh men down while they ignore their own game to think of strategy, selection and the needs of others. Andrew Strauss is giving serious trouble to this theory, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday.

There are some heavy heads in Macksville this weekend after Phillip Hughes’ century in the second Test in South Africa. The people from the small town in New South Wales, including Hughes’ parents, celebrated the exploits of their local boy, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

"We are very proud,'' his dad Greg Hughes said. "Just ecstatic. We just watched it at home on the TV. It was pretty exciting for him to get a hundred in his second Test.”

	Andrew Strauss on his way to another hundred © Getty Images

Andrew Strauss will score tougher runs than he did yesterday against a threadbare West Indies attack but, magnificent in its single-mindedness and focus, he may not play many more important innings, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

One man's desperation is another's caution. England selected five specialist bowlers, the West Indies just three. England chose two regular spinners, the West Indies none. That is no misreading of the pitch, just a difference in priorities, writes Steve James in the Telegraph.

Andrew Strauss, with another half-century, was leading the way once more as England set out on their quest to win the final Test and level the series but it was a slow march rather than a charge, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

Andrew Strauss scored his third hundred in successive Tests, a feat only Graham Gooch has managed as England captain. Strauss reached the milestone with a cheeky single off Chris Gayle, his own mastery over the West Indies yet to be matched by the rest of his team, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph.

After surviving a nervous start in Trinidad, Owais Shah may yet justify the selectors' faith in him, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

Shah was perspiring freely and not just because of the heat. Harmison is under pressure because his career is in jeopardy. Shah experienced a different pressure, one that he has not been accustomed to recently: the pressure of being favoured.

No one will gain anything from preaching on the competitive grave of Steve Harmison, and, all the evidence suggests, least of all the man himself. However, it is impossible not to believe that his story, his long and unsuccessful wrestle with the challenge of performing according to his potential, is a haunting parable of what has been wrong with English cricket for so long, writes James Lawton in the Independent.

Amjad Khan's appearance in a Test match for England yesterday was extraordinary for at least three reasons. First, he was born and brought up in Copenhagen and thus becomes the first Dane to play Test cricket. Secondly, he was not originally selected for this tour and has been preferred to two fast bowlers who were. Thirdly, he has had to overcome career-threatening injury which kept him out of cricket for 18 months, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

Even before a ball was bowled, the West Indies indicated by their selection their intention to disregard the purpose of any sporting contest - to win, writes Tony Cozier in the Trinidad Express.

We find meaning in sport, and escapist joy, because we have become sufficiently refined and civilised to enjoy a gladiatorial spectacle in a safe context. But when the real thing is near at hand, when genuine violence enters the stage, sport suddenly seems like a luxury we can no longer afford. That is why this week's terrible events in Lahore have shocked sportsmen and fans more than anything since the Munich atrocities of 1972, writes Ed Smith in the Telegraph.

When big money comes into play, the world stops being a sensible and reasonable world, writes Nirmal Shekar in the Hindu.

Repeatedly we are told that there is far too much at stake for too many people, for the IPL Board to even so much as contemplate the idea of such a postponement or a cancellation. But who are these stakeholders, and why should elected governments stretch their security apparatus dangerously thin in order to protect their interests?

The Lahore attack on the Sri Lankan players proved that cricket could indeed be a soft target for terrorists in this part of the world. While we may want to believe that India is a lot safer than Pakistan — and there is indeed some strong basis for this belief, 26/11 notwithstanding — this is not the time to traffic in illusions.

Mike Coward, writing in the Australian, says Pakistan must embrace playing at neutral venues or perish from the consciousness of the international cricket community.

And this must not happen. In the Test match context, in particular, world cricket is fragile and needs Pakistan to be conspicuous and competitive. And, to this end, Australians can assist by supporting the home series with Pakistan later this year. Whether the game can survive in Pakistan, let alone prosper, with the elite players playing all home games out of the country is problematic.

