Michael Atherton isn't expecting the American Premier League, a six-team Twenty20 tournament likely to be held in New York in October, to be much of a success. He points to the failure of the American Professional Cricket four years ago, which folded within a season of its inception, and the Stanford fiasco to prove America will prove hard to crack. More in the Times.

Cricket's lack of popularity in America has little to do with the length or complexity of the game - and there is always a faint whiff of anti-Americanism about the sneers that it is just too complex for them to understand - and more to do with the origins of baseball's remarkable story ... The ultimate victory of baseball over cricket was part of the unstoppable tide of patriotism: a new game - democratic and classless - for a new nation. Cricket was damned by association and retreated to the margins, kept going, as it has been since, by Anglophiles and, more recently, those of Caribbean and Indian extraction.

S Dinakar writes in the weekly magazine Sportstar that the IPL has provided many peripheral Indian players a chance on the big stage, and has helped give the national team greater bench strength.

In the same magazine, Frank Tyson writes: The introduction of Twenty20 cricket into the schema of first-class and international cricket has infused fresh blood, a new dynamism, a wider dimension and sprightlier life into what was the sluggish blood stream of the universal game.

England's decision to leave out big names like Michael Vaughan, Ian Bell and Steve Harmison for the first Test against West Indies shows Andy Flower is no respecter of reputations or seniority, says Vic Marks in the Guardian.

It feels as if both Bell and Harmison ... have been kept in detention. A couple of good games for their counties in April are not enough for two of England's most exasperating cricketers to trot easily back into the team. They have been challenged to put together an unanswerable case for a recall. Nor are Michael Vaughan's fine words enough to get him back in the squad. He needs runs. Flower – and Strauss – have sent out a message that a new regime is in charge now.

In the Times, Michael Atherton also feels the shake-up in the squad is a strong message from Flower and the selectors.

Opinions are divided and former Test captains Ray Illingworth and Kepler Wessels go head-to-head in the Vaughan debate before the squad's announced. Illingworth feels there's a definite vacancy for Vaughan at No.3, partly because there aren't any other suitable candidates. Read on in the Guardian.

He certainly wasn't right when he played for Yorkshire at the back end of last season and he wouldn't be right for Test cricket if his head was still in turmoil, but he looks refreshed and fit to me. If his knee is as good as it's ever going to be then he gets over the fitness hurdle that we have been preoccupied by for the past few years.

Wessels disagrees.

No team can carry a passenger in a Test series – even less so in an Ashes campaign. If Vaughan is selected on reputation rather than worth, it will give the Australia bowlers a point of focus and they will hunt him down ruthlessly. I'm sure Michael knows that he needs to score at least one hundred for Yorkshire before he can be seriously considered.

In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley writes that it's fairly clear that the selectors were determined to delay the announcement of the squad until Vaughan scored some runs.

The amendment was entirely sensible because while nothing much was likely to change, it gave everybody concerned more time for proper reflection as the season started. Not that the deferment as it applied to Vaughan was entirely fanciful. Enough has been said to suggest that people in high places think he can still perform a significant role – the coach Andy Flower and the captain Andrew Strauss among them – but he still needed some runs to lend any sort of validity to that belief.

In 1929 there was no IPL and no Twenty20 slogathons, just a young Donald Bradman changing the sport for ever, writes Frank Keating in the Guardian.

Some smiled when I named D Bradman in The Cricketer's last issue as a strong possibility for the 1st XI. Footwork, and plenty of it, is his basis. He knows the value of getting his feet near the bat when making strokes, and leaves the crease fearlessly to destroy length. He is aged 20 and shows no trace of nerves."

And so, soon, it came to pass. Just a summer later, of course, Australia came to England. In the five Test matches, home "champion" Hammond scored 306 runs with a single century; the boy Bradman scored 974 with one century, two doubles, a world-record triple, and the world was never again the same.

RP Singh hasn't been part of the Indian team for a while now but the fast-bowler is currently wearing a purple cap in South Africa for being the IPL's highest wicket-taker. He told GS Vivek, of the Indian Express, that he hopes his performances will catch the Indian selectors' attention.

How frustrating is it for a new-ball bowler to go out of the Indian team because of an injury and then be relegated to the sidelines?

It’s very frustrating when you sit on the bench as the third or fourth seamer, thinking that just a couple of months ago you were the team’s top bowler. I was having a good run for almost two years before I picked up the injury, so you can imagine how I must have felt when I was out of the side. Watching the team playing from the sidelines was disappointing, and to be sitting on the bench for months while I waited for another chance even more so. When I was eased out last year after just two bad matches at home, it was demoralising.

All debutants provoke curiosity but Hughes does doubly so. Partly because he is so successful, but primarily because of the way he plays, writes Andy Bull in the Guardian.

Andrew Strauss will get his first close-up look at Hughes at Southgate this week. At some point, possibly this morning, the two future opponents will find themselves in the curious position of opening the batting together for Middlesex against Leicestershire. Strauss, like the spectators, pundits and pressmen at Lord's, will be running a few thoughts through his head as he watches Hughes bat. The big difference is, his theories will be tested on the pitch, and the success of their execution will help decide the Ashes.

Australia's new batting sensation is from farming stock that produces hectares of the bendy yellow fruit outside the small New South Wales town of Macksville. He has made an extraordinarily quick journey from there to the brink of cricket's greatest series, writes Mike Dickson in the Daily Mail.

There is only one way to find out whether Michael Vaughan can help England regain the Ashes, and that's by recalling him at Lord's next week, writes Ian Botham in the Mirror.

First of all, he has scored a few runs for Yorkshire in their early-season games. Admittedly he hasn't set the world alight, but in his last two innings he batted for 90-odd balls to help salvage a draw and scored 82 off 116 balls when his county were in trouble at 31-3. Don't forget: form is temporary, but class is permanent. Vaughan has shown enough form to justify bringing him back, and his class is beyond dispute - we are talking about a bloke who was the world's No.1 batsman a few years ago.

Joseph O'Neill's critically acclaimed novel Netherland (Review), which was in the shortlist for the Man Booker prize, is among the contenders for this year's Cricket Society Book of the Year. Other nominees for the award, which will be presented at Lord's on Monday evening are: John Barclay's Life Beyond The Airing Cupboard (Review), Tony Laughton's Captain of the Crowd, and William Buckland's Pommies: England Cricket Through an Australian Lens (Review). Christopher Martin-Jenkins has more in the Times.

Simon Wilde writes in the Sunday Times that the latest injury shows Andrew Flintoff is no longer fit for regular Test cricket, and says the main purpose of central contracts - to manage the workloads of the most prized players - has been destroyed by the financial muscle of the IPL.

Why Flintoff should be paid a basic retainer of nearly £200,000 when he is no longer putting England first is a moot point. The same argument applies to the likes of Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood, except that as batsmen they are far less likely to suffer injuries and need less protecting.

	The Phillip Hughes fan club continues to expand © Getty Images

Scyld Berry, of the Sunday Telegraph, is highly impressed with 20-year-old Australian opener Phillip Hughes, who made a century at Lord's on Middlesex debut earlier this week. Berry lists two advantages Hughes will have going into the Ashes:

The first is that his opening partner for NSW is the same as for Australia, Simon Katich, so they know each other's game and Katich, at 33, is content to rein himself in, work the fielders around, and allow the prodigy to go for his shots without competing ...

Hughes's second advantage is that he is attuning to English conditions – rapidly on this week's evidence - more than two months before the Ashes. No English cricketer still playing has ever had the advantage of playing in the Sheffield Shield.

Cricket For Change, a London-based charity, is helping bring Arabs and Jews together in Israel through cricket. Read more on BBC Sport.''

Moments before, the small group of boys and girls had been milling around a patch of hardened sand, on their unauthorised encampment in the southern Israeli desert, the Negev. Now, courtesy of five Englishmen, who have just spilled out of a van, carrying plastic wickets, plastic bats and tennis balls covered in electrical tape, they have been corralled into playing an impromptu game of cricket. Somehow, it works. The children may not realise it, but almost immediately they are experiencing the pleasure of thumping an on-drive through deep mid-wicket.

The IPL has not yet established itself as a global brand, and it can only do so if its administrators focus more on the sport than the money and the glitz around it, writes Neil Manthorp in India Today.

The IPL is a fun tournament and will make excellent wallpaper in sports bars around the world in years to come. But South Africans are already beginning to see it for what it is, rather than what it portrays itself to be. It is an entertainment circus, rather than a sporting one, designed primarily to enable a very small number of fabulously wealthy people to become even wealthier.

Also in India Today, Sharda Ugra writes that the "Fake IPL Player" blog accurately highlights the pretensions of the IPL.

He even calls himself fake, as if sensing the general tone of the proceedings. Outside the cricket, much about the IPL itself is fake. The numbers being bandied about around it as earnings or audience, the long-term sanctity of any contract signed by its IPL leading lights, the notion that the rules really matter and are not invented on the spot (and then you think up a seven and a half minute break a few days before the event and call it a ‘strategic time-out’)

Kamran Khan, the 18-year-old Rajasthan Royals rookie, had a dream game against Kolkata Knight Riders on Thursday, sending down a tidy final over to force a tie, and then bowling a Super Over which helped them clinch the win. In the Indian Express, Devendra Pandey & Mohd Arshi Rafique track his rise from a village of weavers in Uttar Pradesh to the dizzy heights of the IPL. They also tell how Kamran’s success has led to a spiralling of satellite TV connections in his hometown.

“Except for Naushad (Khan) Sir [Kamran's coach] who got me to Mumbai from UP to pursue cricket, Warne is the only person who has ever trusted my ability. I’ve lost count of the number of trials I went to in UP but nobody showed any faith in me,” Kamran said.

In the Guardian Barney Ronay analyses the chances of each of the four main candidates for the No. 3 slot in the England side, and wonders where the successor to England's last really good No. 3, David Gower, is.

The No3 is now routinely described as "pivotal". We hear talk of him "dictating" not just an innings, but a match, a series, perhaps even a small landlocked Balkan state ...

The real problem is that there is no obvious answer. England have four evenly-matched and largely generic candidates: Owais Shah (doomed man-in-possession); Ian Bell (baffling under-achiever); Ravi Bopara (free-wheeling maverick) and Michael Vaughan (creaking ex-great).

	Should Andrew Flintoff have played in the IPL? © Getty Images

Andrew Flintoff's latest injury, which has ruled him out of the IPL and the Tests against West Indies, has the the English media wondering whether the ECB should have taken a firmer line against the player, and barred him from playing in South Africa. Nasser Hussain writes in the Daily Mail that the incident is a "black mark against the administration of English cricket and the England team".

Players just cannot have their cake and eat it. They cannot expect to reap the benefits of a lucrative central contract and then only be under control of the ECB when it suits them. Player power has over-ridden common sense. Someone has to explain to Morris and Clarke that good management is not about making friends. Sometimes it is about being prepared to upset people as well.

