Both Test cricket and psychoanalysis are out of tune with a world that demands quick results. Former England cricket captain Mike Brearley, now Britain’s leading psychoanalyst believes, that it is a big loss. Psychoanalysis according to him “tells stories in similar depth, with repetitions from different points of view. And these things take time, as does Test cricket. Edward Marriott has more in Prospect magazine.

Certainly, despite its genteel reputation, few games are as psychologically arduous. On-field aggression is rife: former Australian captain Steve Waugh once described his sledging techniques as “mental disintegration”; while South African batsman Daryll Cullinan was so distressed by Shane Warne’s intimidation that he took time out for therapy, only to be greeted on his return with the words “I’m going to send you straight back to the leather couch,” from his tormentor. Long foreign tours have also seen intense homesickness suffered by players like Steven Harmison, and contributed to Marcus Trescothick’s breakdown and resignation from the England side in 2006.

In an interview to Sharda Ugra of India Today, the ICC president David Morgan talks about various issues regarding the future of cricket - the primacy of Test cricket in the face of Twenty20, the changes mooted to spice up Tests, the survival of the 50-over format and the Champions Trophy, plus the prospect of more freelance players in the T20 leagues.

Let me take you back to India's last tour in the UK in 2007. There were seven ODIs and at the Oval, India were 2-3 down and India won a marvelous match at the oval on a beautiful sunny day and the ground was packed. It was 3-3 and there were Indians throughout the UK who wanted to buy tickets to the last match a few days later here. And for anybody to say that fifty over cricket is finished internationally, they only have to look back to that seven-match series. It was electric, wonderful, skilful, and of course it provided a whole day's entertainment as opposed to requiring two T20 matches to provide the same duration of entertainment.

When did you last take a train ride for the sheer pleasure of the journey? When did you last lie on the grass and stare at the clouds for half a winter’s day? When did you last spend a day at home watching movies back to back? What do these questions have to with cricket, you ask? Samar Halarnkar writes in the Hindustan Times that the world changed before we realised it, that it became flatter, and we started living 24/7/365. And that, in turn, has distracted us from Test cricket.

The purists may fume, and the experts may fulminate, but I believe Test cricket is ready to go the way of the Premier Padmini, the record player and the Bajaj Chetak. Everything that is iconic has a time, an era. After watching the frenetic energy, the raucous fans, the heady mix of modern glamour and cricket and the sheer number of T20 games this year, I am convinced that the era of Test cricket is nearly done.

	O captain, my captain! © Getty Images

Michael Vaughan was a superb batsman but his finest talent was as a leader. His success as England captain had much more to it than mere figures. He was shrewd, innovative and tough as Yorkshire oak. He embodied the characteristic ingredients of England's captains from the county, Stanley Jackson, Len Hutton, Ray Illingworth – all of whom, like him, led teams that won the Ashes. Stephen Brenkley takes a look back at Vaughan's career in the Independent.

The pictures that will endure are the lovely cover drive, sometimes off one knee, and the front foot pull, as assertive as it was thrilling. His batting was splendid and frequently a thing of beauty but when they remember England captains, well then they will be really talking.

The public saw one side only to Vaughan: a batsman who could cover-drive and pull like a dream, and a tactically astute leader who brought the best out of his players. Duncan Fletcher, the former England coach, writing in the Guardian, believes what they didn't see was the gutsy fighter who could score 177 with a busted knee, as he did in Adelaide in 2002-03, or the burning desire which once made Vaughan furious with Fletcher when told that he couldn't play in a one-dayer at Bristol against the Australia because of a serious finger injury.

The truth was Vaughan radiated calm. It was one of his greatest strengths. But beneath that veneer – one I believe is crucial for any international cricket captain – was a toughness that few of his team-mates could match...I knew then he was the kind of guy I'd go to war with.

If the decision to prolong Vaughan's involvement can be seen now for what it was, then Vaughan himself should be spared from criticism because the timing and manner of a player's departure are for him and him alone, and self-delusion is a central requirement for all top-class sportsmen, writes Michael Atherton in the Times.

Vaughan's hopes for a fitting final act were encouraged by the selectors, who granted him a central contract last September. That decision can now be seen as either hopelessly deluded or as the gift of a bunch of sentimentalists happy to splurge other people's money. Either way, it was not a good one.

In the Daily Telegraph, Geoffrey Boycott ranks Vaughan alongside Mike Brearley, because they were both charming people on the surface, but underneath they were as tough as old boots.

Vaughan treated people as grown-ups, and made allowances for the fact that Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff needed to be given attacking licence. In this, he was different from Peter Moores, the England coach for his last 18 Tests in charge. The pair of them were never going to gel because Moores was so dogmatic in the way he handled players.

It may well be a career in the media or coaching after Vaughan decided to end a career that stretched 16 years. Nick Hoult and Paul Bolton have more in the same paper.

On the Sky Sports website Nasser Hussain says Vaughan commanded respect, and deserved to. Hussain claims that if one were to make a template for an international batsman then they should turn to Vaughan and the same goes for an international captain.

Australia have only one specialist spinner, Nathan Hauritz, but have two batsmen, Michael Clarke and Marcus North, who can bowl decent spin, so I expect them to pick a four-man pace attack and bat very deep, writes South Africa coach Mickey Arthur in the Sunday Times.

I guarantee I will be glued to my TV back home in South Africa watching the Ashes for two reasons: first, this is going to be a competitive, exciting series; second, England are coming out to South Africa in December, so I want to see how they are shaping up.

Australia are in a building phase but proved when they came to South Africa after Christmas just what quality and depth they have. We had recently beaten them 2-1 in Australia but I was impressed with the way they came back hard at us to win the return series 2-1. It just shows they will never lie down.

	On top of the world: Shahid Afridi © Associated Press

From talking to each player individually, to group discussions and exercises like 'rock and roll', the Pakistan team's psychologist, Max Babri, shares his experiences throughout the World Twenty20 and how he helped shape a famous chapter in the country's cricket history. Waqar Gillani has more in the News on Sunday, the Pakistan daily.

'In our daily life, we interact with each other through our masks. Unless you have a one-on-one interaction you cannot help build mutual trust. I told them to be honest and frank. Gradually, they began to open up. Some of them even cried during the session.

'On the second day of our session, I started hypnotising them. Players were nudged into a trance and urged to understand and envisage themselves as the very best.'

You can also check the special section in the editorial on Pakistan's triumph at the world event on the same page.

It's time to rewind back to the Ashes of old. Jim White catches up with Dennis Lillee in Sydney Morning Herald as the fast bowler goes on to talk about his will to win, white-line fever and Mitchell Johnson.

"Right from a young kid, it was always Australia versus England, the only thing that counted. I grew up by that. I guess obsessed is too strong a word, but it played a huge part in my cricket life.

"To me, it was battle. Australia versus England was a war. You wanna try to smash them into the ground … One of my teammates told me I had white-line fever. Soon as I stepped over that line on the field my personality changed."

First, send the Australians to quaint Sussex by the sea, which is so genteel even the seagulls wear blazers. Then, when the Ashes start, the baggy greens, soaked in Pimm's and politeness, will be totally unprepared for a war, phoney or otherwise. Rupert Bates in the Sunday Age soaks up the atmosphere, but believes it's all part of the English master plan.

Adam Gilchrist hit rock bottom after Australia lost the 2005 Ashes. Four years on though, he has perspective and a fitting new ambassadorial role. The Observer's Anna Kessel meets him:

Only reflecting on that intense period now does Gilchrist realise how isolated he felt at the time. Those around him barely knew what state he was in. "No one else really knew what was going on. Team-mates, not really. We were all going through such similar rides, anyway. All on the same journey. All away from home. Mel [his wife] was trying to make me aware of it at the time. I was becoming more moody when I'd never been a moody, bring-the-game-home person. Cricket had never before affected my life and my mood and my thoughts, but through that time it began to. My moods and my mindset were being dictated to by results: low-score life was bad, big-score life was good. I had never been that type before." In the aftermath of the defeat, why did the team not share the loss and ­support each other? "I've come to the ­conclusion that we don't do that enough, or we didn't when I was playing. It might be against the male instinct. I'm probably a little bit the other way. I've always been keen to express my emotions and my feelings. There was the odd time when I felt a ­little bit alienated from the group."

In the same paper, Emma John interviews Mitchell Johnson on relationship counselling, expensive jewellery, driving a truck full of plumbing supplies and more.

When you were trying to make it as a state cricketer you used to drive a truck. What was in your truck?

Plumbing supplies. I'd be up from 4.30am till midday and do my deliveries then train in the afternoon. My truck was more like a ute [pick-up] and you had the toilet pipes on the top. And I didn't have an accident - [Australian-born West Indies cricketer] Brendon Nash did the job before me, and one time he didn't tie the pipes on to the roof tight enough. When he braked they came off all over the road.