Like Coward, Ron Reed has toured the country with Australia’s team. In the Herald Sun Reed says it is now the duty of the rest of the cricket family to look after their own and make sure Pakistan continues on the international scene.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald Peter Roebuck takes a step back and reflects. No other game had as many problems, and no other game has as many possibilities. And the miracle is not that cricket occasionally suffers setbacks, but that any international cricket is played at all.

The former New Zealand wicketkeeper Adam Parore has strong views on the shootout in Lahore and what ramifications it has for world cricket. Parore, who says one the reasons he retired before New Zealand's tour to Pakistan in 2002 was that he didn't want to go there, believes playing in the subcontinent is "clearly unacceptable". In fact, he believes the 2011 World Cup will have to be moved to somewhere else, perhaps Dubai, because it is inconceivable that it be held in the Asian cricketing countries. Read on in the New Zealand Herald.

It's not hard to work out that the tap must be turned off in Pakistan's case, but there has now been a seismic shift because cricket teams are clearly regarded as legitimate targets. India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka must also be regarded as too dangerous to remain as hosts for this World Cup, and as cricket tour venues in general.

An editorial in the same paper says that Pakistan has run out of chances.

Does cricket possess a worse administrator than Pakistan's board chairman Ijaz Butt? asks David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald.

Has there ever been a more wrong-headed reading of a major incident surrounding a sports team? How could a senior administrator put both feet knee deep into an issue where sensitivity would have seemed essential? It may be that Butt felt his country's security forces needed some verbal support in a time of stress. Or it could be that in terms of possessing a skerrick of diplomacy in his veins, he's on a par with a goat.

The terror attack in Lahore was aimed at destroying the core values represented by sport,and were an attempt to sabotage the spirit of unity and joy the game brings to fans around the globe, writes Simon Barnes in the Times.

Theirs is a war against joy, a crusade against union, a jihad against humanity. After the terrorists — brave souls prepared to risk a battle against men with cricket bats while armed only with rifles and rocket launchers — made their attack on the Sri Lanka team, we have to wonder if big-time sport will become a worldwide target. If so, sport as we know it will be changed for ever. Big sporting events as we know them will no longer be feasible.

The financial fallout in the event of a cancellation of this year's IPL as a result of the threat of terrorism could be devastating, write Rhys Blakely and Kevin Eason in the Times.

Television rights deals alone are worth $1 billion (about £708 million) and income from merchandising and gate receipts are vital to the eight regional teams, which have invested $720 million in their franchises buying star players from around the world, but which have racked up financial losses from the inaugural tournament last year.
......
The patience of the tycoons bankrolling the series, such as Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man, who bought Mumbai Indians for £112 million and has since taken a battering on the Mumbai stock exchange, will soon wear thin unless they get rapid assurances that the tournament is guaranteed to offer a return on their ambitious investments.

Stephen Brenkley, writing in the Independent, feels England captain Andrew Strauss is prepared to take the plunge and go in with five bowlers, including two spinners, for the must-win game against West Indies in Trinidad.

All the evidence of the series so far is that England need as many bowlers as they can muster to take the 20 opposition wickets to level a series they were expected to win comfortably.
...........
As he spoke, it was as if he was computing in his brain the cards bearing the names of the players. If five bowlers is the preferred option, he must leave out a batsman from the previous match – a straight choice between the two friends, Owais Shah and Ravi Bopara.

Former England coach Duncan Fletcher, in his blog in the Guardian, writes England must pick just four bowlers for Trinidad, and Steve Harmison should not be among them.

I notice he wanted Andrew Strauss to tell him where he stands, but that reaction is just the same old Harmison. He shouldn't be asking other people where he stands. He should be looking in the mirror and asking himself whether he's done enough to help this team. The stats suggest he hasn't. England have to think long and hard about his future – and it should not include today's game.