Nick Pierce, the ECB's chief medical officer, says the injury could have happened “any time, anywhere” to which Michael Atherton replies in the Times:

Pierce may well be correct to imply that Flintoff could have been injured just as easily playing for Lancashire, but would he have been tearing around the outfield at Hove, sliding on his injured knee to save a boundary, as he was on Thursday?

Derek Pringle, in the Daily Telegraph, is less harsh on the ECB, and notes the role of a powerful player union in decisions such as allowing England players to take part in the IPL.

Angus Fraser goes further in the Independent and places the responsibility for the predicament in Flintoff's hands. In the same paper, Stephen Brenkley looks at what a Freddie-less England line-up will look like.

In a balanced piece in the Guardian, David Hopps says the overriding response towards this IPL misadventure should not be resentment, but compassion.

	Peter Siddle "typifies everything that it is to be an Australian cricketer" © Getty Images

Chloe Saltau reports in the Age on Peter Siddle’s encouraging recovery from injury as the Test bowler sets his sights on England.

Siddle returned from South Africa with instructions to allow the stress reactions that recurred in his left foot to heal, and although he is still three weeks away from bowling, the first steps have been encouraging. "All that is actually feeling really good now. I've been running the last week and it's pulled up fine."

He is using the enforced rest to lay the foundations for his first Ashes series, get home to his family and mates in Morwell and see as many North Melbourne games as he can. The latter proved an instant ice-breaker with Australian captain and fellow Kangaroos fanatic Ricky Ponting, who during the South African tour declared that the 24-year-old "typifies everything that it is to be an Australian cricketer and to wear a baggy green cap".

In the Sydney Morning Herald Andrew Stevenson writes about two of the major problems facing world cricket: how to cope with the explosion of the IPL and the Twenty20 format, and how to deal with the security headaches that have confirmed Pakistan's no-go status.

The second edition of the IPL is going on merrily in South Africa, despite a few rain disturbances and a mysterious blogger threatening to bring down one of the eight teams. And now a man you wouldn't really associate with cricket has decided to have a look at IPL 2's base and structure, while floating a few wacky trial balloons. Writing from South Africa for Outlook, the author of the novel Q & A - more famously known by its film adaptation Slumdog Millionaire - Vikas Swarup, says the country's weather, time zone and spectators have made the IPL a success. Add to this an aggressive marketing blitz.

In the Cape Times, a South African player who found himself a millionaire overnight says he's in a whole new world. Thats JP Duminy for you.

I've never received so much kit in my life - not even with the Proteas! I received something like 10 playing shirts, four tracksuits, caps, shoes, spikes, you name it! And all branded with the Mumbai Indians logo. I even received a 22-carat gold chain engraved with the Mumbai Indians logo. I thought I was past the stage where receiving new kit excited me but this really was something else.

	Do Bangalore have a replacement for Rahul Dravid? © AFP

In the Indian Express, Harsha Bhogle picks Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians as the sides to beat, and says Kings XI Punjab are the squad which are struggling the most. He also says that the weakness of the Bangalore Royal Challengers is that they don't have enough quality domestic players.

Bangalore have already tried Akhil, Vinay Kumar, Karan Sharma and Rajesh Bishnoi, and are nowhere near filling their last two Indian spots. And a look through their squad doesn’t throw up much either, unless they look at Sreevats Goswami, who kept well and batted with gusto last year. It could get worse, for while there might be a replacement for Pietersen when he leaves, there appears none for Dravid when he returns, as expected, for a break to Bangalore to be with his wife for their second child.

In an interview with the Independent, Allen Stanford's fiancée talks about life under siege with the billionaire fighting fraud charges.

"We're lucky to be living on the charity of my family at the moment, but it has been overwhelming," Andrea Stoelker said. "We are very blessed to have a lot of people around us who are supportive, and some great former employees who are standing by him, but it is difficult to get up some mornings."

Dean Jones has watched Australia’s struggles with spin bowling and has a few ideas for fixing the issue. In his column in the Age he outlines his solutions, including a greater acceptance of overseas coaches.

Australia's biggest problem right now is that we don't have a decent spinner. On top of that, our quicks don't really understand how to bowl reverse-swing properly. If our two finger spinners in Nathan Hauritz and Jason Krejza are the best spinners we can produce, we must look for new spinning coaches because these guys are average at best.

The doosra pioneer is Pakistan's great offspinner, Saqlain Mushtaq. He has taught many budding Pakistani offspinners the art of bowling the doosra. We need to sign him up now and get him to Australia to teach Hauritz and Krejza how to bowl it. And fast! Saqlain taught Saeed Ajmal about three years ago and look what he did to Australia in Dubai on Wednesday.

Ameeruddin Zain pays a visit to the cricket museum at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur, and is less-than-impressed with what he sees. He writes in the Daily Star:

Not only isn't there any space for the constitution or detail of the MCC visits, the very first bat used by a Bangladesh player to open the innings for the country, the first Bangladesh cricket cap, the sweater, the jacket or any other tangible cricketing particulars are also absent to the point of astonishment from Mirpur.

What is most alarming is the non-existence of a framed photograph of our first Test captain Naimur Rahman tossing the coin with his Indian counterpart Sourav Ganguly during the country's inaugural Test match.

Michael Atherton writes in the Times that with England hosting the World Twenty20 and the Ashes, and with no other major sporting distractions during the summer, the ECB had a golden opportunity to showcase English cricket. He says it also presents a chance for the ECB to redeem itself after a year that had the Stanford fiasco, the loss of three England captains, and mediocre performances on the field.

It's ironic that one of the main reasons given by IPL commissioner Lalit Modi for preferring South Africa to England as the venue for the IPL was the (good) weather. So far, rain has fallen on each of the four days that the competition has been played, with two of the six matches already settled by the Duckworth-Lewis method, writes Patrick Compton on iol.co.za.

There was also a more preventable piece of misfortune, with the ground's Super Sopper breaking down after the first match. Fortunately for the red-faced groundstaff, the second match between the Mumbai Indians and the Rajasthan Royals never got going as sweeping rain, with devilish timing, started up a number of times at just the wrong moment after the covers were on the point of being taken off.

Was it the overwhelming success everybody had hoped for? Did India's cricket revolutionary product blow South Africa, especially Cape Town, away? asks Ashfak Mohamed on iol.co.za.

There is plenty that is good about the self-professed greatest show on earth, but it must be careful not to over-reach itself, writes Lawrence Booth in the Guardian.

It is the greatest gathering of the most of the world's best players outside the World Cup. It should, in the long run, help break down boundaries between sides and, maybe, thaw relations between, say, India and Australia. It is, when you dig beneath the hype, a bonus for South African sports fans. And Modi's regular donations to local education programmes cannot be argued with, even if the ostentatious manner in which the cheques are handed over does not feel entirely right. Modi is to be congratulated on turning around a huge operation at such short notice. Few would have the time, inclination, or drive. But the IPL has to be careful not to over-reach itself. It is a sporting event, possibly a very good one, that has found a temporary home. What it is not is some kind of elixir for the South African nation. That, the politicians tell us, will come on Wednesday.

They are rivals when opening for their countries but Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya have come together to form a formidable opening combination for the Mumbai Indians. Shriniwas Rao asked Tendulkar a few questions on Jayasuriya in the Times of India.

Your views on Sanath Jayasuriya, the cricketer...

I had always known Sanath and admired him for his cricketing abilities. I knew him as an opponent, a fierce one, whose natural instincts make him one of the most dangerous of all times. He is a naturally gifted player and has the ability to dominate a game single-handedly. He has the shots, the power and the timing.

Now that the two of you are teammates, what is the general discussion that goes on between the two?

Of course, we discuss a lot of things between ourselves, but mostly we’ve done a lot of that over the last many years. We like to exchange notes, talk about the game in general. Now with him and me in the same squad, we discuss more about what we’re going to do as a pair. Plan ahead of the game, prepare, study the weaknesses of the opponent and strategise accordingly.

If Saturday brought one or two murmurs about the $1.55m price tag slapped on Andrew Flintoff, last night quelled the chatter. Pitted against Kevin Pietersen, his fellow English alpha male and the tournament's other record purchase, as early as the fifth game of the Indian Premier League, Flintoff biffed an unbeaten 22 off 13 balls for the Chennai Super Kings, bulldozed his way to figures of 1 for 11, held the winning catch and generally thrust out his chest. It was all in a night's work, writes Lawrence Booth in the Guardian.

If you were looking for the physical embodiment of the phrase "pumped-up", Andrew Flintoff provided it on Monday. His pride stung by a ropey IPL debut, and his dander roused by the prospect of bowling to Kevin Pietersen, he put in one of the most hostile spells of the tournament so far, writes Simon Briggs in the Daily Telegraph.

David Foot, chronicler of county cricket, celebrates his 80th birthday, his enthusiasm for the game as bright as ever, writes Frank Keating in the Guardian.

Locally, Foot remains a cherished eminence as columnist and champion of causes. His deadlines, too, have been met spot-on as a sharp and perceptive Bristol theatre critic down the years and, on a thousand winter Saturdays, 600 words on-the-whistle from City, Rovers, or his hometown Yeovil, where it all began 64 summers ago in 1945 on the weekly Western Gazette. The trainee 25-shilling-a-week copy-boy, just 16, tremulously cycled in from the family's East Coker cottage in his new broadish-brimmed brown trilby hat and six-guinea brown pinstripe suit fresh-off-the-peg of Yeovil's high-class outfitters, Messrs Bone & Flagg.

No normal sport in an abnormal society. This was the rallying cry of the South African Council on Sport over three decades ago. And although it was with reference to apartheid, the slogan can be applied universally. To Zimbabwe, which practices a form of apartheid in reverse in cricket, and to Pakistan, a major cricketing country on the verge of collapse, writes Suresh Menon on ESPNStar.

To argue that the tournament is two years away and therefore the ruling is premature is specious. The venues that will now replace the ones in Pakistan need time to prepare. And it is sensible to decide early enough to avoid endless speculation and lobbying. Lahore busted the myth of the safety of cricket in the subcontinent, the myth that cricket and cricketers would never be harmed by terrorists. And cricket's biggest showpiece cannot afford to take a chance - emotion cannot be allowed to rule over practicality.

Cricket does not embrace change easily, but seldom is there widespread condemnation of an experiment. In this case, both winners and losers, players and coaches, have come together to make their feelings on “strategy breaks” crystal clear, writes Anand Vasu in the Hindustan Times.

In order to do that the IPL needed to leave no stone unturned in their quest to raise extra money. Had they admitted this was the case, and transparently sold the extra advertising spots created by the strategy breaks, there might have been some sympathy. After all, the Indian public’s response seems to suggest that they do want the IPL to go on, no matter what, and the strategy break, just like the shift of venue to South Africa, might have been tolerated.