And Rob Smyth lists out 10 unlikely Ashes heroes from Bobby Peel in 1894-95 to Gary Pratt in 2005.

In the Sunday Times, Martin Johnson talks to Andrew Flintoff who still prefers to be considered a batsman who also bowls instead of the other way round.

“Early in my career I was regarded as more of a batsman than a bowler and I still see myself that way. Scoring runs actually gives me more pleasure and satisfaction than taking wickets but all the stop-start cricket I’ve had because of the injuries has affected my batting more than my bowling. I’m confident it’ll come right again and on a personal level the next Test century of my career will be more rewarding than a five-for.”

Dylan Cleaver assesses New Zealand's list of centrally contracted players for the year 2009-10, and writes that the number of strugglers in the list provides an indication of the dearth of cricketing talent in the country. Read his article in the New Zealand Herald.

Can you honestly say Aaron Redmond, Craig Cumming, Scott Styris, Peter Fulton, Kane Williamson, Nathan McCullum, Daryl Tuffey, Mark Gillespie, Peter Ingram and Jamie How lose much in comparison to the stragglers on this list? That does not equate to depth either, just the fact New Zealand has become adept at churning out middling cricketers.

Noted British journalist Simon Heffer says, in the Daily Telegraph, that he could attempt to get his children interested in the new form of cricket if he wished to be cruel to them. Heffer believes watching cricket causes one to scrutinise life more exactly and that the guardians of our game – men in blazers in committee rooms – are not necessarily always well suited to the job.

Years ago, before everyone wore helmets and pyjamas, I used to go and sit in the emptiest stand at Lord's after work and watch the last hour of play, and revel in the desolation of the surroundings and the timelessness of the spectacle before me. And Francis Thompson's lines – "And a ghostly batsman plays to the bowling of a ghost/ And I look through my tears on a soundless-clapping host/ As the run-stealers flicker to and fro,/ To and fro: / Oh, my Hornby and my Barlow long ago!" – would drift into my mind, and it was no longer the 1980s, but the 1880s. Never let anyone tell you that there are no comforts to be had in a sense of continuity.

Harsha Bhogle, who has gone from radio to television commentary, fears commerce is driving us towards cricket becoming that little something we see between advertising. He admits that advertisements pay for his livelihood yet believes we are reaching a stage where administrators, as custodians, need to draw a balance between propagating sport and selling it. Read on in the Indian Express.

If we price the product so high that the buyer has no choice but to recover his cost with advertising at every opportunity, we run the risk of diminishing the spectacle of sport for those that follow it. We cannot make the watching of sport clinical when it is meant to be enjoyable. So here is a debate that is crying out to be heard; one forum for people who sell rights, for those that buy them and for people who watch the final product.

Piyush Chawla, the Indian legspinner, has enjoyed his stint with Sussex where he won a lot of fans and been hailed as the county's new Mushtaq. Devendra Pandey interviews him in the Indian Express:

The biggest compliment for Chawla came during his game.Ashe started the county stint with six-wickets in an innings, the Sussex fans couldn’t believe their luck. Mushtaq wasn’t just replaced a similar looking short leggie but the new recruit also seemed to have a knack of taking a bagful of wickets. “After that game I heard the fans calling me ‘Pushy’.

Pakistan's win in the World Twenty20 must be celebrated for many reasons, not the least for what it means for cricket. But no one can argue that now that they are world champions, all cricketing nations should tour Pakistan, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.

Let us celebrate the win for what it is. It just goes to show that Pakistan cricketers despite setbacks, still retain the zest and passion for a game in which they are talented and if they were to vanish from the cricketing tournament, it would be a sad day for the fans.

	England can thank Charlotte Edwards that she picked cricket over serving tea © Getty Images

This 29-year-old batsman (batswoman sounds weird, doesn't it?) can't remember cricket ever not being a part of her life. Her father, a potato farmer, and her uncle both played for clubs in Cambridgeshire, where she grew up, and she remembers watching at the boundary edge with her brother when she was three. "My mum would be there making the teas, and the choice was either help make the tea or play cricket. Cricket became my life." She practised in the garden with her brother and father, and was encouraged to play at primary school. She was lucky that her secondary school took cricket so seriously, a rarity in state schools; she was the only girl on the team and became captain. "Those days were brilliant. The boys had grown up with me and I was treated like one of them. I didn't get any special treatment."

The Australian line-up playing Sussex at Hove is not the most enchanting one, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian. Unlike their predecessors, they don't swagger or dazzle, but they work damn hard. And they have two specialist batsmen at opposite ends of their careers who will take the breath away at some point in the series.

Ricky Ponting and ­Phillip Hughes. The only questions with these two are: is there any visible sign that age is ­beginning to diminish the powers of the greatest ­Australian batsman of this era (Ponting)? Can he continue to bat like that and get away with it at the highest level (Hughes)? Don't blink when this pair is at the crease.

In the Age Brendan McArdle writes that anything less than a series victory will be a disaster for Ricky Ponting, the coach and his support staff, and the selectors.

Australia should win because it is more talented than England and the four players who will open the batting and bowling — Katich, Hughes, Johnson and Siddle — are stars. But if the events of the last nine months are anything to go by there is cause for concern. It hasn't been a good start in England: our swift banishment from the Twenty20 world championship was no less than we deserved. The selection and tactics for this unique form of the game were atrocious, yet in many ways it's been swept under the carpet as the focus switched to the Ashes.

In the Sydney Morning Herald Valkerie Baynes writes that Mitchell Johnson would probably be serving his country on the field of battle rather than the cricket pitch if it wasn't for a chance meeting with Dennis Lillee.

In the Times Kate Muir and Ben Macintyre interview the creators of the Duckworth and Lewis Method album, Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh.

Has Phillip Hughes scored three successive Test hundreds like Ravi Bopara? The answer is no, and Richard Hobson in the Times says that what we need is a little perspective. Because, he says, sometimes we are good at talking up opponents.

In a perverse way, Hughes should feel more happy about a relatively scratchy effort today than some of his more fluent innings. The ability to keep scoring runs when the balls does not always fly off the middle of the bat is invaluable. If you cannot play like Victor Trumper - who scored a triple-hundred for Australia in this same fixture in 1899 - then it doesn't hurt to be Justin Langer or Katich instead.

For cricketers while there is the important task of playing the Ashes, there is also the gruelling work of after-dinner speaking which is now big business, writes Simon Wilde in the Times.

The Ponting Foundation is also in action during the Ashes, with a dinner at a swanky restaurant on London's South Bank on July 13, the day after the scheduled finish of the first Test and three days before the second Test at Lord's. "The very Australian Ricky Ponting leads a star-studded dinner," the foundation's website states, and Ponting is clearly confident enough of relations still being amicable with the Poms that he lists seven current England players among the invitees (though perhaps he has invited seven because he's not sure which ones will still be talking to him by then). A platinum table is yours for £2,650.

The Sun's Charlie Wyett interviews Ashes 2005's most unlikely hero Gary Pratt, a substitute fielder who ran out Ricky Ponting in the Trent Bridge Test after which the Australian captain exchanged angry words with then England coach Duncan Fletcher on the use of subs.

"The Aussies were getting annoyed about everything. I came on for a legitimate reason but they were getting even more angry.

"Clearly they were not thinking about the job in hand and, when I ran out Ponting, he totally lost the plot. He walked back to the pavilion and was shouting up at England coach Duncan Fletcher. The thing was, Ponting was playing really well. He could have got 150. Yet his reaction had an effect on the entire Aussie team and, maybe, the 2005 Ashes series. After the final Test at The Oval, though, Ponting was an absolute gent. He gave me a pair of signed boots and a signed picture. He is a fantastic captain and a fantastic cricketer. But it was a great few weeks for English cricket and the players then had a real party."

The Independent's Brian Viner meets Sachin Tendulkar at a store in Covent Garden outside which fans have packed to get a glimpse of the star just as they would in Mumbai. He asks Tendulkar about coaching plans, the price of fame, the most memorable century and who he fancies in the Ashes.

Perhaps, I venture provocatively, coaching won't come naturally. He wouldn't be the first sporting colossus to struggle to refine in others what to himself has always come instinctively. How easy, for example, does he find it to instruct his young son in the batting arts? He smiles. "He is only nine and he just wants to smash the ball. I encourage him to do that, because above all he should love the sport. If he loves it, the rest will follow. I have not forced him into it. We hardly discussed cricket for the first four or five years of his life, but it seems to be in his heart. It is hard to judge how good he will be. Cricket is not just about physical ability, it is also about mental ability, adapting to different conditions and situations. It is hard to judge the mentality of a boy of nine."

The cricket world, or at least those in India, are scratching their heads over the staging of a four-ODI series in the West Indies at the end of a brutally long season. Partab Ramchand, writing on the Yahoo! website, finds one compelling reason for the series - a chance for India to end the season on a high.