Michael Atherton, writing in the Times says England are in dire need of a quality strike bowler, and Amjad Khan, who could be picked should Strauss go in with five bowlers, may just provide the shock value.

The quantity of bowlers in the starting line-up is a red herring. England could have played any number of the seam bowlers at their disposal in Barbados and it would not have made any difference. The real issue was one of quality and in those conditions England did not possess enough of it to dismiss good batsmen. Until they find a strike bowler, they will continue to be a mid-ranking team.

Andrew Strauss must throw caution to the wind and make some brave selection calls for the final Test in Trinidad, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

	Michael Hussey hits the nets in Durban © Getty Images

Michael Hussey is having a bad run, but he remains upbeat and enthusiastic, according to Will Swanton in the Sydney Morning Herald.

He's determined, but not too determined, to come good when hostilities against South Africa resume in the second Test on Friday. "I'm trying to go the other way and stay as relaxed as possible," Hussey said when asked if he had analysed the reasons for the first horror run of his Test career. "I had a good look at myself in the series back home against South Africa. I think, in the first two Tests anyway, I was really trying so hard.”

The Australian women’s team starts the defence of the World Cup on Sunday and Amanda Lulham writes in the Daily Telegraph about the new and aggressive outlook.

Long the poor relation to the Australian men's team in terms of support, profile and crowd numbers, the players have set themselves the task of winning over the Australian public by delivering an entertaining mix of aggressive, high-scoring cricket.

	Kumar Sangakkara comforts his wife Yehali on returning to Colombo © AFP

There's no point in denying that sport has never been under such grievous threat. As every illusion about the invincibility of sport, its emotion, what it does to the human spirit at its moments of greatest expression, was shot down with the events in Lahore, writes James Lawton in the Independent.

Of course sport will survive because it is not something that is created outside some of the most basic instincts of young people to compete and enjoy whatever talent they have been given, and when you have enjoyed pleasure it will never leave you. However, there is no point in denying that in its highest form, on the international stage, it has never been under such grievous threat.

Angus Fraser in the same paper writes on how touring Asia used to be one of the game's great pleasures but those days are now over, with the stakes becoming too high now.

Every player who has toured Asia will have sat on a similar bus and made similar journeys to and from the ground they were playing at. On occasion each of us would have nervously looked out of the coach window and questioned the motives of the motorbike driver inquisitively staring at you. But on nearly every occasion the stare turned to a smile once he had realised the coach was filled with cricketers. Considering the humble life of most of these people it was easy to thank your lucky stars for the position you were in.

Mike Atherton believes the Lahore terror attacks could have a devastating effect on the game in the subcontinent. In an interview to Patrick Kidd in the Times he also talks about the end of cricket as a truly international sport if cricket in India were take a blow.

Sarah Hoggard writing in the same paper, recalls how dangers would be at the back of her mind when her husband and England fast bowler Matthew went on tour to Pakistan or India in recent years. However, she would remind herself that dreadful things could happen anywhere, at any time, and that her husband was being looked after by people who could be trusted to keep him safe.

That was of particular importance in India, where the cricket supporters are so fanatical that every time you step out of the hotel you are likely to get mobbed...On tour in India we got a taste of what the Beckhams' lives must be like all the time. So in situations like that, it's important that you are made to feel secure.

Mihir Bose in his blog on the BBC website says there are two very worrying things about the events in Pakistan. To begin with, there can never be absolute security for anybody, with hastily-arranged matches making security even more difficult. Second, the perpetrators must have had frighteningly good intelligence about what was going on.

Mike Selvey in his blog on the Guardian website voices his concerns about the game, given that the whole subcontinent will be out of bounds for some time now.

A new Future Tours Programme was to be put in place by the ICC to follow the current arrangement which runs until 2012. David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald believes it's time to start again and delete all proposed trips to Pakistan. Also, check out Rod Emmerson's cartoon in the same paper.