It is a good thing, from the Indian Premier League's perspective, that the franchises are paying their players and coaches so well. Because if this was any normal tournament, there would have been no end of grousing about the chaotic nature of the opening weekend, writes Simon Briggs in the Daily Telegraph.

In public, coaches are talking about making the best strategic use of the interval. Privately, though, they will tell you that their first concern is just keeping players warm. As we move into May, and the start of the South African winter, the backroom staff may well be forced to drape blankets around their shivering charges. And this in a tournament whose go-getting slogan is "Feel the heat".

The opening weekend of the IPL was not quite the utterly overwhelming success it was predicted to be. The matches were entertaining, the crowd charged up although the stadium did not look not sold out, despite the claims of Modi. There were locks of open seats in the main stand, although it is understood those seats were those given to the suite holders who took the King's shilling and gave their boxes over to the IPL, writes Kevin McCallum on iol.co.za.

In the Daily Mail Alan Fraser is less than impressed with the start of the IPL, or with the commentary of Mark Nicholas.

'We are ready,' Nicholas declared as the first ball was about to be bowled. 'The start of the 2009 DLF IPL, here in South Africa, an extraordinary performance to move it in just three weeks. We have pulled it off.'

The award-winning broadcaster was not about to satirise a competition pretty much staged for, and financed by, television. Indeed, it sounded as if he and his cronies had been personally responsible for switching the event from India. Maybe they were.

While conceding that Nicholas might not have been employing the royal 'we', it remained an extraordinary use of the personal pronoun. But then the star of Britain's Best Dish-if you can be such a thing - has always entertained an elevated opinion of himself. He thinks he is Britain's Best Dish.

After a haphazard start, a meeting of the two most costly players in the IPL - Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff - should ignite the tournament, writes Rick Broadbent in the Times.

Such is the nature of England players and their counties that Flintoff has bowled at Pietersen only once in his career. It happened in 2003 and he did not get him out, but Pietersen did dismiss Flintoff when he was on 97. The rematch will mark the true start of the IPL after a troubled opening weekend. The wet weather and slow outfield at Newlands made for a staccato start rather than the extravaganza demanded by Modi.

The headline-seizing contest between Ian Bell and Michael Vaughan for the No 3 position in the batting order is hiding a far harder task for the England selectors. With the Test series against West Indies beginning as soon as May 6, Geoff Miller and his colleagues are desperate for fit, in-form and fast bowlers to fill the squad, writes Richard Hobson in the Times.

Andrew Flintoff, Stuart Broad and James Anderson are sure to be the first three senior England seam bowlers but, other than Stephen Harmison, there are few options for the fourth place and back-up. Harmison is probably head of the queue when, ideally, he would find his rhythm quietly with Durham over the next two months. Beyond Harmison, contenders are a group of walking wounded.

There was plenty to talk about on the first day of IPL 2 in Cape Town. But Scyld Berry, writing in the Daily Telegraph, believes the tournament has several features which are not in IPL’s favour and which will be a major test of its zest in the five coming weeks. Most notably, the time factor, where delays and strategy breaks meant the opening game ending ten minutes short of four hours.

England's new team director Andy Flower will not shy away from tough decisions. For a man with high standards and great mental strength (and a higher Test batting average than Steve Waugh), Steve James in the Telegraph says Flower may script the turnaround in England's fortunes.

But the thoughtful, thorough and likeable Flower is good. He had to be to make the impression he did after the departure of the coach Peter Moores and the captain Kevin Pietersen. He was hurt by that imbroglio, considered quitting even. But he felt an overwhelming loyalty towards the England cricket team. Having an English wife can do that.

	Andy Caddick enjoys a joke during Somerset's pre-season photocall © Getty Images

It is no surprise to learn that Andy Caddick had a hand in the design of the new pavilion County Ground at Taunton; more of a surprise, perhaps, to discover that the building will be named after him. The action is well grooved and the body is just about holding up, and Andrew Longmore in the Sunday Times hopes Caddick can prove people wrong as he runs in one last time to help Somerset win that elusive County Championship.

A graph of Caddick’s career would resemble the FTSE index, a mountain range of boom and bust. His introverted character did not help and neither did his Antipodean tendency to say what he thought. Caddick came to England as an outsider, at a time when the national team was in its chop-and-change phase and young county players were expected to know their place.

Justin Langer isn't one of those players earning considerable riches in the IPL for only short periods of torture upon their creaking bodies. He’s turned down the IPL and is instead beginning the long plod on the treadmill of another season’s county cricket as skipper of Somerset. Steve James in the Telegraph finds out that Langer loves the pain.

Hampshire are used to coping without Kevin Pietersen, currently on duty with the Bangalore Royal Challengers in the IPL. Since 2005 he has spent just 13 days playing for his county, appearing in eight one-dayers, one Twenty20 match and one in the County Championship. Should England's fortunes fail to blossom under Andy Flower the value of county cricket will come into question yet again, but if it is a poor testing ground for the international game that is hardly surprising, given that England players of the future have so few opportunities to compete against the best. Paul Newman has more in the Independent on Sunday.

Steven Smart in the Observer feels Graham Napier is the wide-eyed joker in the IPL's elite pack after he was in danger of becoming just another ­unfulfilled county player.

Claire Taylor, the first woman to find a place in Wisden, speaks to Gautam Sheth from Daily News & Analysis on why she chose cricket over hockey or a well-paid MNC job and the secret behind England's World Cup success.

What about your post-retirement plan?

A good job to get me a bigger house with a bigger garden so that I can have a puppy! In all seriousness, I'd like to find myself a new challenge, one that will offer me the chance to meet as many good people and visit as many beautiful places. It will be really hard to replace the buzz from the team environment but I'm sure I'll enjoy finding out how.

	Sachin Tendulkar's 59 set up Mumbai Indians' win against Chennai Super Kings on the opening day of the IPL © Getty Images

It's strike one for the old boys on the opening day of the IPL. Half-centuries for Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, a fifer for Anil Kumble (and not to forget, a spell of wizardry from Shane Warne.). By moving to South Africa, the IPL, threatening to become the instrument of anhilation (and professional humiliation) for India’s ageing greats, could actually become the stage for them to show off the many layers of their skill, feels Sharda Ugra in her blog on the India Today website.

Every innings will need its glue, its master craftsman around whom the hitters can bat and it was hardly surprising that Tendulkar and Dravid finished on top last night. In the space of ten days they have left behind the format that allows for the creation of the sweeping masterpiece and last night still found the space and time to paint the perfect miniature. No matter what the canvas, it is always the hand of the artist that matters.

The multiple-captain theory was perhaps nothing but a decoy with Sourav Ganguly, despite a string of open denials and many subtle signals, finally being divested from the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR's) throne. Bobili Vijay Kumar in the Times of India believes that by suddenly giving complete charge to Brendon McCullum, the team have unwittingly let the wily cat out of the bag.

Imagine the plight of the bowler who has just got a set of instructions from the bowling captain and an entirely different message from the fielding captain (by his placements). Worse, what happens if all three disagree?

He is regarded as one of the pioneers of big-hitting, though Sanath Jayasuriya believes it's his natural game and that he doesn't know any other way to play. He has made some adjustments, but the attacking brand has been his staple diet and has worked for him for years. GS Vivek gets talking to the Sri Lankan batsman in the Indian Express.

You have been around for more than a decade in international cricket. At 39, how long is it before you call it quits?

(Laughs) Don’t ask me how long. I don’t know the answer myself. As long as my body says I’m fine, I’ll keep coming back to bat. I try and take it series by series without looking at any specific period of time. It’s been going well so far, and I hope to carry on. And I’m not even the oldest player here.

The Indian Express shines a light on one of the darker sides of the IPL: The blurring lines between conflicts of interest or, as they call it, between Brand and Flag. Kris Srikkanth is chairman of the national selectors - and also brand ambassador for Chennai Super Kings (whose owner, in another example of the blurred lines, is the BCCI's secretary, N Srinivasan). Srikkanth's role, though, is the more intriguing, as the express editorial says:

The board, alas, has a terrible record in taking conflicts of interest seriously. There is no transparency about the stakes its personnel have in cricket-related activity; with the IPL, those conflicts have become more pervasive. And when the going is as good for Indian cricket as it has been, these conflicting loyalties are too easily overlooked. But moments of reckoning do come. Were India to have a disastrous time at the T20 world championship, tolerance for these scandalous cross-holdings will dissipate. But need it come to that?

On livemint.com, Mukul Kesavan says the IPL is a business venture in a globalized world which is only perfunctorily “Indian” and which acknowledges no territorial boundary or frontier that threatens its commercial prospects.

Watching the opening match of last year’s IPL, there had been several doubts in the minds of so-called cricket experts, including myself, that the road ahead for the tournament would not be easy once the novelty of its sideshow wore out, writes Kunal Pradhan in the Indian Express.

But the signs of a potential slump did not last too long because of one “rag-tag” unit from the smallest of the IPL franchises. The Rajasthan Royals, dismissed as frugal also-rans, started writing their own script in one corner of India, defying the odds, hurling slingshots at Goliath after Goliath, highjacking the razzmatazz and replacing it with a feel-good, cricketing story of the rise of an underdog ... Now, as the second season gets ready to kick off in distant South Africa, this time from the high of last year, it will face challenges once again — some old and some very different.

Lalit Modi told an assembled gathering of journalists in Cape Town on Thursday that the IPL had encountered nothing but generosity and co-operation. In fact, that isn’t quite true, writes Neil Manthorp on Supercricket.

So untrue, in fact, that by late Friday afternoon the Wanderers stadium was prepared to withdraw as a host venue rather than accede to requests (or demands, depending on your point of view) from the IPL which they believe to be excessive and unreasonable. “They can take their tournament somewhere else, they can hold the final somewhere else,” said one member of staff. “Unless they change their attitude then I can’t see a way forward. They are renting our facility, not buying it. We have protocols which we respect and expect them to do likewise.”

It is a financial sleight of hand that this week allowed Modi to proclaim the IPL was "recession-proof". And, with the world's financial markets hanging on for dear life, he has also declared that all eight franchises will have made a profit by the end of the tournament, writes Lawrence Booth in the Guardian.

IPL conquered its home country in 2008 and shows every sign of luring South Africa to the party. Naturally Lalit Modi and chums have used every showbiz trick to ensure South Africa feels the excitement, writes Peter Roebuck in the Hindu.

Regular viewers of England Test matches will recognise Phil Brown, the freelance photographer whose loud shirts and unkempt features make frequent unscheduled appearances on the screen, particularly during lulls in play and post-match media melees. Now he has taken his talent for attracting attention to whole new levels, in partnership with his colleague, the PA photographer, Gareth Cpoley [sic], who together have produced a feature-length fly-on-the-wall documentary of England's tour of the Caribbean.