Normally, a lightning four-match ODI series in the West Indies should not be of any particular importance. However, given the backdrop of the debacle in England the series has assumed uncommon significance for the Indian team. Dhoni obviously wants the team to do very well and win the series. It may be only a consolation win coming as it does after the disastrous showing in the World Cup but Indian cricket in the present situation will certainly welcome it.

The England women's team - Ashes winners, 50-over World Cup winners and now World Twenty20 winners - are, undoubtedly, the alpha females of their sport, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

... when it comes to skills as opposed to power or speed, the women could teach the men a thing or two. Katherine Brunt was able to control the swinging ball under pressure on a finals day at Lord's in a way that has not always been apparent in men's finals, as Scott Boswell, of Leicestershire, who got the yips in the 2001 Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy final, would testify. Sarah Taylor, the England wicketkeeper, could pass on a tip or two to Matt Prior about soft hands (her stumping in the opening over of the final would have pleased James Foster) and I cannot remember a better chasing innings in a Twenty20 match than the one played by Claire Taylor against Australia.

According to Mike Selvey in the Guardian Claire Taylor is not only a very fine pugnacious batsman but has incredible drive, a cricket brain to die for, and a rounded view of life.

For England, expansion is the game now. Clare Connor, the former captain now in charge of women's cricket in this country, is adamant that the nettle has to be grasped on the back of the current achievements, the game promoted aggressively, the players too. These women should be English sporting icons as much as any of our celebrated female athletes. Already, women's cricket is said to be the fastest growing women's team sport in the country. There are now more than 450 clubs with women's and girls' sections. Participation has increased by 49 per cent in the last 18 months. Think what hammering home the current success will do.

In the Times, Adam Gilchrist talks about his celebrated habit of 'walking' and its orgins. Gilchrist plays hard, is fond of a sledge, speaks bluntly - but he has had this moral code since childhood that it is wrong to dupe the umpire, writes Patrick Kidd.

"Back in Australia in a second XI game for New South Wales, I got a thin edge, didn't walk and went on to make a hundred. I felt so bad afterwards that I went to apologise to the bowler, who was a 38-year-old veteran. He said, ‘Don't worry, this game obviously means more to you than it does to me.' And I thought, ‘Yeah, but still. At what cost?'” From that point, he decided he would always walk if he had hit the ball.

Pakistan are resigned to the fact that they will either have to play their ‘home series’ at offshore venues or not play at all. But things are a little different now that they are World Twenty20 champions, according to the editorial in the Dawn. Pakistan’s victory tells the world that they can win wherever they might have to play.

Even in India, which with its deep pockets now virtually controls the ICC. It will take some doing to crush Pakistan’s spirit. We will not simply go away and sulk. We can triumph in the face of adversity. Besides the cup, the best thing this slam-bang version of cricket delivered was a sense of self-belief. Also, this Pakistan side seems to enjoy itself on the field.

South Africa were outplayed by a better team on their day, and didn't choke as the general perception suggests, writes Arthur Turner on the News24 website.

The Proteas lost a closely contested match by seven runs and to term them chokers based on that performance is harsh. Sri Lanka, like South Africa, also only lost one game in the tournament - the final. The performance of the West Indies in the second semi-final looked more like a team choking to me.

Seventeen days just wasn't long enough, was it? Or maybe that question proves it was just right: the World Twenty20 has left us wanting more, and for once the next edition - scheduled for spring 2010 in the Caribbean - can't come round quickly enough. To keep you going, here are some quickfire thoughts about the past fortnight and a bit, writes Lawrence Booth in the Guardian.

9) Our desire to classify Ajantha Mendis has led to one comparison that just doesn't seem right. England used to play Anil Kumble as a slow-medium inswinger, and the tag has shifted inexorably to Mendis. Yet most of his deliveries go straight on, and two of his wickets against New Zealand came courtesy of leg-breaks. The search for Mendis's dictionary definition goes on.

10) Weren't the crowds great? We've always known India and Pakistan can pack out grounds in England, but the Sri Lankan presence for their semi-final at The Brit Oval was overwhelming. The only sadness was the lack of Caribbean flags at a venue that was once their home away from home. But if we didn't know it before, we know it now: no cricket country on earth does multiculturalism as well as England.

Two weeks tomorrow, as the expectation becomes nerve-shredding for the start of the first Ashes Test, all the tension and uncertainty can be offset by a safe prediction that Andrew Strauss will remain the calmest man both on and off the field, writes Donald McRae in the Guardian.

"If you ask me for my gut reaction about this series my feelings are very ­different to what they would've been six months ago," Strauss says pointedly. "Six months ago I was very concerned about how things were looking. But, now, we're in a very good place.

Mihir Bose interviewed Shane Warne, who says England might just have the edge in the spin department in the upcoming Ashes. Watch his interview on the BBC Sport website.

Fifty-over cricket, which used to be the livewire teenager to the conservative parents, aka Tests. Not any more. Not with the recent evidence witnessed in the World Twenty20, writes David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald.

The players still swear by the 50-over version. Is there room for all three? Yes, but it's a squeeze. The evidence of the past fortnight suggests the middle ground is on shaky ground.

In his column in the Times, Shane Warne argues that England have made a mistake by leaving Michael Vaughan out of their Ashes training squad and he believes Michael Hussey's position in Australia's side should no longer be guaranteed.

Mike Hussey has been a really good player, but he didn't have a great winter and may be under pressure. To me, there are places for two of Hussey, Shane Watson and Marcus North. People in England don't realise how good Watson can be. He is like Brad Haddin - if the two of them didn't bowl and keep wicket they would be frontline batsmen. Watson would be good enough for No 3, if it came to it.

What I am saying is that Hussey needs a score over the next fortnight to cement his place. The onus is on the others to push him out, yes, but if Watson and North get runs it will be an interesting decision. As with the bowlers, you have to pick on form rather than reputation. I don't think Hussey's place should be guaranteed.

In the same paper, Michael Atherton looks at Vaughan's omission as a major crossroads in the career of the former England captain.

Will a glorious sport rescue Pakistan from the Islamists? Thats what Tunku Varadarajan wonders in Forbes magazine. The cricket victory is the best news that Pakistanis have had since the departure from power of their military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, says the writer.

How moving it is that three Pushtun players contributed most to Pakistan's victory: the team's captain, Younis Khan, who is everything this once-proud nation ought to want to be: competitive, yet deeply gracious and good-humored; Umer Gul, their fast-bowling spearhead; and Shahid Afridi, the team's match-winner in the semi-final and final. What a very valuable example these three men provide the young in Pakistan

Mickey Arthur, in an interview with Kolkata's Telegraph, says that fours years of coaching South Africa has been a treat and a major accomplishment. He credits his hitting it off with Graeme Smith as crucial to his job and his relationship with the team, and admits that everything he does is with a transformation bias. Excerpts:

How have you handled pressure?

(Smiles) It has been an enjoyable journey... I’ve grown as an individual and I’ve seen respect for me grow... When I got the job, it was ‘Mickey who’?... It’s rather different now... I see myself as a cricket thinker and my degree is cricket... I backed myself when I got the job and I’ve continued to back myself. Pressure comes with the territory.

The captain, quite clearly, is the boss...

Ultimately it’s the captain, yes... Of course, the coach too is accountable. Within the South African team, Graeme and I are clear about responsibilities... I run the show till the match-eve team meeting, Graeme takes over from there. I become his assistant.

Mohammad Ashraful is not the most popular man in Bangladesh at the moment. Harangued by irate fans when he landed home a couple days after Bangladesh's first-round exit from the ICC World Twenty20, Ashraful's captaincy and batting have been under severe criticism. Bishwajit Roy, of the Dhaka-based Daily Star, wonders how a batsman of Ashraful's calibre could express satisfaction with an average of 23.00 in 139 ODIs and little over 23.00 in 48 Tests in his eight-year long international stint.

Despite all the statistics, if someone expresses the kind of satisfaction Ashraful expressed recently, it's really alarming for our cricket. It could be dangerously infectious for the other players because he is now the most senior member in the team. It's always good to be confident but before that one should realise his position first.

Despite all the troubles and setbacks that Pakistan have had, their fighting spirit has shone through, writes David Hopps in the Guardian.

Putting national sentiments aside, Pakistan's victory in World Twenty20 was the most joyous outcome imaginable in a tournament replete with happy, vibrant, adventurous cricket, a statement that the sport is so imprinted upon Pakistan's national consciousness that even the awful prospect of a nomadic existence for several years to come, playing Twenty20 in temporary homes around the world, will not break them.

In his blog in the same newspaper Andy Bull writes that Pakistan's carefree approach worked wonders and reminded us of what we've been missing. Younis Khan was ridiculed for saying Twenty20 was 'just entertainment', says Bull, but a laid-back attitude served his team well.

In the Times Simon Barnes says a game of cricket between Sri lanka and Pakistan is a refreshing outbreak of triviality and, as such, something for us all to cheer.