It was perhaps all true and gut-feel “honest”, but Dhoni's remarks on being "happy we didn't tour Pakistan" was perhaps inappropriate and insensitive. Sharda Ugra in her blog on the India Today website takes the opportunity to understand BCCI’s grasp, or the lack, of media training or media management.

The current regime even takes great pride in being control freaks of a kind. Except when some real control is needed, the BCCI somehow finds a way to ensure that Indian cricket ends up with its foot in its mouth.

Vir Sanghvi in his editorial piece in the Hindustan Times calls for the postponement of the IPL with the India security forces firmly focussing on protecting the elections from jihadi attacks.

Malcolm Speed, the former ICC chief executive, says security can never be guaranteed and the attacks in Lahore were a cricket administrator's worst nightmare. In a column in the Herald Sun he predicts it will be decades before Australia goes to Pakistan again.

Touring dangerous countries was previously an occupational hazard for elite sportsmen and women. After Tuesday's events, it has become a threat to the existence of professional sport in large parts of the world ...

I have wrestled with the issue of sending teams to Johannesburg, Karachi, Kingston and Colombo - all seriously dangerous cities. The conventional wisdom has been that sporting teams will not be a target for terrorists. High-level diplomatic advice was that cricket teams were unlikely to be targeted. That advice was wrong and the sporting world has changed.

The editors of Pakistan's Jang raise questions regarding the attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore, those that the government may be forced to answer over the next few days.

... the attack was carried out close to a police station and that the attackers must have conducted a reconnaissance for them to set up a kill-zone – and nobody noticed? Nobody noticed that up to fourteen heavily armed men using at least three cars, as well as rickshaws and bicycles, were securing a road junction in the centre of Lahore? A reasonable person may infer from this that there was a failure of intelligence, both electronic and human.

	Security guards crowd round the Sri Lankan team's bullet-ridden bus © Getty Images

The terror attacks in Lahore carried deeper ramifications for the game with some of cricket’s superstars targeted and wounded. Rob Houwing in Sport24.com calls on the game’s community to stand together and not be driven apart by evil and bloodshed

Potential for polarisation and some resentment exists, even if the game being split along the “First v Third World” lines of old is unlikely, and to be guarded against at all costs. The world governing body, the ICC, is not always renowned for its stealth, diplomatic nous or pro-activity. This a good time for it to display decisive leadership -- there may be no choice. It is confronted by a delicate and deeply complex issue, because security for the game’s participants and enthusiasts is one of those “no middle ground” necessities.

Neil Johnson, understandably is shocked at the events in Pakistan, a country which he has fond memories of during Zimbabwe's tour in 1999. He presents a few snippets from that visit in his column in the Natal Witness.

The public in Pakistan are mad about cricket, its very much part of daily life there. Even in the dusty back streets of Lahore you would be sure to find youngsters decked out in “whites” and dusty cricket jerseys, bowling at makeshift stumps. As visitors we were treated like celebrities. All the average man in the street wanted to do was to welcome us to his country and cheer the bus as it moved on.

Paul Holden in his blog Sideline Slogger believes cricket is sullied and has become an unwitting and unwilling poster child for the renaissance of international sporting terrorism.

	An innocent pastime becomes a symbol of hatred © AFP

In the terrorist mindset, the effete and Western activity of cricket distracts good Muslims from what they should be doing: praying and executing jihad. In the terrorist imagination, cricket, loved by millions of ordinary Pakistanis, is an emblem of evil Western modernity. An innocent pastime becomes a symbol of hatred.

In the same paper, Simon Barnes finds it hard to work out how sport, which is an ideal target for terrorists, has managed to live a mostly charmed life until now.

Sport is already a stage and the world is watching. All a terrorist has to do is alter the script and all the publicity in the world is his to command. I have been through a million metal detectors; my laptop has been X-rayed so often that it glows; my bag has been fumbled with and my crotch groped repeatedly by the uniformed and the charmless; and I know that all this performance is just for the look of the thing and that a professional could get through with anything he liked.