With an interview style that is part Rolf Harris, part Dennis Pennis, Brown leaves no ego unruffled in his quest to reveal the true nature of England touring life. Marvel at Mike Atherton's impersonation of Usain Bolt, Graeme Swann's karaoke heroics, and the favoured mode of transport of Sir Ian Botham, among other gems. Sky Sports' Tim Abrahams and the Independent's Stephen Brenkley lead a list of co-stars that is as long as the tour itself (though sadly there's no appearance from Cricinfo's own Gnasher McGlashan, who was clearly too busy for such fripperies). Watch it now.

It's only two beers, not a kidney from Mr Cpoley on Vimeo.

Termed 'unfit, fat and lazy' by Kevin Pietersen, Samit Patel is working his way back to fitness with much rigor at the gym in the hope of making an early international comeback. He talks to David Hopps about the last few months, with an update on his current diet. Read on in the Guardian.

Mum is drastically cutting the amount of oil used in a traditional Indian diet. Ron, lithe and hyperactive, is a useful role model. Patel observed: "I know all about 7am gym sessions these days, but Dad gets up at half past four so I suppose I am still getting a lie-in. I realise it is an attitude thing with me and I have to put in the work, but it's going to take some time."

Also read Chris Foy's interview with Patel in the Daily Mail.

Harsha Bhogle, in the Indian Express, gives a lowdown on what teams can expect from the conditions in South Africa as compared to last year's frenzy in India. He says the switch in venues is a bold, daring one that could either end up making it far stronger or leave it insipid in the absence of home crowds.

I have a sneaking suspicion that spin will become even more important than it was at IPL 1 in India. In that same Australia-South Africa Twenty20 game, the home side bowled 10 of their 20 overs with spin; in fact of the 40 overs they bowled in all 18 were bowled by the spinners. But this was a different kind of spin (if that sounds political blame it on the way language evolves!). Peterson, Botha and van der Merwe were pinging the ball in at some pace on a middle and leg stump line. Speeds upwards of 95 kmph were routine and I swear I saw Botha bowl one at 104!

Neil Johnson, writing in the Witness, says the performances of South Africa's newer players, such as Wayne Parnell and Roelof van der Merwe, and the relative failure of Australia's less experienced players to make an impact, proved critical in the outcome of the ODI series.

Graeme Smith is understandably enjoying the “good energy” in his team. In stark contrast, Ricky Ponting appears to have run out of options (and fingernails!). His efforts to galvanise his team appear to have been thwarted by South Africa’s dominance and the underperformance of his youngsters has not helped.

Benedict Bermange, in a guest column on the Supersport website, traces South Africa's knack of producing top-quality allrounders to Aubrey Faulkner, who, a century ago, was establishing himself in the national team.

Since the first Test of all was played in March 1877, a total of 65 different men have found their way to the top of the ICC Player Rankings for batsmen. Furthermore, there have been 73 players who have topped the bowling charts. However, only one man’s name appears on both lists – and it will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the all-rounder rankings of late to discover that he is a South African.
.....
In fact, the only man to achieve this feat was just establishing himself in the South African team exactly one hundred years ago and his name was Aubrey Faulkner.

Shane Warne, in the Times, writes of his experience with Rajasthan Royals in South Africa so far, and the interesting interactions he's had with some of the Indians in the squad.

Guys like KP and myself have been lucky enough to play cricket all over the world, but the younger Indian guys in our squad are finding South Africa a bit of a culture shock. They've certainly been dragged out of their comfort zones. Some of them hadn't stepped out of their own country before, let alone played overseas. Even the language can be a problem and at the moment they perhaps feel a bit out of place. They aren't always sure how to fill the time. The danger is that they sit in their rooms and just think cricket, cricket, cricket.

	Andy Flower needs to stamp his authority quickly and make some big decisions ahead of a hectic summer © Getty Images

Andy Flower's confirmation as England's new team director says much about the respect he has earned in his short time as coach, but also reflects poorly on the standard of the other applicants for the job, writes Mike Atherton in the Times. He also writes that Flower faces a serious challenge from the IPL and its effect on the England team, and from the upcoming summer with two very high-profile competitions.

He begins his term in one of the most critical years for English cricket in recent memory, a year when the spotlight will be turned on the national team both because of the enticing nature of the contests - the Ashes, World Twenty20 - and because there are no other sporting distractions. It is critical, therefore, that he stamps his authority quickly. Big decisions have to be made - and soon. Should Michael Vaughan be recalled? Who will captain England's Twenty20 team (pray not Shaun Udal)? Is Strauss the right man to lead England's 50-overs team?

The appointment of Andy Flower as England team director means that England now have the captain-coach combination they needed when Michael Vaughan quit last summer – but it has come about by outrageous fluke, writes Derek Pringle in the Daily Telegraph.

As Hugh Morris, the managing director of England cricket and the man who appointed Flower made plain, the coach-captain relationship is crucial to an international side. Show a united front and even the top dogs in the dressing-room will come to heel, and that is something that needs to happen if England are to perform as a team and not, as is increasingly the case, as a bunch of disparate, but not untalented, individuals.

Simon Briggs, also writing in the Daily Telegraph, looks at some of the key men Flower will have to bank on for the upcoming Ashes.

Nasser Hussain has a whole bunch of reasons why Flower was the right choice: the strong rapport with Strauss and chief selector Geoff Miller, because he brings in much-needed stability, because he'll push England's players to not settle for mediocrity. More in the Daily Mail.

Never mind the shortage of high-profile candidates for job of team director, the one the ECB has got is highly and recently creditable, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley says Flower is someone capable of making tough decisions, and his rounded attitude to life will undoubtedly help him in dealing with an England dressing room which contains talent of a size often matched by ego.

And, in a lighter vein, Alan Tyers looks at how the key figures in England cricket react to Flower's appointment in the Wisden Cricketer.

The magazine's editor, John Stern, is unhappy with the manner in which the ECB went about hiring Flower.

It is believed that John Wright was interviewed on the phone and that’s it. On the phone? For a job that pays the thick of a quarter of a million quid? The whole headhunters and shortlist business looks like smoke and mirrors. They wanted to give Flower the job from day one and this whole process simply bought the ECB time to see how Flower coped in the West Indies.

The ECB's marketing of the the upcoming summer of cricket in England under the banner 'The Great Exhibition' could well backfire and make an exhibition of English cricket itself if the home team fails, writes David Hopps in his blog in the Guardian.

The Great Exhibition of 1851 was a wonder of its day, designed to symbolise the economic and military supremacy of Great Britain. It was an Exhibition that gained its strength, as English cricket invariably likes to do, by an innate conservatism, a sense that change must take place in a context of stability and tradition. It was driven not by revolutionary fervour, but by an assumption of superiority that underpinned the Victorian age. English cricket's Great Exhibition dare not proclaim such superiority ñ although Giles Clarke, an ECB chairman not often touched by self doubt, will doubtless come close.

Kevin Pietersen, who will captain Bangalore Royal Challengers and play in his country of birth, has a series of factors going against him as he heads into the IPL, despite the small matter of getting richer by US$1.55 million, writes Lawrence Booth in his blog in the Guardian.

Think about it for a moment. Pietersen is returning to a country where voluble sections of the crowd regard him as a traitor. He will be captaining two men - Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher - who probably have their own views on his decision to leave South Africa. He will be playing for a coach who revels in his straight-talking toughness (yesterday, he told us Pietersen "doesn't score enough runs") and for an owner - the whisky, airline and F1 magnate Vijay Mallya - whose expectations of success are such that last year he sacked his chief executive mid-tournament. What does he think this is? Football?

In the Hindu, S Dinakar wonders whether the specialist wicketkeepers are a dying breed and if the modern-day game places too much importance on depth in batting.

Someone like Bhagwat Chandrasekar, a freakish legspinner, posed searching questions to ’keepers. Farokh Engineer (66 catches and 16 stumpings in 46 Tests) — an aggressive batsman and a flashy ’keeper — says, “Nine out of ten times, Chandra did not realise which way the ball would spin. Chandra really gave it a rip. His wrist would almost turn around completely. “Keeping to him called for split second coordination. His quicker delivery was really quick. The one that darted through the leg side could provide a stumping opportunity. You had to be quick and alert.”

Peter Roebuck writes in the Sydney Morning Herald that Australia's struggles in 50-over cricket means their squad needs a radical overhaul, beginning with changes for Friday's final ODI in South Africa and then in the UAE against Pakistan.

Of course, the reconstruction will be confused by the inclusion of old stagers desperate to prove their fitness and relevance before the winter parties are chosen. So be it. The selectors were in a pickle. They could not very well choose a 20-over world cup team or an Ashes touring team on a wing and a prayer. Accordingly, they included serious candidates recovering from long-term injuries in their squad for these 50-over contests. Players with the records of Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Andrew Symonds and even Shane Watson cannot lightly be discarded. Plain and simple, it is a trial run. Once the winter campaigns have been completed, the 50-over team will need to move along towards the 2011 World Cup.

	County Cricket: Feeling the pressure? © Getty Images

For how much longer can the County Championship stand against the forces of progress and fashion? An Ashes series, a West Indies tour, the ICC World Twenty20, an English Premier League looming next season...factor in the recession and the erosion of local newspaper sales, and the umbilical cord between cricket lovers and their nearest first-class county is in danger of fraying like never before. Robert Kitson in his blog on the Guardian website calls for a massive facelift.

It is a simple question, but the answer will define English cricket in future. Do you care more about the start of the new County Championship season tomorrow or the Indian Premier League, about to be refloated as a Bombay duck out of water in South Africa this weekend?

A scorer is as essential as an umpire to any proper game of cricket – perhaps, the longer you consider it, even more so. In his blog, Frank Keating in his blog on the same website pays his respect to various keepers of the log across the county circuit.

The Championship may be facing fierce competition this year, but for Angus Fraser, as he takes charge of Middlesex, it's still the life and soul of cricket. Writing in the Independent he explains why he 's back in the game.

Excitement, energy and hope are the emotions that fill county dressing rooms, because the new season heralds the start of another challenging but potentially life-changing chapter in their lives. No player can be sure how the coming season will unfold – it is hard to believe Essex's Graham Napier would have contemplated being awarded an IPL contract 12 months ago – and it is such uncertainty that brings about these emotions. Working in such a positive environment is proving to be extremely satisfying.

Back to the Guardian. Bob Willis joins Lawrence Booth, Andy Bull, David Hopps in assessing each side before the season begins.

Read Gary Keedy's column in the Manchester Evening News.

	Suresh Raina was among those who benefitted from the inaugural season of the IPL © Getty Images

The most important thing for a youngster is to learn from each and every international player in their IPL team. With stars coming from different parts of the world, it is a good opportunity for the youngsters to learn from the players' experiences of having played in different conditions. Suresh Raina in an interview to Harish Kotian in Rediff.com also believes that the IPL provides a good platform for up-and-coming Indian cricketers to announce themselves.