Muhammad Ali, writing in Pakistan's Daily Times, says cricket has always been a big binding force in the country and the team’s success in the World Twenty20 has helped lift the spirits of the people.

A team of young Aboriginal players is retracing their steps in England with a tour that will honour the trailblazers of 1868 - nine years before the first Ashes series established cricket's oldest rivalry - and play at many of the same venues. Kathy Marks has more in the Independent.

Cricket is in the midst of a year of seismic changes. Between this summer and the next, the shortest form of the game — Twenty20 — will likely become the dominant product. But with India's early exit from any world tournament is a costly loss to organisers and sponsors. Indian cricket’s sponsors and stakeholders are going to do a rethink, writes Ashok Malik in the Sunday Pioneer.

Already, the IPL authorities are talking of two such tournaments every year — one in India in April, the other overseas, in different countries each year. Where will this leave the world cup? It may see high quality cricket but Indian money will not flow in unless Indian success is assured. That’s the harsh, cynical truth. The point is Indian cricket and the IPL are becoming like English football. The cash, the fans and the frenzy are in the English Premier League, in Manchester United and Arsenal. English clubs are paramount; the England team and its performance in the European Nations Cup or FIFA World Cup is a lesser priority. That’s not always how fans see it. They would love England to win the World Cup every time. Yet, in the absence of that, they’re happy to settle for domestic stars in a domestic league. The sponsors and the very business of sport propel them in that direction. As Dhoni and company come back from their hang-dog T20 world cup campaign, will India too retreat into the League of its own? In 2010, will the IPL dwarf the T20 world cup and, indeed, all international cricket?

The World Twenty20 is nearing its end and Scyld Berry is eager to look ahead to the Ashes and the promising 21-year old legspinner Adil Rashid who could become England's second spinner against Australia, behind Graeme Swann and ahead of Monty Panesar, who makes England's tail too long. He writes in the Sunday Telegraph:

For a 21-year-old leg-spinner born and brought up in England, Rashid has come on exceptionally quickly: not since Ian Peebles bamboozled Don Bradman with his googly in 1930 have England, or in the latter case Scotland, had such a promising wrist-spinner at so tender an age. Rashid's first-class figures stack up for a Test career sooner or later: 150 wickets already at 33 runs each, a bit expensive but largely offset by a first-class batting average of 32.

Sri Lanka and Pakistan, the finalists for the World Twenty20, have between them four unorthodox spinners and two extraordinary fast bowlers in Ajantha Mendis, Muttiah Muralitharan, Saeed Ajmal, Shahid Afridi, Lasith Malinga and Umar Gul, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times.

Afridi is the only one of the four who bats and if Pakistan win he might again be named player of the tournament, as he was in the inaugural event in 2007. His semi-final performance against South Africa was typically outrageous; the kiss he blew Jacques Kallis as he smashed him to all parts summed it up. I’m here to get under your skin, he was saying. He really is the cock of the walk. To stress the diversity of skills on parade, imagine the scene 25 days from now when the next big match takes place at Lord’s, the second Ashes Test. England will probably field an orthodox off-spinner in Graeme Swann and Australia may pick no spinner at all. This may be the last chance for a while to savour the truly exotic, unless Mendis signs for a county, as well he might.

The World Twenty20 has been fast, fun, furious and highly skilled, writes Steve James in his review of the tournament in the Sunday Telegraph.

Shot of the tournament

Didn't see anything new. Honestly. The Dilscoop, Starfish or whatever you want to call it? Eoin Morgan, among others, has played that before. Every second county player plays the 'Ramp' these days. All bloody dangerous, though. I liked Mahela Jayawardene's back of the bat reverse-sweep off Jacob Oram. Andrew Symonds did it once for Kent against Glamorgan at Maidstone. Classy.

Noting the influence of coaching contracts that allow the England women's team to play full-time, Andy Bull writes in the Guardian that England, for once, are leading the world in the way they run and play a sport.

When Gordon Brown sidles up to you, perhaps seeking to cadge a little reflected glory, you can be sure you are ­making the right kind of impression on the public.

In the Sunday Times, Lawrence Booth says that though England start as favourites, concerns remain over the fragility of their batting, especially if the top three flop.

Scyld Berry points out in the Sunday Telegraph that if England women defeat New Zealand in the final, they will become the first international team of either gender to be world champions in all three formats simultaneously.

That the final between the two best sides in women's cricket is being held as a curtain- raiser to the men's final is not simply a gimmick, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday.

Of all the initiatives begun by the England and Wales Cricket Board in the past decade or so – and they are legion – the promotion of the women's game has been among the more significant and praiseworthy. The aim has been twofold: get them playing and so get them watching. Some of the participation figures supplied by the ECB take some believing but there has been a discernible rise in the number of players and in time that may lead to a more dramatic shift in the composition of audiences. It was still a bold step by the International Cricket Council to run the two world tournaments in tandem but it has worked beautifully. The women's group matches have been held at Taunton, where they have caused quite a stir, and the two competitions came together at the semi-final stage. It may be that a template for the future has been laid out.

	Batsmen have found Umar Gul's late-innings thrusts hard to deal with © AFP

Vic Marks writes in the Guardian that it's appropriate that Sri Lanka and Pakistan facing each other in the final just three months after the terrorist attack in Lahore. He also lists the similarities in both sides in his preview.

They have spinners who can turn the ball in both directions (Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan for Sri Lanka, Shahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal for ­Pakistan) and pace bowlers who are incredibly adept at delivering yorkers to order (Lasith Malinga and Umar Gul) plus a couple of left-armers too young to feel fear (Isuru Udana and Mohammad Aamer). Both sides know how to play "tournament" cricket.

In the Independent on Sunday, Stephen Brenkley writes that both Pakistan and Sri Lanka have shown that bowlers have a major say in Twenty20s and batting needn't be all about thuggish slogging. He also names some of the best features of the tournament: top game (England v Netherlands), top innings (Dilshan's unbeaten 96 in the semi-finals), and more.

Pakistan's batting has under-performed in almost every game so far, particularly the senior batsmen Shoaib Malik and Misbah-ul-Haq, writes Kamran Abbasi in the Dawn . He thinks Pakistan has an edge in the in the bowling department, with four showstoppers compared to Sri Lanka's three.

Simon Wilde writes in the Sunday Times that victory for either side will help consign memories of Lahore to the past. Steve James says in the Sunday Telegraph it'll be the bowlers that will decide which side emerges on top at Lord's.

Also read Andrew Miller's preview of the final here.

With New Zealand's contract list is set to be released over the next week, Dylan Cleaver casts his eye at who will make the cut and who won't. He writes in the New Zealand Herald that the sun may have set on Scott Styris' international career, and that Peter McGlashan has slipped down the wicketkeeping pecking order.

Will Shane Bond walk right back into a contract? The criterion is to project the value the player will bring to New Zealand in the next 12 months so logic would say yes, but it still might be a bridge too far for those at NZC disappointed he left for the Indian Cricket League.

Not too many had given Younis Khan's side much of a chance in the World Twenty20, but they are now in the final of the tournament. Kamran Abassi writes in the Dawn that one of the reasons for the success, especially against the favourites South Africa, is that Pakistan have played with passion, pride and fearlessness.

This was how it always used to be. When Imran Khan changed the mentality of Pakistan’s cricketers in the early 1980s, he gave them the confidence to risk everything for victory. That philosophy endured under Wasim Akram, Imran’s disciple, but was lost in the introspective days of Inzamam-ul Haq’s leadership.

And in a blog on the Dawn website, Imran Yusuf has a light-hearted piece doling out advice to Pakistan fans.

To the die-hard fan with an encyclopedic knowledge of Pakistan cricket who, every match, stares open-mouthed at the selection of Fawad Alam and asks, dumbfounded, ‘What is he doing there?’: Man, just get over it. It’s like the meaning of life, or one of Donald Rumsfeld’s ‘known unknowns’. Just resign yourself to the fact that some things are forever beyond the understanding of us mere mortals.

Ed Smith writes in the Daily Telegraph that the World Twenty20 has been a hit because of the mix of exciting cricket and the sheer unpredictability of the format.

Of course, there must be a balance in all sports between fairness and uncertainty. If the better team always win, sport becomes boring. But if sport becomes purely a lottery – if, say, a tennis match was decided by a single tie-breaker or a cricket match by a one-over slog – then the result becomes devalued. Twenty20 treads this tightrope between the dramatic and the silly. In this tournament, the drama has outweighed the silliness.

The tournament also gets a thumbs-up from Duncan Fletcher in the Guardian. He says it has given the game just the wake-up call it needed to be able to compete with other sports.

Harsha Bhogle writes in the Indian Express that a good team doesn't become bad overnight. He says that it was the batting that let India down, and that there were no easy bowlers to target in the World Twenty20 unlike the IPL. He doesn't think fatigue or injuries were the major reasons behind India's abysmal show.