In the Guardian, Dileep Premachandran writes that after the events in Lahore, the old cliche about cricket being the subcontinent's religion can be buried forever.

If the ICC is to prove itself fit to govern international cricket, it must now accept the inevitable consequences of the terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team in Lahore and announce categorically that all international cricket in Pakistan is suspended until further notice, writes David Hopps in the same paper.

Tunku Vardarajan believes the attacks on the Sri Lankan sportsmen have shown that these terrorist groups have no love for the idea of Pakistan as a Muslim democracy capable of cohabiting with a wider world. He writes on forbes.com.

It is probably the last time in a long, long while that an international team is going to drive into the Gaddafi Stadium. Along with the shock of the morning, comes the sadness at all that will inevitably follow. The terrorists in Lahore have, in a very macabre manner, leveled the playing field. Sharda Ugra in her blog on the India Today website exposes the myth that cricket is bullet-proof as she takes a walk down memory lane.

From Bundu Khan’s delectable kababs to Younis Khan’s obdurate defence. From the obliging cloth merchants of Liberty market to Danish Kaneria’s more deceptive offerings. The walk to the ground before start of play is pleasant, with just enough time either to imagine what could possibly transpire over the next few hours or for the more methodical to draw up mental to-do lists. Traffic around the circle is usually leisurely, courteous in the manner of everything Lahore. As the red-brick of the stadium nears, the melee of the market falls away.

The half-hour madness in Lahore means from now stadiums will now become garrisons and cricket-watching will further move away from stands to television sets, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.

The Hindu editors feel the costs of sponsoring, temporising with, or going soft on terrorism have never been higher.

In the Hindustan Times, Kadambari Murali reveals the feeling among Pakistanis through a text message she received from a sports journalist in the country.

On Tuesday morning, a Pakistani sports journalist and friend responding to an email asking if he was okay and what exactly was going on there sent back a terse, anguished reply: "Thanks, we don't exist." That's more or less what the rest of the world - cricketing or otherwise - believes of Pakistan, especially after Tuesday.

Whatever the shortcomings, the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore has shown that one would be a fool if one got complacent with promises of “foolproof security.” The visitors, after all, had been assured exactly that. Lokendra Pratap Sahi in the Telegraph, the Kolkata daily, zooms in on the soft spot selected for the strike.

First, the entry gate is rather narrow and the team bus has to almost stop before a tight right turn (for the portico) is taken. Usually, there are enough security personnel, including the Elite ‘No Fear’ Punjab Police commandos, but terrorists could still strike and cause absolute mayhem. It’s a chilling thought.

Till Tuesday, 'Tis not cricket' had a connotation quite different from what it might be in the future. Ayaz Memon in Daily News & Analysis believes the utter mindlessness of the act will have left the global anti-terror protagonists even more bewildered, and the international sports fraternity, especially cricket, bedevilled.

The PCB had last year signed a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for visiting teams on the insistence of the ICC security consultants. Rehman Malik, the top man in the interior ministry, signed the SOP on behalf of the government and apparently many of the guidelines set out in the procedure were not followed for the Sri Lankan team. The following piece in Mid-Day provides the details.

	Some of the damage caused by the attacks in Lahore © AFP

Greg Baum writes in the Age about how the rules have changed for terrorists and sports teams.

There is no Geneva Convention-style pact to cover sportsfolk on tour in dangerous places, but since the 1972 Munich Olympics there has been a kind of tacit understanding that terrorists would not target them, for fear of an even more severe backlash.

When Sri Lanka agreed to tour Pakistan in place of India, which had been ordered by its Government not to go after the bombings perpetrated by Islamist fundamentalists in Mumbai last November, this unspoken understanding was its only guarantee. No team had been to Pakistan for 14 months.