Last year the IPL was a great help because not only did I learn a lot of things playing with international cricketer, but it also helped me comeback into the Indian team...so many people all around the world follow the tournament. It is a big opportunity, especially for India's domestic cricketers to prove themselves on the world stage.

Fringe benefits apart from turning around lives for a number of unknown cricketers, the inaugural IPL also proved to be the perfect platform for fringe cricketers and those with obvious potential to enhance their reputation, writes Bharat Sundaresan in the Indian Express.

Two years is a long time in Twenty20 cricket. As MS Dhoni returns to South Africa for IPL's second season, the place of his epochal, primary triumph, he will carry with him memories of the big bang in 2007. That was the year India’s World T20 win stimulated a fledgling format into galvanizing cricket’s thought processes. Partha Bhadhuri in the Times of India believes the challenge then was to maintain a sense of proportion, which perhaps led to a charmed IPL away from Indian shores

The India Premier League thought out of the box, taking the concept and turning it on its head. Which is why a second year of IPL festivities, in the place where T20 first mutated into the game’s cheerleader, could be the best thing for a format still evolving with each keen contest.

Having burnt their fingers last year with Bangalore Royal Challengers, the bookies are a lot more careful this time around. Ahead of IPL II, they are putting money on Chennai Super Kings followed by the Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians with Deccan Chargers bringing up the rear. Manish Pachouly in the Hindustan Times has more.

In his assessment of the New Zealand players over the domestic summer, Hamish McDouall classifies the performances between the two extremes of 'Scorchio' and 'Chilled to the bone'. Read more on his blog Googlies and Grass Stains.

ROOM TEMPERATURE

Tim McIntosh - Honestly I thought we had found the gritty kind of opening batsman - an Edgar or Richardson - who would match someone expansive like How or Redmond or Guptill. He was a limpet with pads on. But India didn't find him as immovable, and questions hang over his technique. At nearly thirty years old it's a bit late to repair.

The seductive magic of cover drives and leg spin has won cricket fans around the world and now organisers behind a new initiative close to the Gaza border hope the sport could transcend the boundaries on what is perhaps the world's stickiest wicket, writes Duncan Campbell in the Guardian.

Towards the end of last year Cricket for Change, the organisation that advocates using the sport as a means of bringing people together, travelled to Israel to see if there was a chance of bringing the game to young Israeli Arabs, Israeli Jews and Ethiopian Jews ... Cricket for Change was set up in the wake of the Brixton riots in 1981 as way of introducing unemployed people to cricket. It also promotes the sport for people with disabilities, for girls and in parts of the world still unfamiliar with the game.

	Upul Chandana: Any captain's dream © Getty Images

Whenever Upul Chandana came onto the cricketing field, be it as a batsman, bowler or fielder, there was a buzz of expectancy among the spectators that something positive would take place. In all three disciplines of the game he was simply what one would term as 'explosive'. Maxi Kariyawasam in the Daily Mirror, the Sri Lankan daily, traces Chandana's career.

A former Sri Lankan cricket captain described Upul as any captain's dream and stated that in his opinion Upul, other than for his batting or bowling, deserved a place in any national team purely on his fielding ability which saves up to 40-50 runs per match not to mention his match turning run-outs coupled with his sizzling airborne catches.

The demands for Upul Chandana’s talents are still in great demand other than in Sri Lanka which only shows the accuracy of that saying: 'A prophet goes unhonoured in his own country'.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Shane Warne spoke about the possibility of playing in front of friendly South African crowds, how he took the Royals to victory last year and his relationship with Proteas captain Graeme Smith.

We’ve got one young player who’s going to be very interesting. We’re tossing up now what his nickname is going to be — Wild Thing or Tornado, something like that. Kamran Khan is a young kid, a left-armer, a slinger, he doesn’t speak much English at the moment. He’s a tiny little guy but he bowls 140 plus. Another guy to look out for is Ravindra Jadeja. He played last year, did enough but he’s had another year of experience. Then there’s Yusuf Pathan. He was dynamite last year, he just destroys medium pace and spin bowling. He and Andrew Symonds are two of the cleanest hitters I’ve ever seen.

However great the 2005 Ashes may have been, the cricket world four years later is transformed not by Pietersen and Flintoff's heroics, but by Twenty20 and the Indian Premier League, writes Owen Slot in the Times.

No, the long-term success stories of the 2005 Ashes are the likes of Caitlin Byrne and Lisvane CC, recipients of an infrastructure at the ECB that had seen what might be coming and planned to make the most of it. Which leaves cricket in this country in an unanswerable situation. Cricket was cool in 2005 because the Ashes were electric and because the electricity was there for all to see on terrestrial television. And the ECB has been able to reap the fruits of that summer in large part because it then shut down the terrestrial feed on Channel 4 and raised its income by dealing instead with Sky. Yet that harvest could never have been so rich if, as now, those five Tests had been available only to 30 per cent of the nation's sofas.

Australia have in recent weeks played an anonymous brand of 50-over cricket. Throughout, the players have looked hangdog and tactically, they have lacked invention, writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald. He says the frustration of poor form is getting to Ponting and his deputy Michael Clarke and it's time for a captaincy review.

The time has come to awaken the one-day team and to divide the captaincy load. At least, Clarke can be put in charge of the 20-over outfit. An argument can be made for giving him responsibility for the one-day side as well. The outfit that served so well for so long is breaking up, with Brett Lee needing to rediscover his pace, Andrew Symonds given one last chance and the remaining thirtysomethings fraying at the edges. Abu Dhabi could herald the end of an era.

A win in New Zealand is laudable, writes Rohit Mahajan in Outlook, but plain tracks, plainer opposition call for temperance. India achieved their goal of winning in New Zealand after more than 41 years but the writer says it might be prudent to pause and ponder that the hosts are ranked eighth in the world. Over the last five years, they've lost nine of 19 Tests and haven't beaten a big team in a series since 2004-05. India should have really crushed them, feel some.

There are reasons to smile for West Indies cricket after one of the more rewarding home seasons in recent times, despite the threat of a players' strike, writes Tony Becca in the Jamaica Gleaner. The smile will only continue, however, if the board looks at itself and deals with the business of West Indies cricket and its representatives properly, fairly, and with respect while knowing, and accepting that, like the players, they can be removed.

Regardless of how its members behave sometimes, probably most times, cricket does not belong to the board, and regardless of what they may say and believe, regardless of how great they may be or believe they are, cricket does not belong to the players - to the Test players, or to the first-class players. Cricket belongs to the people.

In the Jamaica Observer, Garfield Myers comments on the composition of the West Indies' touring squad for England.

What's with MS Dhoni? He is a marvellous wicketkeeper, he bats like a brute, he captains and looks cheerful while doing it. Son of a pump house operator, he is today the world's highest paid cricketer. Wax he born under a special star or is he the luckiest man alive, asks Sanipan Deb in the Open Magazine. Turn to page 17 to read more.

	Would Pietersen agree to captain England in the World Twenty20? © AFP

Despite attracting the top dollar (1.55m of them, along with Flintoff) at the recent auction, he is not yet very good at Twenty20. In this format he has not yet found the ideal batting tempo. It has become a well-used, if perplexing to some, Twenty20 cliche that players have more time than they think. But they have; 120 balls is a long time. And a journey cannot often begin in the outside lane. Pietersen must learn this.

He is also to captain the Bangalore Royal Challengers, with a rather appetising confrontation coming a week tomorrow in Port Elizabeth against Chennai Super Kings, captained by his old rival from the winter, MS Dhoni, with Flintoff in his ranks. One must pray that, amongst such a galaxy of stars (he has the likes of Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher in his squad), Pietersen rediscovers a desire for leadership, so evidently missing in recent pronouncements. England need Pietersen to skipper their World Twenty20 campaign. If required, bended-knee entreaties must be made.

Descendants of a hero in Nelson's navy, who established one of cricket's most unlikely outposts on the island of Vis, are returning to the remote Adriatic island to take part in an historic cricket match. The Telegraph's Alastair Jamieson writes on how Sir William Hoste encouraged locals to play cricket with his crew and how his family, which includes a vicar, a minor cannon and an HSBC employee from Hong Kong, are forming a Hoste XI which will play the locals.

The selectors are a group of people who are generally the least appreciated. They are always wrong and will be part of a team that fights a losing battle. Roshan Abeysinghe in the Sunday Times believes that as much as the selector is a part of the problem, the decision-making body appointing them is also responsible. They need to ascertain whether the person selected has enough time on his side to do the job.

The problem for a selector is the fact that, they are fighting against time to balance their act. After all they are not full time professional selectors unlike, shall we say, the players, the umpires or even scorers for that matter. The problems or the challenges faced by selectors are tough ones and needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Since the appointments of Jeevan Kumaratunga and Gamini Lokuge as sports ministers of Sri Lanka, sports as a whole has suffered immensely. At the same time, people like Arjuna Ranatunga, who do have some sporting credentials, would take a little time in taking over the hot seat of sports. However, SR Pathiravithana, writing in the same paper, is of the opinion that a man with credentials along with other agendas will also not be in the healthiest situation for the cause of sports in this country.

Sri Lanka Cricket’s selection policies and selection committees have always been subject to constructive criticism, however, in the recent past their gaffes have been even more patent. Why else would a struggling Sri Lankan batting line-up be relieved of its most consistent performer, Jehan Mubarak, over the last year? Asanga Athukorala has more in the Daily Mirror.

Anachronistic, perhaps, but personalities like Henry Blofeld will be missed in this clinical new era of sports reporting, writes Scott Murray in the Guardian.

Compare and contrast Blofeld's carry-on to the way modern sports hacks operate. Recently, in a story rather less shocking and surprising than 11 professional cricketers mustering just over a run per man between them, a former Newcastle United footballer took over as the manager of Newcastle United. This meant action stations on Rolling 24-Hour Breaking Quotes service Sky Sports News, whose chuck-everything-into-the-pot news agenda can be summed up with the pithy maxim: if it spews from Sam Matterface's face, it matters. Mustering levels of gravitas not witnessed on television since Walter Cronkite slowly took off his spectacles to announce the death of President Kennedy on CBS in November 1963, the Sky anchor STARTED TALKING IN CAPITAL LETTERS, THEN BOLD, THEN WHEN THEY MOVED ACROSS LIVE TO ST JAMES PARK, BOLD ITALICS. WITH THREE EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!

	Fans dressed up as Scooby Doo enjoy the action © Getty Images

While some have disapproved of the idea of allowing fans to turn up in costumes for matches at the World Twenty20, the Times' Patrick Kidd welcomes the move. He has a couple of riders, though: dresses shouldn't block the view of other spectators, and they should be creative.

Anyone who shows up in a Jimmy Savile wig or a 118 running vest should be evicted. Certain standards must be upheld: this is the Home of Cricket after all. Those who arrive looking like W.G.Grace should be rewarded with extra cake at tea, especially if it is a real beard. Instead of dressing as the Pink Panther, why not come as Peter, the Lord's cat, who was so famous that when he died that Wisden gave him an obituary?