Being on tour for long periods is part of the job now and players must rest and train to counter that. It is a personal responsibility and one that is non-negotiable. South Africa have been one of the best teams in this tournament, and one of the sharpest in the field, and they went into the IPL after draining back-to-back Test and one-day series against Australia. Most of their players were at the IPL too. If India’s players are fatigued they need to look within.

And in a scathing piece on exchange4media, a website that focuses on the media and advertising, BV Rao slams the over-the-top, less-than-nuanced coverage of India's defeat by the country's news channels.

They [news channels] have to individually feel the pain and grief of each one of those one billion fans (who did the census, I want to know!) and reflect their collective anger on national TV, so we understand. Our channels take any defeat badly but cricket defeats are especially personal. Not only are the endless hours of hype wasted, the channels are shortchanged on easy content by a few days. Criminal dereliction of national duty on the cricketers’ part, I must say.

Chloe Saltau, writing in the Age, talks to Keith Bradshaw, the MCC’s secretary, about a quiet revolution at Lord’s.

The sacred ground will host the Twenty20 final on Sunday under its new retractable floodlights but Bradshaw said Test cricket also needed to move with the times as interest wanes in many parts of the world. As the only truly independent voice in the game, given the International Cricket Council board is comprised of sovereign nations that vote along political lines, he believes the MCC is well-placed to influence those changes.

"At the MCC we are purists and traditionalists and we're doing whatever we can to promote Test cricket. We're looking to stage neutral Test matches, we're looking at the concept of day-night Test cricket," Bradshaw said. "As a purist I think (Test cricket) is the pinnacle, and for the players it is the pinnacle, so it's important that we preserve it and the fact is numbers and interest have been reducing. Whilst I don't think for one minute that Test cricket is in danger of dying, I think we need to look ahead and look at innovative ideas."

Alan Tyers has a hilarious satirical piece in the Wisden Cricketer where he reveals how England players got better and better at interviews over the course of the World Twenty20.

Broady too – he’s coming on leaps and grounds. He’s a very intelligent cricketer, and he’s not afraid to try different things, running his hand through his hair, slipping in a little joke, dropping the microphone at a key moment. He’s got a massive future ahead of him as a specialist post-match interviewee if he wants it.

Though India have crashed out of the World Twenty20 without a single win, Kunal Pradhan writes in the Indian Express that says the over-the-top criticism of MS Dhoni must stop. In a sarcasm-laden piece, he marvels at how quickly fans forget Dhoni's many successes as both captain and batsman over the past 20 months.

His captaincy has been dissected, his mistakes magnified, his effigies burnt (it sounds like a pretty good job in India, making effigies — income guaranteed, even in times of recession). Not because we enjoy parading on the streets with banners and torches but because our national pride (which, 62 years after independence, rides on which side of a three-run result we finish on) has been hurt.

Defending champions India's lacklustre campaign reminds Dileep Premachandran of the insipid performance of holders Argentina at the 1982 football World Cup and France 20 years later. Read on in the Guardian.

Over at Dreamcricket Suresh Menon says India's early exit may have postponed the date on which Twenty20 takes over from Tests. And in the Wisden Cricketer Lawrence Booth says the IPL isn't to blame for India's failings.

In just over a week, England will name their squad for the first Test and in the Guardian Mike Selvey looks at the success of James Foster in the ICC World Twenty20 and wonders why the superior batsman but inferior gloveman Matt Prior should be the automatic selection in Tests.

Prior, of course, can bat, well enough indeed to score two Test centuries with the promise of more. He may be required to bat at No. 6 in the forthcoming series, particularly if at any stage England choose two spinners. Thus we will have a modest gloveman but a pretty good batsman taking precedent over a craftsman behind the wicket who is not necessarily more than an adequate batsman. Trading runs scored against chances missed is rather like Fabio Capello selecting an inferior goalkeeper because he can score from free-kicks.

In the Times, Ivo Tennant chats to Keith Exton, the man who has the high-pressure job of preparing the pitch for the first Ashes Test in Cardiff.

He is well aware that he would not have his job had not Len Smith, his predecessor, disappeared along with the eventual clearance of the rainwater after the abandoned one-day international against South Africa last summer. “Yes, I know I am under pressure,” Exton said as he gazed pragmatically at the square.

He reckons he knows already the kind of pitch the England selectors are anticipating. “I feel they will play two spinners — those are the signals that are being given out. So it would not surprise me if the Australians come down here to have a look at the surface and send for Shane Warne.”

New Zealand talked up their chances at the ICC World Twenty20 but after their exit at the Super Eights stage the post-mortems have begun. In the New Zealand Herald, David Leggat points out that their batting was the biggest weakness.

Forget a couple of bullying wins over Scotland and Ireland. Against Pakistan and Sri Lanka they were done like a pot roast. Injuries didn't help but there can be no complaints at being dumped out before the semifinals. They deserved no more. Instead the players and management should be reflecting on what went wrong. Broadly speaking, that won't take long; the bowling was generally tidy, the fielding pretty sharp, which leaves only ...

Chasing 129 to beat South Africa, New Zealand fell two runs short, with five wickets standing. So it didn't matter because both were already through to the Super Eight? Nonsense. Try telling the South Africans that. Plenty of good could have come from beating the tournament favourites.

In the Dominion Post, Jonathan Millmow argues that plenty of questions will be asked of the side but at least there was one positive.

If you were looking for an upside it was a long wait. It came on the last afternoon as Guptill embarked on a solo effort against Sri Lanka's unorthodox attack. Guptill is under-rated by New Zealand's decision-makers.

He tore Australia to shreds at the Gabba last summer, only to be denied by the rain, but there he was the other day against Scotland not used in the top five. Guptill looks increasingly more capable of taking a game by the scruff of the neck than McCullum.

Prem Panicker writes on his blog Smoke Signals that in the World Twenty20, India were missing the crucial self-belief that has helped them fight their way back from tough situations in the recent past.

AB de Villiers’ knock was worth a big hundred, in context: he was the only one among the Proteas who scored at over a run a ball, because he was the only one who absorbed the pressure of the spinners’ chokehold, didn’t mind looking silly while he struggled, and had the mental fortitude to ride the rough and wait for opportunity where his mates looked to somehow muscle their way out of the fix. AB, in fact, alone had what the Indian team lacked on the day.

It's not often that you find a current cricketer writing poems, so head over here to see New Zealand women's allrounder Sarah Tsukigawa's light-hearted verse about their World Twenty20 campaign. Among the highlights is her take on New Zealand's group games:

The Windies proved that they could swing a bat
But Suz and Dools showed them where its at

Next were the South Africans, and they played some good cricket
Fielding through the rain and thunder didn't do much for the wicket

In the Architects’ Journal, a British weekly magazine, James Pallister casts his eye on the architecture of cricket grounds. His list of six best stadiums is, unsurprisingly, headed by Lord’s while the Gaddafi Stadium takes an unexpected second place. And the article also informs you which ground has a “cantilevered gull wing roof to give it a dramatic flourish - and to ensure no spectator has a restricted view”.

While the Ashes will now dominate the thoughts of selectors and everyone else in England, at some point they need to review Twenty20 strategy, writes Richard Hobson in the Times.

The middle order clearly needs beefing up and Collingwood's role as nudger at No5 must be in jeopardy with Luke Wright, if he continues to open with Ravi Bopara, offering sup-port to the seam bowlers. England cannot afford to field a team with James Foster as high as No6 and Graeme Swann at 7, as they did two days ago. But it runs deeper than a tinker here or there. The underlying principle that Test players can adapt to any format must be re-evaluated.

In the Guardian Mike Selvey writes that Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower need to see where 50-over cricket fits in the scheme of things. Is it, despite the limited-overs format, closer to Test cricket than it is to Twenty20 cricket?

Before T20, of course, there was no such question, but since its inception, there has been the underlying feeling that T20 is an entity apart. Strauss maintaining the one-day captaincy is a manifestation of this. Were they to be innovative in their thinking, however, they might now want to take T20 as the blueprint and expand that to fit the 50-over game. Come at it from the opposite direction. It seems the natural thing to do because if England do not view it as such, you can bet your life that other teams will.

England were guilty of fudging their selections, writes Nasser Hussain in the Daily Mail.

I cannot see the logic in bringing Napier into the squad and not giving him a single chance to impress. Not even in a warm-up match. The consequence is that we have learned nothing about the man who has made his name in county cricket with his superb Twenty20 performances as a six-hitting batsman and bowler capable of bowling at 90mph. We simply do not know if he is capable of doing what he does for Essex with England.