But, increasingly, terrorists have shown no respect for understandings, explicit or implicit. The attack in Lahore marks a turning point. Thankfully, no cricketer died or was seriously injured, though six security staff and two bystanders were killed. Nonetheless, from today, new understandings come into force.

Malcolm Conn says in the Australian the situation in Pakistan could have been avoided with more action from those who run the game.

If only many of the presidents and chairmen of the so-called 10 Test-playing countries who make up the ICC put people before politics, the game would not be in such an unholy mess. That it takes a tragedy of the proportions played out on the streets of Lahore, directly involving some of the game's finest players, should bring shame to those who refuse to put safety and security first.

In the Sydney Morning Herald Jamie Pandaram reports Australia were told before they cancelled last year’s tour that the team would be specifically targeted by terrorists.

Robert Craddock says in the Courier-Mail that what makes the incident more horrifying is that Sri Lanka are the Switzerland of Asian cricket.

Peter Lalor, writing in the Australian, looks at Australia’s blue-singlet, working-class bowling attack.

They are union men who work for each other and back each other up when times are tough. One was a bricklayer from Tasmania, another an axeman from Traralgon and their leader has driven a plumbing supplies van around the building sites of Brisbane. Some are so green they might still be serving their apprenticeship. Each out-bowled the more experienced South African attack and every one of them contributed to a fantastic 162-run win.

Previously, Australia could grind down opponents, crush them with five hours of intensity. With a wide range of skills, unshakeable self-belief and unwavering desire, they made fifth days dance to their tune. Now this fresh but more limited quartet is trying with every power at its disposal to form its own tradition, to start its own winning habit, writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Tireless contributions from the front-line pacemen meant that the pressure on the batsmen was unrelenting. Although the ball did not move much and the pitch had slowed down, the leather flingers made it difficult for opponents to protecting their wickets. More by obligation than design, the batsmen crawled along, scoring 30 runs an hour, concentrating on resisting a committed attack.

On a drab pitch at the Kensington Oval, Fidel Edwards' figures of 3 for 192 don't do justice to the way he toiled on an unforgivable surface. He was easily the most threatening of the bowlers, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

When Chris Gayle declared on Sunday night at the fall of Ramdin's wicket, we spotted Edwards, pads and helmet on, brandishing his bat, before furiously withdrawing to the dressing room. He wanted to have a go on this sublime batting surface. Everyone else in his team had. Why should he be deprived? Like any self-respecting West Indian tail-ender he was desperate "to give it some licks". Instead he had to bowl again on this sadistic slab of real estate. And it was only when Edwards had a new ball in his hand that we had a contest worth watching. Why? Because he can bowl fast.

In the same paper, Mike Selvey writes that the real contest was not between bat and ball, but between bowler and pitch, won hands down by the latter.

One is to say that the surface (­resurrected from a situation where the grass had been killed off towards the end of last year ­following the annual carnival held at the ground, to celebrate the end of the ­harvest) had rather more about it than that rolled into submission at the ­Antigua ­Recreation Ground for the third Test. Think a ­dormant ­volcano rather than an extinct one, where an exceptional group of ­bowlers might have had their say.

In the Times, Michael Atherton feels England's best bet to square the series is to hope for more spice in the Trinidad pitch.

Debutant Phillip Hughes improved on his first-innings duck to top score for Australia in the second. But his technique has come under a lot of flak, especially from his opponents South Africa. Peter Roebuck believes his game is an unusual hotch-potch of eye and instinct. He writes in the Sydney Morning Herald:

On flatter pitches he scores most of his runs with flicks off his pads, cuts and drives through extra-cover. It sounds orthodox but he relies much more on hands and less on footwork and shoulders than most batsmen. But, then, he is not the only idiosyncratic left-hander running around. His opening partner shuffles around like a politician under the spotlight while Shivnarine Chanderpaul hardly bothers with the coaching manual. Hughes's game works. In all forms of the game, he scores a heck of a lot of runs.