	Can Shane Warne inspire another magical run? © Getty Images

Peter Roebuck meets Shane Warne, captain of the defending champions Rajasthan Royals, and finds that the legspinner has an organised programme of preparation for his squad. Read more in the Hindu.

.. the old trouper [Warne] said he had not bowled a ball for 12 months and was unusually nervous. No sportsman, let alone a champion, wants to make a fool of himself. His hide is not quite as thick as it seems.
...
Everyone thought the last word had been written on Warne but the old rogue, the great competitor, is still around, catching the eye, embracing the spotlight, playing poker off the field and on it

	Jesse Ryder: A big plus for New Zealand © Getty Images

New Zealand's six-month Test journey began in steamy Chittagong and ended in wet and windy Wellington this week, notes David Leggat, and the bare bones of New Zealand's nine-match campaign aren't impressive. Because in those nine Tests there was just one win.

In those nine Tests New Zealand fielded 19 players. Five played in all nine Tests - Daniel Vettori, Jesse Ryder, Ross Taylor, Brendon McCullum and Iain O'Brien. In a country this size, wonders Leggat, are there 19 Test-quality cricketers?

Read on in the New Zealand Herald.

In the Dominion Post, Jonathan Millmow, Fred Woodcock and Sam Worthington cast their cynical eyes over the good, the bad and the ugly of all levels of cricket this summer in what they call 'The A to Z of the cricket summer'.

A is for the Average Test team that we have become, average being the kind way to put it (after all, it is the end of the season). On the upside, in Jesse Ryder, Ross Taylor and Mark Guptill, we might, just might, have better times on the horizon. Can we have Shane Bond back too, please?

B is for Blog. Respect to Iain O'Brien for his sometimes wacky but always entertaining blog entries on the internet. Luckily for Obber, they weren't the only things keeping his name in the headlines, as he had a pretty decent summer on the field, too.

The list goes on ...

In the Kolkata-based Telegraph, Ashok Mitra calls for more transparency in the financial transactions of the IPL, which he argues must be registered as a corporate entity.

The IPL is, to all intents and purposes, an out-and-out business enterprise, in effect a transnational set-up. It nonetheless keeps flaunting itself as a sports body. Since it is not registered as a corporate outfit, the corporate laws are apparently not applicable to it, and this in spite of its making mountains of money that is the envy of many business houses.

The decision to exclude Strauss from England's World Twenty20 squad, perhaps to keep him fresh for the Ashes, subconsciously says that England don't think they have a realistic chance of winning the World Twenty20, writes Simon Wilde in the Times.

Strauss is never going to be a natural Twenty20 cricketer, but then if that argument was applied strictly to everyone under consideration England would struggle to put out any sort of XI. The fact is Strauss surprised most observers with his improvisation during the 50-overs matches in the West Indies, in which he finished man of the series - his first one-day series for two years because the selectors thought his game wasn't suited. If they can be wrong about his ability to play 50-overs, surely they can be wrong on 20-overs too?

The world's attitude to women's sport is changing, but the process is, like a glacier, slow and inexorable rather than, like a flash flood, altering everything in an instant of time, writes Simon Barnes in the Times.

Women are not athletically inferior to men. In most sports, women operate to different kinds — different standards if you must — of performance. But it is a physiological fact that in many ways women are physically superior to men. When it comes to extreme endurance, tolerance of pain, coping with extremes of temperature and sense of balance, women beat men every time. But most sporting events - being invented by men - are not tough enough to reach the point at which female superiority kicks in.

In the Indian Express, Harsha Bhogle is largely satisfied with India's 1-0 series win over New Zealand but wonders why MS Dhoni was uncharacteristically conservative in timing the declaration in the final Test.

... surely it should have been 2-0. Dhoni, often ready to go into battle with a shotgun, suddenly felt the need for greater caution. And so while bunkers were being built, anti-aircraft guns brought out, the enemy slipped away. 500 has never been threatened, 530 would have made India impregnable; it was the last 80 that saved New Zealand. Dhoni thought he needed another ten overs, he could have chosen to have had another fifteen

Kadambari Murali Wade writes in the Hindustan Times about Gautam Gambhir's transformation from a gifted kid who struggled at the international level to a player who is "on the threshold of a career that could one day be called great".

The Guardian's Andy Bull finds that this year's Wisden Almanack makes for compelling reading, and applauds it for its "refreshingly open-minded and enthusiastic" tone.

One of the real gems this year is a piece by Dean Wilson, freed from the Daily Mirror style, on the decline of cricket among Britain's Afro-Caribbean community. Nasser Hussain provides an appreciation of the careers of his contemporaries Mark Ramprakash and Graeme Hick. He is as insightful on the enigma of the former as anybody I've read. Tanya Aldred's diaries of a year in the life of three county cricketers – Darren Maddy, Claude Henderson and Chris Jordan – is an example of ghost writing at its finest, making the day-to-day lives of professional sportsmen seem fascinating and sympathetic

An ongoing debate among former international cricketers and connoisseurs of the game in Mumbai is about the difference in Sunil Gavaskar's and Sachin Tendulkar's style of play. Makarand Waigankar in the Hindu believes it is unfair to conclude that one style is necessarily better than the other, for the craft and technique has to be continually perfected to suit the era and the kind of cricket that is played.

If Gavaskar was a run machine, Tendulkar used the bat like an AK-47. When former Mumbai Test players saw Tendulkar play a Test at 15, they were all convinced that because of his peculiar bottom hand grip he would be sorted out by professional international bowlers. However, Tendulkar was not prepared to be a slave of any technique.

	On the backfoot: MS Dhoni © Getty Images

A 2-0 victory would have been a more correct index of the difference between India and New Zealand. The visitors appeared only too satisfied with a 1-0 win. This is not how champion teams play, and if India aspire to knock Australia off the perch at the top, they will have to be more ruthless in their approach, more focused, and not so easily satisfied. Suresh Menon has more in Dreamcricket.com.

In the end, a series victory in New Zealand will deflect the questions that need to be asked of the Indian captain. The fact that it has come after four decades will mean that Mahendra Singh Dhoni's curiously defensive captaincy won't come under scrutiny. It was the Indian captain's inexplicable defensiveness that decided the Test in Hamilton, and not the rain.

Martin Crowe apologising about his criticism of the stand-in Indian skipper Virender Sehwag, Brendon McCullum's dismissal and the person who gave Jesse Ryder a new bat. These are among Paul Holden's picks for the 10 muppets from the third Test between New Zealand and India in Wellington. Read more on his blog Sideline Slogger.

Muppet #7: Whoever came up with the rule at the Basin Reserve that punters must enter the ground in the lunch break only through the two tiny gates at each end. That would be at the two skinniest points around the perimeter and away from where most of the people were sitting. Pity the security guards who were abused for their lack of common sense as they tried in vain to enforce the rule.

In the New Zealand Herald, Chris Rattue looks back at a cricketing summer of relentless frustration and fascination for New Zealand.

All things considered, the national side almost copes, although it is an eternal frustration that the lack of anything approaching B-grade opening batsmen prevents the Black Caps from realising their potential. This is the handbrake on New Zealand cricket. Whatever New Zealand Cricket is doing to find openers, it ain't working. If ever a sport needed to put together a think tank in an effort to sort out a specific problem, then this is the cause.

In the same paper, David Leggat lists the top ten moments of India's tour.

	Will Michael Clarke have safe hands as leader? © Getty Images

Daniel Brettig, writing for AAP, asks whether Michael Clarke can juggle all the leadership tasks when he takes over from the resting Ricky Ponting in the one-day series against Pakistan.

Former England batsman and administrator Doug Insole once defined a cricket captain's duties as those of a "public relations officer, agricultural consultant, psychiatrist, accountant, nursemaid and diplomat". Among a raft of boxes to be ticked during Australia's two-week limited overs joust with Pakistan in the Middle East, the most important is whether or not captain-elect Clarke can perform those duties.

In the absence of Ponting, Clarke will skipper the national side on tour for the first time, and so will be faced with all the occupational hazards and challenges that face a skipper overseas. Having already shown he is maturing into the leader Australian cricket will need beyond Ponting, Clarke is now faced with what amounts to a 14-day job interview.

The single most remarkable feature of India's series win is that this was a series with no transformative moment, no miracle rescue, no return from the edge of the abyss. The quality of the opposition may have much to do with that but overall, India's execution and control of games was immaculate, writes Sharda Ugra in India Today.

Oddly enough, the first sign of genuine vulnerability from MS Dhoni's men in New Zealand came when they were at their most dominant, right at the end, with the delayed declaration in Wellington. It was almost as if India did not trust their own (proven) superiority over the world's No. 8 Test team enough ... The team dreams of being No. 1 and so they must; but to get there they would need to sharpen their fielding as well as their risk-assessment skills. India are not roadkill anymore and this habit of looking anxiously over their shoulders in anticipation of calamity must be kicked.

The re-building process the South African one-day side are undergoing has one major bolt loose at the top of the batting, but how to tighten it is proving to be a test of patience for the coaching staff and selectors.

So determined are the South Africans that Herschelle Gibbs will at some stage make a return to his best form that they are willing to overlook lengthy bouts of inconsistency. Stuart Hess in iol.co.za wonders whether this risk is worth taking?

The 64 he made in the third ODI against Australia in Sydney contained some breathtaking strokeplay...but innings' like those have been few and far between, though.

And there's a sense that Gibbs is living off past deeds and not playing with the requisite form needed to hold on to a national spot.

Though Michael Vaughan's recent record does not merit him a place in the England team, Australia would rather see a struggling Ian Bell or Owais Shah at No.3 instead of him in the upcoming Ashes, writes Lawrence Booth in his blog in the Guardian.

England tend not to beat Australia by playing it safe. They do it by going for broke, essentially by being un-English, by making the selections the opposition would least like to see. Four years ago this column was banging the drum for Pietersen for this very reason. Now it would like to get behind Vaughan. Because Australia would love it, just love it, if England's No3 this summer is either Ian Bell (who will surely come again in Test cricket) or Owais Shah (who may well not).

There used to be a rhythm to the cricketing summer in England which has now been disrupted by the chaotic schedule for this year's Ashes, writes Matthew Engel in the Times.

There are three separate elements to the unholy trinity that will mark the start of the Ashes: Cardiff-Wednesday-July
........
However, starting Tests on Thursdays was an unbroken tradition in England for half a century from 1955 to 2005. The Thursday start maximises revenue because it offers two strong weekdays to the corporate hospitality classes while still retaining an excellent probability of a full weekend. And the tradition became ingrained in the minds of all English cricket followers. Whatever other association Thursday might have in their lives — pay day, dustbin day, double maths, meet the lads at the pub night — they also knew that in summer it would very likely mean the start of a Test match: take the radio; check the web; switch on the telly. Only four of this summer’s seven Tests have Thursday starts. There will be utter confusion.