Mike Atherton feels England's batting has shown no signs of improvement during the tournament but he is impressed by the bowling of Graeme Swann and the keeping of James Foster. He writes on skysports.com:

The current whisper doing the rounds is that if England play two spinners in the first Ashes Test at Cardiff, it is going to be Swann and Rashid. Time will tell if that is the case but if it is so, then it won't bode well for Monty Panesar's career plan because you'd have to think that there is more to come from Rashid. Similarly, James Foster is in the public eye now too. Everyone's talking about his glove-work and Matt Prior will be thinking 'I'm under pressure when I come back'. Foster's glove-work is exceptional - it has been for five years; every time I've watched him I've been of the mind that he is head-and-shoulders above every other wicketkeeper in English cricket behind the stumps.

England need to heed lessons for their Twenty20 future, especially with regard to their fielding and middle-order batting, Stephen Brenkley writes in the Independent.

Defending champions India failed to make it to the World Twenty20 semi-finals and the blame game has begun, with many questioning MS Dhoni's captaincy. Ayaz Memon writes in the Daily News & Analysis that the team needs some fixing, not crucifixion, for a quick recovery.

It is not that an entire set of quality young players has suddenly forgotten how to play, or that the Indian captain -- till yesterday regarded a whiz at man-management and understanding game situations -- has suddenly become a twit. That's a cop-out explanation. There is much that has gone wrong in this tournament but Twenty20 cricket, as we should know, can also be gloriously or agonisingly topsy-turvy as the IPL showed emphatically.

In his column in the Hindustan Times Sunil Gavaskar asks whether there is anyone better who can replace Dhoni? Dhoni is young and is still learning the trade, so he will get it wrong sometimes, he writes.

According to Bobili Vijay Kumar in the Times of India Dhoni is trying to temper his batting improve his defenses and evolve as a complete batsman and that is not working.

India have suffered due to his quiet ways in the middle, in at least two games. The dot balls have ensured that the team invariably fell short of a few runs. There are, no doubt, a few other reasons too: the absence of Sehwag, and his blistering starts at the top; the ineffectiveness of Ishant with the ball and even lack of cohesion within the team.

	Audacious is the name of the game © Getty Images

As we saw when Broad and Ryan Sidebottom bowled the final two overs of the match knowing that 12 balls were all that stood between India and the 28 runs the defending champions needed to avoid elimination, Twenty20 is making stringent technical demands on its players. The classic requirement of a sound technique with bat or ball is no longer enough. Now, with every delivery carrying significance, the players need to be endlessly adaptable and audacious, inventing their responses to meet the demands of the moment.

The empty seats at the Lord's pavilion just highlight the snobbery of the MCC members, who still continue to believe Twenty20 is hit-and-giggle cricket, Tim de Lisle writes in the Times.

The game had everything - except a full house. The stands were packed, but on the white benches of the world-famous pavilion there were wide empty spaces. Usually on big-match days, MCC members have to get in early and bag a seat with a newspaper. On Sunday the newspaper could have had a seat of its own. MCC has 18,000 full members, all supposedly united by a love of cricket. Yet only a few hundred bothered to attend the biggest match so far in a vibrant tournament. What was going on? They can't all have been at evensong.

The Times' Mike Atherton looks at England's crucial match against India at Lord's and says Kevin Pietersen has been a bellwether for their fortunes in the ICC World Twenty20.

Some day, England will win a match in which Pietersen plays a minor part. At that point, once they have kicked their addiction to an over-reliance on him, we will know that they are a force in the one-day game.

In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley says Ryan Sidebottom earned redemption as improbably, nervously, deservedly, England defeated India by three runs.

Derek Pringle believes James Foster has been quick to seize his big opportunity in the tournament, and that his stumping of Yuvraj Singh will have done his Test credentials no harm. He writes in the Daily Telegraph that while Foster hasn't shone with the bat, England fans will be grateful that he persuaded England's selectors he could get useful Twenty20 runs.

Martin Kelner, in his Guardian blog, says he always feels bereft when the football season ends. The Ashes are this summer, but Kelner just cannot summon up the enthusiasm for cricket that he has for football. What he won't mind seeing, after catching BBC2's Empire of Cricket, is swashbuckling, devil-may-care cricket from the Australians, like in the 70s.

Fast bowlers Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson were competitive kind of guys, too, and while Chappell intimidated England's bowlers with his hook shot, they struck terror into our batsman. "At the Sydney Cricket Ground in the 74–75 series, there was a banner reading, 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if Lillee don't get you, Thommo must'," Chappell recalled. The fans who flocked to that series were described as "fellow larrikins, well acquainted with Mr Booze".

	Ricky Ponting: the only way is out © Getty Images

Ricky Ponting’s walk out of the World Twenty20 convinced the Courier-Mail’s Robert Craddock that it’s time for the captain to stand down from the game's shortest format.

It's got nothing to do with his ability - it's just a mindset thing. Strangely enough, as soon as I looked down from the television I noticed a copy of John Buchanan's new book, The Future of Cricket, and one of the first pages I flicked to contained the following sentence. "I believe that for the likes of Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid and Ponting this T20 format has arrived too late in their careers. There is no doubt they can play this game but I have my doubts they can play it at the pace the game demands."

In the Herald Sun Craddock looks at Buchanan’s views on Shane Warne.

"Since Shane and I left the Australian cricket team his critical views about my role have continued," Buchanan wrote. "It is disappointing coming from someone like Shane who, on the field, has been a player and a person who has changed the face of the game. It is puzzling that a person of his stature in cricket, someone with iconic status, would continue to criticise me.”

The former Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson is currently in England as a commentator for BBC and Saj Sadiq of PakPassion.net caught up with him for a chat on his coaching stint and two cents on the more colourful characters in the side. Lawson wasn't very forgiving of Shoaib Akhtar.

"Akhtar was totally unprofessional as a cricketer, he trained when he felt like it, didn't contribute to the team, I couldnt think of a more unprofessional player, which is a pity as he is such a talented player". "Akhtar is using 5% of his natural talent and was being disruptive to the other members of the team".

India may have faltered against the West Indies, but Yuvraj Singh poses a grave threat to England's World Twenty20 hopes, says Steve James in the Daily Telegraph. In defeat on Friday night Yuvraj was sublime, and he rather likes England. There were those famous six sixes in an over off Stuart Broad in South Africa in 2007, England’s sole Twenty20 encounter with India.

Vic Marks writes in the Observer that England will be relying on Kevin Pietersen for runs against India, but the bowlers will also need to do their bit for victory.

The mavericks of Sri Lanka are putting a unique stamp on Twenty20 with their endless capacity for reinvention, writes John Stern in the Sunday Times. Sri Lankan cricket seems to encourage invention and innovation to a point where it is almost unconventional to be conventional.

Ajantha Mendis' stats are frightening: 34 Test wickets at 23; 64 one-day wickets at 13; 16 Twenty20 international wickets at seven and 155 first-class wickets at 16. Strike-rates and economy-rates are all more than acceptable. In the age of the batsman, these are throwback numbers, the sort of figures one would expect from the days of uncovered pitches.

Australia have been wounded by their early exit from the ICC World Twenty20, but they are certain to come back fighting in the Ashes, led by the best bowler on the planet: the fast left-armer Mitchell Johnson. In the Daily Telegraph, Scyld Berry looks at Johnson's rise and just how big a threat he is going to be with the Duke ball this summer.

Deliveries do not come more difficult than one from a left-hander over the wicket which swings in at over 90mph: if it is straight and full, the right-handed batsman has two choices, to be bowled or leg-before. England have to thank Troy Cooley, the Tasmanian who was their own bowling coach in the 2005 series, for teaching this trick to Johnson on the tour of South Africa earlier this year. He made Johnson stand taller in delivery and get his wrist behind the ball; and the result was several new-ball spells that were unplayable.

They didn’t want to go to Leicester, but life there hasn’t been all bad for the Australians, Chloe Saltau writes in the Age.

Ricky Ponting was less than enthusiastic about the prospect of an unplanned stopover in Leicester if the Australians were knocked out of the Twenty20 world championship in the group stage, but rather than hold a grudge when Ponting's worst fears eventuated, the locals have gone out of their way to help the Australians. Everyone from Leicestershire's county side to the Loughborough Town Cricket Club have offered them a game, perhaps fancying themselves in a casual hit against the vanquished Australians.

Back in Australia, the Sun-Herald’s David Sygall goes to Phillip Hughes’ last training session before he heads to England.

The fiasco surrounding Virender Sehwag's injury and his absence from the World Twenty20, as embarassing as it proved for the Indian team, was further intensified by the manner in which it was dealt by sections of the Indian media, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.

To lend the whole drama a theatrical touch has been Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s holier than thou attitude, where he parades the entire team and even the support staff in front of the media to prove that all is well with his world. He even has a skirmish with a TV reporter but such is his clout, power and popularity that no one dares to criticise him.

In the end, Sehwag has to not just contend with the fact that he may not be able to play cricket for a few months, but also deal with a very hostile media.