Apart from the statistics — besides what we see of him on the field and glimpse in a TV commercial — what do we really know of Jacques Kallis the man, asks Archie Henderson in South Africa's Times.

Kallis has been something of a genius at keeping his life outside of cricket private. The odd dalliance with a model has emerged in the press, but that would have had more to do with the lady’s agent seeking publicity. Kallis is not likely to open his heart to any biographer soon, so he remains a mystery. Even if he’d been the writing type, I suspect that he’d be more JD Salinger than JT Edson.

	Sarwan is a beautiful player through the off side and England seemed happy to encourage the sight of him cutting and driving them to distraction © AFP

He was helped somewhat by England’s tactics. In his first 200 runs, there was one leg-side boundary: the rest, all 22 of them, came through the off side, an indication that England had bowled to his strengths for long periods. For the most part, England’s line should be straight to him, their length full. Sarwan is a beautiful player through the off side and England seemed happy to encourage the sight of him cutting and driving them to distraction. His technique is such that, by keeping his back foot on leg stump and moving his front foot across his crease, he positions himself to hit through cover, point and backward of point. He thrives on width, being as brutal on the cut as anyone.

How does a captain keep his fielding side alert when the score is past 600? In the Guardian Vic Marks writes that Warwickshire, when stuck in a wicketless phase of play under Dermot Reeve's captaincy, used to pass an imaginary football from fielder to fielder, presumably to raise a smile and keep them awake. But that was hardly appropriate under the eagle eyes of the cameras in a Test match.

Soon the captain becomes more of a foreman than a strategist. It is his job to ensure the punishment is handed out equably and that the part-timers bear some of the burden. Hence Paul Collingwood and Ravi Bopara were in tandem for much of the afternoon and there was some ugly off-spin from Kevin Pietersen and Owais Shah. The bowlers could hope only to keep their figures respectable and that the third new ball would do the trick.

The Telegraph's Steve James is bored in Barbados, having to watch a drudge of runs collected on a pitch with all the liveliness of a sleeping kitten.

Things are falling into place for West Indies now that their keeper Denesh Ramdin has scored his maiden Test century, writes Tony Cozier in the Trinidad & Tobago Express.

India women have left for the World Cup in Australia and a win this time - they reached the final in 2005 - could do the women's game as much good as the 1983 win did for the men. In the Indian Express Bharat Sundaresan traces the development of women's cricket in India.

Even in the late 70s and early 80s, when the Indian men’s team were starting to come into their own, cricket was popular amongst women, insists Behroze. But England captain Rachel Heyhoe-Flint, who averaged 45 and 58 in Tests and ODIs respectively, was the only real woman superstar to idolise. “We would pounce onto whatever records were available and hear tales about her achievements. Men’s cricket was always a fascination and we used to get complementary passes to go watch them play at the CCI or at Wankhede,” Behroze says. Politicians played a part in the development of women’s cricket, and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was regarded as a promoter of the sport. “She told us that we were lucky to be among the top 11 cricketers to represent the country and that we should really value the India cap and blazer,” Behroze says about Gandhi.

The poor decisions by third umpire Daryl Harper on lbw appeals referred to him on the third day of the Barbados Test between West Indies and England has reopened the debate on ICC's referral system. The referral system is only as good as the men operating it, " writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times.

Harper behaved as though he was an average Joe at home, six-pack by his side, watching the replays and going, “That’s out, mate!” And, “That’s not!” He thought his opinion more important than anyone else’s. We have all watched sport in that mindset. Not many of us have had the power to get our way.

In the Trinidad & Tobago Express, Tony Cozier says Harper and his colleagues are not trained to interpret the complex information that goes in to deciding a referral.

The problem, as it was always going to be, was that Harper and all of his elite colleagues have to be guided by a picture that is two, not three, dimensional and by technology with which they are not familiar.