The New Zealand tour ended in anti-climax, with the Wellington weather denying India a 2-0 series victory and making them wait a few more months for their 100th Test win. Dileep Premachandran in his blog on the Times website gives the players marks out of 10 for their efforts.

	Claude Henderson: "One of the toughest things about county cricket is seeing the same people every day." © capecobras.co.za

Claude Henderson grew up in Worcester in the Cape winelands, had a fine schoolboy career and went straight into first-class cricket for Boland, first under Bob Woolmer, before transferring to Western Province, where Duncan Fletcher was coach. He was picked for South Africa and played seven Tests, but his place was never secure.

Disillusioned, he turned his back on his country, falling into the arms of the East Midlands. A six-month contract with Leicestershire became a long-term year-round one, and he and his wife Nicci put down roots. The lanky left-arm spinner, the first Kolpak, talks about the journey so far in the Times.

There is so much negative talk about Kolpak cricketers. If you pick the right Kolpak, it will only strengthen the side and strengthen the system. There are lots of EU cricketers - I won't mention any names - who don't do that. England still has more players to qualify for their Test team than any other country, and Justin Langer said that this is now the strongest league in the world.

Nigel Harvie Bennett, who died on July 26, 2008, aged 95, was an unwitting entrant into cricket folklore. He was appointed as Surrey's captain by mistake, after being confused with his namesake, and led the county to little success in 1946. The Times reveals more.

While the search was on for Major Leo, Major Nigel Bennett popped in to renew his membership. Alf Gover, in his autobiography, wrote that the pavilion clerk took the papers in to the secretary, who happened to have the chairman with him: they offered the captaincy to this Major Bennett, who accepted.

	Andrew Strauss must lead the Twenty20 squad © Getty Images

Andrew Strauss must feel that he is suddenly in with a chance of securing the captaincy in all three forms of the game, after the way he batted in the fourth ODI in Barbados. With the announcement of England's World Twenty20 squad imminent, one can't write him off, especially as there's no obvious captaincy candidate to replace him, writes former England coach Duncan Fletcher in his blog on the Guardian website.

Strauss is an intelligent cricketer who isn't scared to move out of his comfort zone...any captain can perform in easy conditions, but it takes the best to go out there and do it when it counts. Strauss has done a very good job all tour.

He has support from Richard Hobson in the Times, who believes the England captain should be named in the 30-man squad for the ICC World Twenty20, even though Rob Key is an alternative.

Back to the Guardian, Mike Selvey says England's blueprint for Ashes success should start with Andy Flower as coach. Appointing a new director of cricket, finding a fast bowler and sorting out the No. 3 slot also feature on the list.

At the previous World Twenty20, England went in with a good handful of specialists at the shortest form and flopped, winning one game out of five, but that does not mean that it would be wrong to chuck in a few people who have excelled in the Twenty20 Cup but who have not been in the Caribbean. Patrick Kidd presents his thoughts on the initial squad of 30 in his blog Line and Length on the Times website.

	Wayne Parnell has enough pace and bounce to command respect © AP

Peter Roebuck has followed the rise of South Africa over the past five months and continues to like what he sees. In the Sydney Morning Herald he says Wayne Parnell, who took four wickets in the second ODI in Centurion, is the latest member of the growing band of promising cricketers breaking through.

Briefly glimpsed in Australia sending down a handful of overs, the lanky left-armer belongs to the old school of swing bowling. Those scanning the card might imagine he produced an unplayable succession of deliveries that behaved along the lines of an escaping mosquito. In fact, he merely followed in the footsteps of the fine curl and cut bowlers of the past ...

Parnell has enough pace and bounce to command respect from even a properly constructed and functioning batting order. Australia's batting offered no such opposition.

Nathan Hauritz was a star of the opening match of the series and he spoke to AAP’s Greg Buckle about his unconventional international journey.

The Oxford Dictionary says 'interim' means ‘intended to last for only a short time until a more permanent solution is found.’ Ironically, politicians in Sri Lanka have used this word to explain the formation of ad-hoc committees to run Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) whenever they find a ‘hard nut’ who is exploiting the situation and they have no control over it. SR Pathiravitana expresses his concerns in his column in the Sunday Times, the Sri Lankan daily.

...We are not concerned about anyone’s personal credentials or individual capabilities. What we are really concerned about is that by an unsuitable person occupying a hot seat at SLC what bad effects it could have on the general well being of cricket on either side of the boundary line and what repercussions it would bring to our national cricket in the long run.

In his column in the same paper, Roshan Abeysinghe believes that domestic cricket in Sri Lanka is not being taken seriously enough.

	Andrew Strauss finished the series in the Caribbean on a high © Getty Images

England return home finally with something to show for eleven-and-a-half weeks in the Caribbean. Both Andrews, Strauss and Flower, had a massive task in just bringing some stability to a squad that would have taken sides in the dispute, been factional, and low in morale after the upheaval and a tough time in India, writes Mike Selvey in his blog on the Observer website.

Together, two understated but extremely tough individuals have left their mark, making hard decisions in pursuit of an ethic that involved less mollycoddling and more personal responsibility. None of this change would happen overnight, but the evidence is there that the cosy culture has been supplanted.

Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday believes that Flower and Strauss have forged a trusting bond. They probably do not agree on every little thing but they have a shared vision of how the team should progress based on hard work in training and individual responsibility. Hence, England must opt for Flower as coach if they are to prevent their Ashes dreams from turning into dust.

Whoever is appointed England team director (and Flower is the red-hot favourite going into this week’s interviews), he faces a daunting challenge over the next five months. He needs to arm the one-day team with some genuine firepower ahead of the World Twenty20 and find a bowling attack with the capacity to take 20 wickets a game in the Ashes. Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times has more.

Pietersen's approach to cricket is certainly not holistic. The book has closed on all the evidence that marks him out as an extreme individualist in a game of collective endeavour. Paul Hayward in his blog on the Observer website believes there is nothing wrong with that and it can be managed.

The more they try to reinvent him, the more his core characteristics reassert themselves in a jumble of complaining, homesickness, self-justification and undoubted gladiatorial pride.

On the first day of the third Test between New Zealand and India, the bleachers and embankment were all but full, and it was only on the second day that a packed crowd was visible. Throw in the fine weather and it has been two days of Test match atmosphere that the Basin reserves for the Wellington faithful, who must surely pine for the return of the Boxing Day test. Mark Richardson in the New Zealand Herald has more.

It's hard to call the Boxing Day test traditional, having only started in this country in 1998 and been played five times.

However, in that time for no other reason than it fell on Boxing Day, it quickly earned the "traditional" tag and so when taken away got the expected cries of foul play. The "tradition" was broken by the ever-growing threat to test cricket in general - known as commercial realities.

Cricketers' lunch at Eden Park this week included meat, salad, bread, fruit - and a bowl of dhal. The Indian vegetable dish could serve as a symbol of the new look for Auckland cricket, says Bob Pearce in the New Zealand Herald, because Indians are increasingly the face of cricket in the cosmopolitan city.

And they play it well. Twenty-year-old Jeet Raval, who emigrated from Gujarat four years ago (where he was an age-group representative but as a bowler), scored 256 for Auckland on the outer oval in only his third first-class game. Left-arm spinner Roneel Hira has been a key member of the one-day team for a couple of seasons, Tarun Nethula has shown that his leg-spin can dismiss the best and off-spinner Bhupinder Singh is awaiting his chance. Raval and Nethula are both in the Auckland team to contest the State Championship final against Central Districts.

In the same daily, former New Zealand opener Mark Richardson believes the Wellington faithful must surely pine for the return of the Boxing Day Test to the Basin Reserve.

Watching the media conference celebrating the 'Catch The Spirit' campaign of the ICC, Andrew Alderson believes international cricket needs an injection of realism to find better solutions to problems currently riddling the sport. In cricketing parlance, it was frustrating to see sincere questions on the sport's future edged through slips rather than dead-batted confidently back to assembled media. Read on in the New Zealand Herald.

Mini Kindra, writing in Outlook, feels the second edition of the IPL won't be the same despite the tournament organiser's hopes to seduce crowds with Bollywood allure. There's a buzz in South Africa alright, especially so with South African-Indians, but 59 games in 37 days - isn't that a bit too much?

Viewer fatigue, say enthusiasts, is not a worry. "Nothing like sports to beat the depressing economic mood," says John Laubscher, a cricket fan. "Besides, South Africans love the Twenty20 format." The fact that many of the games start around noon could be a big damper, though. "We cannot catch those," says a disappointed Siddarth.

After 120 years a woman is named in Wisden's cricketers of the year – heralding a new era for the women's game. Finally the fact that these ladies can play a bit has been recognised, writes Carrie Dunn in the Guardian.

Wisden has been naming cricketers of the year since 1889, and Claire Taylor is the first woman to be included on that roll of honour – even though the women's team has been playing Tests since 1934. One can attribute today's award to Taylor's brilliance – obviously – but also to the England women's raised media profile.

What is it with the British and our sportsmen? It is a curious nation that falls in love with Andrew Flintoff and despises Kevin Pietersen. One, a good cricketer who has produced the odd great moment, whose popularity soared after a post-match hug with an opponent and didn't diminish despite a whitewash in Australia and an episode with a pedalo; the other a great cricketer, whose preparations are never less than perfect, but who is damned for a few ill-chosen comments and a perception that, like Hamilton, he puts himself before the rest, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

For a short period in 1994, accused of ball-tampering and fined, not for ball-tampering, but for lying to the match referee, I felt exactly how Hamilton is feeling right now: embarrassed, hurt, foolish, hunted and on my own. There are some similarities between the episodes: an initial mistake - Hamilton allowing Jarno Trulli to pass, me keeping one side of the ball dry by using dust from an old pitch; the confession - Hamilton in an immediate post-match interview, me in the dressing-room at teatime; then the panic - how do we get out of this one?; the cover-up - Hamilton to the stewards, me to Peter Burge, the match referee; the punishment and then the press conference.

The surviving members of New Zealand's 1969 side that toured England, India and Pakistan got together in Wellington for a reunion. New Zealand Herald's David Leggat remembers the team's achievements and writes why it deserves a place in New Zealand cricket's pantheon.

When they beat India by 167 runs at Nagpur in October of that year, it was New Zealand's first win in India and only the country's sixth win ever. Consider that New Zealand have won just once more in that most passionate of cricket nations and you get an idea of the scale of their achievement. Sadly, one of the key figures in that win, left-arm spinner Hedley Howarth, who took nine for 100 in the match, was not there. He died last November. Neither were other notable players, Dick Motz, Bob Cunis and Ken Wadsworth, who have also passed away. A few weeks after Nagpur, this group won for the first time in Pakistan, beating their hosts by five wickets at Lahore. When they defiantly drew the final test on a dramatic last day at Dacca, it was New Zealand's first series victory overseas.