Women cricketers compete against men on the field to improve their skills and to handle pressure better. But is there a case where they can compete with men in off-field activities? In the IOL website, Rodney Hartman looks at the changing face of Women’s cricket.

It's not often that men's and women's cricket teams play one another but this seems to be gaining in popularity and value. There is even talk in England of top women players being drafted into traditional all-male sides to play on the regular first-class circuit. It is being said that those best likely to qualify would be wicketkeepers or spin bowlers.

Andrew Flintoff is fighting hard to be fit in time for the Ashes, much like Rafael Nadal, who is struggling with an injury ahead of Wimbledon. Both belong to the same breed of sportsmen, stars who give it their all when they play the game. In the Telegraph, Ed Smith takes a look at how trying too hard can bring its own problems.

Both injuries are structural rather than accidental: they are long-term, perhaps even inevitable injuries. No one, given Flintoff's muscular action, can slam down his leg on slabs of hardened mud, over after over, day after day, year after year, without putting immense pressure on his joints.

	"I don’t care if I get out. I try and play a positive game" © AFP

The Pakistan management haven’t always known what to do with their maverick entertainer Shahid Afridi over the years. If the men who mattered had given him a chance in Tests when he started instead of stamping him as a one-day players, things might have been a lot different, Afridi tells cricket magazine Spin in a rare and free-wheeling interview. Apart from his career, Afridi talks about his philosophy of batting, the history of bust-ups in the Pakistan dressing-room and his love of guns. Excerpts:

Have you had captains and coaches shout at you over getting out irresponsibly?

In the old days, two or three years ago. When I came off, and I was saying bad things to myself about how I’d got out and I was trying to take my pads off and the coach is standing over me going “What the f**k you doing, what kind of shot was that?”

You retired for a full fortnight back this April. What was that about?

When the India tour finished, I said I’m not playing anymore: you guys are playing too much cricket, you can’t expect me to perform in both times of cricket. It’s not like a sport now, it’s like a business. So I wanted a rest. And some time to spend with my kids. This is the right age to spend time with your kids – when they get older, they just keep themselves in their rooms!

Why has the team got more religious in the last five or ten years?

It’s not five or ten years, it’s only the last two years. One of our religious leaders in Pakistan worked very hard on us, told us that there’s something apart from cricket. When this life ends, was it all about just hitting fours and sixes? They tried to put good things in our heads, to make us good people, to be all-round people. And that’s the type of situation we’re in now. God has changed our lives now. We’re not drinking or going with girls or clubbing. We’re trying to be good Muslims. So our life has become very simple, very good, very down to earth. If we perform or not, we are satisfied from the inside.

While it appears an embattled Andrew Symonds no longer fits in the evolving environment of the Australian cricket team, Robert Craddock says that when a player's life is spinning out of control, Australian cricket struggles to handle it. Cricket is trying to do its best but somehow the system, although it's full of psychologists, strategists, scientists, and more coaches than you would find at your local bus depot, struggles to identify the root of the problem and fix it, says Craddock. Read on in Australia's Daily Telegraph.

As provocative as the questions over Symonds' future are the simple ones about his recent past. How could psychologists, selectors and board officials misread his troubled mental state and send him to England after a season when he had fallen out of love with the game? There have been no apologies or admissions of error from anyone. And there won't be. That's just cricket.

The Guardian's Mike Selvey is of the opinion that Twenty20 has found its place courtesy of phenomenal athleticism and invention. Since Twenty20 began as an ­English midsummer diversion, says Selvey, its rise has been little short of remarkable.Explosive hitting had started to permeate the game, but it was the ICC World Twenty20 in 2007 that was a major landmark.

In the Independent Stephen Brenkley says England are ill-equipped to make a lasting impact in Twenty20 as India await.

If the players are not skilful enough – and they are not – what does that say about the original Twenty20 championship? The oldest and not the best. None of this will have much bearing on the Ashes but England have missed the opportunity to captivate a new audience. No heroes have been made so far and two of the so-called T20 specialists Rob Key and Graham Napier, have barely had a look in.

Richard Hobson writes in the Times that given the emphasis that England are placing on the value of IPL experience — or lack of it — the absence of Graham Napier so far is surprising.

Also in the Guardian, Paul Weaver questions Sachin Tendulkar and Graham Gooch about how special Ravi Bopara actually is. In Tendulkar's words, Bopara "has the talent to do something special" and Gooch, who spotted Bopara eight years ago at an indoor nets, says he has always been a bubbly character, a cocky, confident outgoing lad and that he is far from the finished product.

Cricket is growing increasingly lucrative, and the players don't seem to mind it, despite the adverse impact on Test cricket and the danger of dwindling national loyalties, writes Greg Baum in the Age.

Gayle helped to popularise T20 cricket, then progressively to refine it. The Bash for Cash is the latest and most exciting form yet, known as One-one, or — imaginatively — O1. "One ball each," explained Gayle. "Minimalisation to the max. Takes out all the tedium and dreariness. Game's over in no time. The kids love it." Symonds loved it; all he ever wanted to be growing up was a kid. Brett Lee was not so sure: he bowled a no-ball and went out in the first round.

England's over-dependence on Kevin Pietersen is looking really unhealthy and the inconsistency is glaring. If the blasters at the top of the order fail, what next? The ammunition is thin on the ground and a collective headlessness sets in, writes Ian Chadband in the Telegraph. He takes the example of England's sorry effort against South Africa.

The theatre surrounding the man here was irresistible as usual. When Ravi Bopara went in the first over, it was almost a surprise to see Pietersen striding to the wicket. Striding? After hearing his own melodramatic versions recently of his injury woes, surely the mighty one would hobble out there on a Zimmer frame.

Still, as he is never slow in letting us know, he is a man who knows no fear and no pain. He’d played before with a damaged back, broken ribs, a broken hand; and, of course, many times with a broken team.

In the Times, Simon Wilde makes a strong case for either India or South Africa to lift the World Twenty20, but his heart goes out to a team which needs the trophy more than the rest - Pakistan. The traumatic events in Lahore and the isolation that followed will all be forgotten, at least temporarily, if they can perform against the odds.

It would be in keeping with their mercurial character if the Pakistanis now began to play with real magic. They have a good record at Twenty20 and are in much the easier Super Eight group. A semi-final spot is a genuine possibility - and then, who knows what?

Australia's surprise exit has proved that players who are very good in one form need not necessarily be as effective in another. There is a school of thought, and one that has some strength to it, that a good player will be good in any form, but looking at some of theAustralians, you wondered if they had made the adjustment, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.

One of the things we learnt from the IPL was that great players in the traditional formats put a price on their wicket and consolidate when things go wrong when sadly, there is neither the time nor often a sound reason to consolidate. Maybe that is where a Ponting or a Hussey haven’t allowed the learning curve to set in. In the absence of Symonds, their best T20 batsman is probably David Hussey but he saw six others bat ahead of him.

In the Australian, Peter Lalor chats to Phillip Hughes about his recent stint with Middlesex and how it has helped prepare him for the Ashes.

"I got to play at Edgbaston, the Oval and Lord's. That's a good thing, you know, we've got five Tests over there and now I have played on three of the grounds. It just gives you a feel for it and it's boosted my confidence a bit."

County cricket makes for some strange bedfellows and stranger encounters. Hughes didn't get to face South Africa's enfant irritable, Andre Nel, during his first Test series, but he clashed with the erratic bowler during one match between Middlesex and Surrey. Nel bounced him repeatedly; Hughes responded by slashing the South African for three fours in a row before copping a full toss at the throat for his trouble.

The Australian was a little taken aback, but loved the contest. Nel was clearly impressed and noted that it will be England's bowlers dealing with the young opener and not the other way around. "It is easy to see why he gets so many runs, because he has so many different areas he can score in," the South African said. "He has been by far the most difficult opponent I have faced this year.

Christian Nicolussi in the Daily Telegraph discovers just how deep Hughes' love of his baggy green cap runs.

"I keep it locked away in a pouch in the top left-hand corner of my wardrobe," Hughes said yesterday. "Every day I make sure it's there. I'll have a peek. It might be in the morning, at night, or even if I'm having a coffee, I'll walk upstairs and look at it. I'll smell it sometimes. It smells like alcohol because of the couple of wins we had in the first Tests in South Africa."

Dave Tickner, in his blog on Cricket365.com, says the World Twenty20 has, so far, been an enormous hit except for the forgivable blips of the farcical opening ceremony and the ridiculously attired cheerleaders.

We're halfway through the tournament already with the excitement only set to rise over the second week as we race towards the business end of the event.

'Leave them wanting more' is a maxim rarely heard inside the ICC, but international Twenty20 cricket has been allowed to remain a rarity, a treat.

The tournament is the perfect length, and other international T20 contests are rare enough that the format retains novelty at this level and avoids the fate of 50-over cricket.

Vikas Singh, in his blog in the Times of India, says MS Dhoni's handling of the fiasco surrounding Virender Sehwag's injury represents his first major misstep as India's captain.