The system was supposed to eradicate poor verdicts and it could definitely be improved if it was run by blindfold drunks, something the ICC should now seriously consider, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday

India’s batting lost it the Twenty20 Internationals. But it wasn’t so much a case of being tyrannised by the conditions — which is often the norm on tours of New Zealand — as a failing of their situational awareness, writes S Ram Mahesh in the Hindu.

They lit the fuse at both ends in Christchurch, burning out before Suresh Raina and Harbhajan Singh rescued matters slightly. Here at the Westpac Stadium, they lost vital wickets in the middle, which, combined with Dhoni struggling to lay a vehement bat on ball, cost them the late surge that might have realised a total of 170 to 180. Even here, we must be wary of exaggeration. It’s impossible to know how much of the batting failure was brain fade, how much was influenced by the New Zealand bowlers.

Over the last couple of series, the dilemma of where Brendon McCullum should be batting in one-day internationals has reared its head once more, writes Mark Richardson in the Herald on Sunday.

If McCullum can take the same mentality he took in his two 60 not outs in the T20s into the ODIs then those scores would convert to possible 150s. Scores like that achieve wins. I was surprised at his comments of displeasure with his first match-winning effort in Christchurch. Sure, it was punctuated with mistimed shots and lacked the fluency he would desire, but he achieved something vitally important in one's development as a player in any sport. He won ugly.

Also in the Herald on Sunday, David Leggat writes that Scott Styris' omission from the ODI squad "could realistically have drawn the curtain down on the international career of one of New Zealand's best-performed allrounders".

Ravi Bopara's maiden Test century has put pressure on Owais Shah's place in the England side, writes David Gower in the Sunday Times.

Both give the impression they know what they are about in the middle and from what we have seen in these past two matches Shah has an in-your-face self-confidence that can make him seem self-absorbed, while Bopara has an air of bravado that allows him to give full rein to his attacking instincts.

To Scyld Berry, in the Sunday Telegraph, Bopara is the finest British Asian cricketer there has yet been.

Bopara is the most talented British Asian cricketer there has yet been, unless the term is anachronistically applied to the Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji. Although more than a century has passed since his time, the sense of wonder of the near-capacity crowd at Kensington Oval – English almost to a man – when Bopara leg-glanced straight balls, with a twist of his wrists, was much the same as when Ranji thrilled Sussex and England crowds with his invention of the stroke.

Kevin Pietersen is "one weird cat" whose best is yet to come. If it were not for coaches and their "absolute crap" computers and training regimes, he would still be playing. Allen Stanford was "good for the game". And, no, he never contemplated making a comeback for Australia in the Ashes this summer. Shane Warne chats about cricket and commentary with the Observer's Kevin Mitchell.

"If they don't have Andrew Flintoff, I think Australia win easily. At the moment Australia are in fractionally better shape than England. Australia got in a position to win all three Tests against South Africa, but they lacked experience at how to win. They might play the odd bad innings here or there, but the batting will be fine. Both sides have the same concern, that is the ability to take 20 wickets, and who's the spinner in the side."

In the same paper, Ed Smith writes that Pietersen's brief tenure as England captain tells us essential truths about British society today.

	Ricky Ponting © Getty Images

Tim Lane, writing in the Age, says Ricky Ponting is at history's crossroad.

Captains require major achievement for their regimes to be recorded as better than time-marking exercises. Under Allan Border, Australia climbed out of one of its deepest troughs. Mark Taylor took over and led the team to the mountain top. Steve Waugh's team embarked on the road less travelled. Earlier, Ian Chappell and Richie Benaud inspired their own eras. Bradman was Bradman.

In the Test arena, Ponting can scarcely claim better than a pass in five years at the helm. He inherited the leadership at a difficult time but, even taking account of that, his reign has been less than exceptional. A third series defeat inside six months would inevitably have him edging to the wrong side of history's ledger.