As a dream and experiment Owen Robertson, a self-employed electrician, saved up to follow the full tour of the Caribbean. He enjoyed it rather more than KP, writes Adam Sills in the Guardian.

"I have been watching England for 20 years since I was a kid and have always said that I wanted to go on a tour," said Robertson. "Two years ago I started saving and I can safely say I have no regrets. On Boxing Day last year I was on a laptop at a friend's house and decided that the West Indies tour would be a good one to start with, so I booked my flights, bought my tickets off the Barmy Army website and took it from there."

It was quite a shock – but the best kind of shock – to find out that I had been named one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year. Scyld Berry interviewed me for the article before Christmas, but I was sworn to secrecy so it is a great thrill to finally be able to tell people, writes Claire Taylor in the Telegraph.

At that stage, I was still living with my mum, because I had no job and no income, which wasn't great for a 30-year-old. We worked out that I needed a better balance in my life, and I was lucky enough to find a post at a company called SUMS Consulting, which advises universities on how to improve their administration. I also took up the violin again, which was something I hadn't done since university. I have since played for Reading Symphony Orchestra and for the Aldworth Philharmonic – which actually suit me better as it only plays four big concerts a year, and that fits in really well with my cricket.

When I watched Claire Taylor at the age of 22 make one run from 14 balls on her England debut against Australia at Southampton in 1998, there was no hint that the chess-loving, violin-playing, Oxford maths graduate was up and running towards world domination, writes former England player Sarah Potter in the Times.

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. But he really must start thinking before he talks because he is box office and everything he says is picked up, warns Nasser Hussain in his column for the Daily Mail.

This is the man who said that he could work with Peter Moores when he became captain but quickly said he had to go. This is the man who wanted Andy Flower sacked, too, but who now wants to work with him. This is the man who was an ambassador for Allen Stanford and then called him a sleazebag. It is naivety, really. Remarkably, Kevin is not as streetwise at times as he could be. But I would always have him in my side. Obviously because he is a fabulous batsman but also because of what he can offer off the field.

In an interview to R Kaushik of Deccan Herald, the ICC president David Morgan talks about the security situation in Pakistan, England's decision to return to India last year and India's position in the ICC.

I am keen people see the progress ICC is making and are not left with the impression that the new empire is in India, because it isn’t. India is a very important country in terms of cricket playing, and that’s good. It’s not so long ago that the ICC chief executive of the day (Speed) made a plea to the BCCI that India should start playing better and winning some events. It’s a matter of relief that India is performing.

Wisden ought to be applauded for anointing Claire Taylor as one of its five Cricketers of the Year but will it make a world of difference to women's cricket in England? Not much, writes David Hopps in the Guardian.

The ECB has received little recognition for its investment in cricket outside the professional game. The desperate need for funding to support the likes of Claire Taylor explains the reason why it has tried to maximise its income by fighting the supremacy of the parasitic IPL, rashly thrown itself into the arms of the rogue businessman Sir Allen Stanford and other dodgy moments besides. That then is what this Wisden award is; one of the best excuses the ECB has ever had.

Peter Roebuck, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, says Australia face a stiff challenge to overcome the top-ranked South Africa in the one-day series. He writes that the visitors’ most pressing need in the five matches is to score more runs against the spinners.

To watch the batsmen pushing and prodding against Johan Botha and even JP Duminy in recent meetings was to see supposedly formidable batsmen reduced to a state of semi-paralysis. From the top downwards, the batting lacked inventiveness, placement, boldness and intelligence.

Daryl Tuffey, the man nicknamed after Police Academy's High Tower, is certainly good enough to be in contention for a recall if all the respective parties allow him back due to his links to the ICL. Paul Holden is one of his backers. He also explains why Tuffey isn't the luckiest bloke around, in his blog Sideline Slogger for stuff.co.nz

There was the infamous "milkshake incident" that resulted in the governing body hanging him out to dry with a release to the world's cricketing media announcing an independent inquisition by Hugh Rennie QC, an over-the-top disciplinary hearing, and a needless fine of $1000 for breaching his contract and "bringing the game of cricket into disrepute". All for the sake of a home video which he admitted existed, although it never saw the light of day and was never in the league of Pam and Tommy proportions (?!) anyway. The worst element here was the genuine lack of support for a player who had made a mistake and could have done with a hand rather than all-out vilification.

There may be no greater sight in the game than Virender Sehwag using his licence to thrill at the batting crease. But, to be honest, he should not be leading India. The job calls more often for a cerebral approach that may be beyond a cricketer whose approach to the game is on an entirely different plane, writes R Mohan on ESPNStar.

A skipper should be able to tell off his batsmen if he thinks they have not played responsibly. How can we expect Sehwag to have been able to convey this message when he took a swipe at Vettori soon after hitting him for six? And he did this when the only result India could realistically play for was a draw after having conceded more runs than water flowing down the Waikato.

For a spectator's account of the Napier Test, read Garth George's piece in the New Zealand Herald.

Ahead of Friday's finale, Stephen Brenkley, in the Independent, looks back on a troubled tour to identify the lessons England – and all cricket fans – can take into the blockbuster summer ahead.

Strauss and Flower make a dynamic duo
From day one, when he took over in circumstances in which he had no desire to take over, Andy Flower has cut an impressive figure. England have gone through a tumultuous period of late and it has been difficult for players and staff. Flower has developed a strong relationship with Andrew Strauss, who himself demonstrated that he might (perhaps should) have been captain two years ago. They brought to their roles a well-rounded but hard-nosed aspect. They showed they were unafraid to take tough decisions – for instance, the dropping of Ian Bell and Monty Panesar, two players who still have big futures – and they have stamped their authority on the England squad.

If West Indies boycott the fifth one-day international on Friday – a remote but possible eventuality – the procedure will differ from the Oval Test of 2006 when Pakistan forfeited the match to England, writes Scyld Berry in the Telegraph.

On the morning of Srinath's first game, in Sri Lanka, the umpire Mark Benson pulled out and flew back to London, so he is used to thinking on his feet. On Friday he has to consult with the umpires and ascertain that one side is refusing to play before awarding the match to the other. Under ICC's new regulations, Srinath could also initiate disciplinary action against Chris Gayle and his players, which makes a boycott even less likely, as they would end up in front of a legal committee headed by a judge.

Kevin Pietersen has done the professional sportsman a service. The weightless banalities that routinely spill from their mouths are the bane of the reporter's life and do little to promote our understanding of them or their world, writes Kevin Garside in the Telegraph.

Why shouldn't Pietersen confess his homesickness? That is not weakness. If it were he could not have raced to 4000 Test runs quicker than any bar The Don. Professionalism does not result in emotional lobotomies. Sportsmen still bleed like the rest of us and ten weeks away from home is no holiday no matter which Caribbean beach you are standing on.

Cricket has inspired many a people to break into song. Andy Bull lists 11 of those in the Guardian:

Half Man Half Biscuit have made a greater contribution to the sports pop music canon than any other band. I can't believe I just typed that sentence. Anyway, despite the respective merits of Let's Not (Vanburn Holder), and Hedley Verityesque, the best of HMHB's efforts is surely this ditty about bumping into England off-spinner Fred Titmus in the corner shop.

Also read Cricinfo's XIs on cricket's contributions to the world of music here and here.

	Hit parade: Jesse Ryder © Getty Images

When Jesse Ryder is on top, New Zealand are on top. He has cricket charisma and his team-mates love playing with him as much as the fans love watching him. JRod in his blog on the Wisden Cricketer website believes the left-hander may not just be a cult figure, he could become a cult leader.

He can bat – seriously bat, and has a technique so uncluttered it looks like a team of reality TV cleaners have just come through.

He is also a man who can laugh when he is on 99*, on the verge of his maiden ton and Chris Martin, the worst batsman in modern cricket, is playing and missing. This Test has shown us a whole other side to Jesse, one that a lot of New Zealand experts didn’t believe he had.

When it comes to polarising opinion, there are few sportsmen in Kevin Pietersen’s league. We all know him to be a wonderful batsman, quite possibly the best we have seen playing for the England team this last quarter-century. But the thing that divides us is his renowned tendency to selfishness, writes Mathew Syed in the Times.

His admirers contend that this is, if not quite admirable, certainly indispensable to the Pietersen phenomenon; that his view of the universe as Pietersen-centric is part of the reason why he is able to bat with the swagger and confidence that strikes such fear into the heart of opposition captains. Take away the selfishness, they say, and you take away the genius.

The rest of us query this psychological justification for Pietersen’s unbridled egoism. We offer the observation that greater sportsmen than he have been able to excel without also feeling the need to elevate their own interests so far above those of the team. We also point out that learning, on occasion, to yield oneself to a larger ideal is not just what it means to be part of a team, but is also what it means to grow up.

Flat deck or no flat deck, New Zealand's bowling was found wanting. If only New Zealand's cricket leaders could save their hot air for something useful, like offering our ace of pace Shane Bond the apology he deserves with a heartfelt invitation to take up the cudgels once more for the national side, writes Chris Rattue in New Zealand Herald.

If New Zealand were serious about trying to beat the Indians in Wellington (and previously for that matter), they would have torn up whatever rule book they are being forced to operate by, got out the chequebook, and moved heaven and earth to sign Bond up for at least one last 150km/h fling of the red leather.

In the Dominion Post, Jonathan Millmow feels New Zealand have to make one of their biggest selection gambles in recent times if they drop a batting allrounder, James Franklin, for a bowler, Tim Southee.

In the Hindu, S Ram Mahesh compares the knocks of Jesse Ryder and Gautam Gambhir, the two innings that most influenced the Napier Test. Both innings, in review, are instructive, not just in relation to the match, but in terms of how they might affect their young authors.

Ryder, 24, and Gambhir, 27, are so interesting because in their short careers they have already challenged perception multiple times. Ryder, to several cricket fans, was a heavyset basher, who could empty the odd bar when he wasn’t patronising it; good for a few ODIs against the Poms, but then, isn’t everyone?

Not many were sure if Gambhir had it in him to bat in denial. But he did just that, trusting his defensive technique and the reserves of his concentration. As Rahul Dravid said, the innings will have taught Gambhir a lot about himself.

Natural talent and increased access to instruction and competition are helping to make Afghanistan an unlikely cricketing force, writes Andy Bull in the Guardian.

The speed of Afghanistan's climb through the ranks of world cricket has been improbable. In the past 11 months they have played in, and won, three lower-ranking qualifying tournaments to reach this stage, winning 15 games and losing only twice. South Africa's Isak Steyl Stadium, a few miles down the road from the scene of the Sharpeville massacre, is the latest stop on a journey that has taken the team from the Channel Islands to Argentina via Tanzania. For any country to have achieved so much so quickly is remarkable but for a team to have done so in the midst of the instability, confusion and poverty of war is astonishing.