Why was the usually articulate captain so reluctant to comment about the fitness of his deputy and one of the team's proven match-winners? That remark only added to the impression that something was amiss. So several publications, including The Times of India, carried articles saying as much.

If that interpretation was incorrect, Dhoni simply had to issue a denial. It would certainly have been reported. Instead, he needlessly upped the ante by getting the entire Indian team to turn up at a press conference and proclaim its unity. That was certainly a dramatic statement to make. But the problem with such grandstanding is that if it backfires, it can leave its architect red-faced.

Prem Panicker, in his blog Smoke Signals, pays tribute to the unsung heroes who rarely get the credit they deserve for their impact on the outcomes of cricket matches.

Conventional wisdom is that fielding – especially in context of teams such as India, stereotypically lethargic in the field — has really come into its own only in modern times. Really? Think of a close catching cordon that reads: Syed Abid Ali, Sunil Gavaskar, Ajit Wadekar backed by S Venkatraghavan at gully and Eknath Solkar – that short leg specialists’ specialist – in the leg trap, aided and abetted by Syed Kirmani behind the stumps. Now name me a modern-day Indian equivalent to match that line up. [And since Mark Waugh's name came up in Rob's post, compare contemporary Aussie lineups against one that reads the Chappell brothers, Ian Redpath, Doug Walters, Paul Sheehan and Ashley Mallett, and try to top that cordon for close catching.]

In the Times, Michael Atherton wonders if he is alone in thinking that there is something deeply ambivalent about cricket's - sport's - attitude to alcohol. It is almost impossible to be part of the game, either as player or spectator, and not realise how central booze is to the whole thing. Even if you don't drink you can't escape it. But wouldn't Andrew Symonds be right to be just a little confused at this moral outrage from an organisation that shows such an enthusiasm for alcohol in its commercial arrangements, and a sport that cannot rid itself of its addiction?

It is true that Symonds has, for some time, been on the kind of slippery slope that Paul McGrath (and countless others, such as Tony Adams) described in his memoir of his time as a professional footballer, when booze became not just an enabler of good times but an emasculator of everything else. At Manchester United during Ron Atkinson's time as manager in the 1980s, beer was as much a part of life as pasta is now. “Drink offered escapism,” McGrath wrote, “and in no time I became an expert at escaping everything around me.”

In the Hindu, Makarand Waingankar writes that a delightful outcome of effective strategy management in the T20 format is the emergence and handling of spinners. Taking Pragyan Ojha as an example, both Dhoni and Kirsten have used him as an attacking bowler, primarily to take wickets without being too bothered about leaking the odd boundary.

In Wadekar’s and Hemu Adhikari’s scheme of things, they needed to block one end up with Venkat and attack with Bedi and Chandrashekar. And being a brilliant close in-fielder, Venkataraghavan added value to his presence on the field. Pataudi used Abid Ali and Eknath Solkar in close in fielding positions while picking all three attacking spinners. Both the moves worked well.

In the Indian Express, Deepak Narayanan catches up with the creator of Twenty20, Stuart Robertson, who's been maintaining a low profile of late.

In the Guardian, Mike Selvey delivers a history lesson on the origin of the Ashes.

The obituary was attributed to a Victorian buck, Reginald Shirley Brooks (can you see that name without thinking of Leslie Nielsen, Airplane and "don't call me Shirley"?), and put down to a journalist's twee joke consistent with the age of music hall. He would have been blogging or tweeting these days.

The Independent continues its countdown to the Ashes, now with the most memorable quotes - words that put an extra bit of pace on the ball and a little extra bite in the batting.

"I think I was saying 3-0 or 4-0 about 12 months ago, thinking there might be a bit of rain around. But with the weather as it is at the moment, I have to say 5-0."

	Simon Katich will have more duties in England © Getty Images

First Bob Simpson, the former Australia captain and coach, helped Simon Katich revive his batting. Now he’s assisting him with his bowling, writes the Australian’s Peter Lalor.

If Simpson can do the same thing for the opener's tweak as he did for his batting, England's batsmen need be warned. Katich, Marcus North and Michael Clarke have all been told to work on their part-time spin in preparation for England, an indication the only frontline spinner on the tour, Nathan Hauritz, may not be first choice. Captain Ricky Ponting has been reluctant to use Katich in the past, but a couple of key cameos by the left-hander during the South African tour converted the captain, who has now vowed to use him more often.

Kolkata Knight Riders had a tumultous IPL in South Africa - the entire team needed dialogue and, more importantly, shared understanding and focus. The head of KKR's talent hunt wing tells Makarand Waingankar in Open magazine how coach John Buchanan destroyed a good team. Turn to page 23 for the full story.

There are differing opinions over whether Australia's early exit from the ICC World Twenty20 will help or hinder their Ashes preparations. Shane Warne, in his column in the Times, argues that it could be a positive.

Although Australia will still be hurting, this could be a blessing in disguise for the Ashes. They will be able to have a short break to get this out of their systems and then tick along with their practice out of the spotlight before the warm-ups. They have one focus now, no distractions before July 8 in Cardiff.

But the Guardian's David Hopps disagrees.

The fact is that Ponting, Lee and Co will now have too much dead time on their hands. And the continuation of World Twenty20 will be a constant reminder of their failure. It's just a shame that Andrew Symonds isn't around to tempt them to drink their way through it.

In the Age, Chloe Saltau looks at Australia's mystifying selections and strange preparation for the World Twenty20 - and notes that the only Australians left in the tournament are playing for Ireland or England.

And back at the Times, Patrick Kidd imagines Ricky Ponting's diary for the week ahead; otherwise known as, things to do in Leicester when you're dead.

The Symonds controversy refuses to die, as Darren Berry of the Age blames the troubled batsman for Australia's exit in the World Twenty20.

Ponting asks Younis Khan a question on wellpitched.com.

	Twenty20: Soul-grindingly repetitive or marvellous? © Getty Images

Twenty20 may fast be turning into the game's most popular format, but the Independent's James Lawton clearly isn't one of its fans. Read what he has to say after watching England secure their passage to the Super Eights with victory over Pakistan

Twenty20 contrives its thrills in a crayon-drawn format so pre-ordained, so soul-grindingly repetitive, that its defenders declare it foolproof, but then what happens when one of two allegedly competitive teams has neither the form nor the inclination to make a match of it? We saw it at The Oval on Sunday night. It is a hideously jerked-up formulaic parody of the real game, the one that delighted such as Pinter and Samuel Beckett and was once lauded by a visiting African chieftain, a guest at Lord's of the Foreign Office, as the finest, most elaborate and still most subtle rain-making ceremony ever devised. Twenty20 is about as subtle as a ram-raid.

Arguing the case for Twenty20 is Lawrence Booth, who writes in this week's Spin that the format has the ebbs and flows that is the essence of sport, and can also throw up some good yarns such as last year's IPL also-ran reaching this season's final.

Stuart Broad's meltdown followed by Stuart Broad's comeback. Gayle's sixes on to the road and the roof. Mike Hussey's fluffed catch. Kevin Pietersen turning his back on twos with distinctly regal waves. Ajantha Mendis beguiling the Aussies and Tillekeratne Dilshan moving to a half-century by flicking the ball over both his head and Brad Haddin's. The O'Brien brothers. Stumps for goalposts. Marvellous! Not proper cricket? How about proper sport in that case?

Kiwi blogger Paul Holden is relishing the early exit of the Australians from the World Twenty20. Read him on the Sideline Slogger blog.

There is a rare joy for a Kiwi in seeing the Australian cricket team get thumped twice in a matter of days. It may be perverse, it may be irrational, it may be hurtful, it may be immature, it may be un-Australian - but it does feel good to see the previously all-conquering Australians return to the pack of international cricket.

After crashing out four days into the tournament, Australia's most pressing task is uncovering the attractions of Leicester (where they are expected to spend the next couple of weeks), says David Hopps in the Guardian.

With England's big guns Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen are recovering from injuries. Kevin Garside writes in the Daily Telegraph that with England lacking the depth that Australia's squad possesses, both Flintoff and Pietersen need to be at peak fitness if England are to regain the Ashes.

We don't have a Phillip Hughes coming through, or a Mitchell Johnson to step up with ball and bat when Brett Lee goes down. We have an improving team replete with superior triers who are able to compete in the highest class only when its front-line warriors are tooled to the hilt and ready to go.

At this point Flintoff and Pietersen are not. Flintoff is inching towards recovery. Each outing is followed by a wait to see if the impaired knee joint can tolerate the next test. Pietersen does not have that luxury. Two days before the knock that nailed Pakistan to the floor at the Oval he could barely negotiate a set of steps

Peter Bill makes a similar point on his blog in the Independent after watching Pietersen's half-century, which revived England's chances in the World Twenty20.

Giles Smith is amazed at the speed with which a team's fortunes fluctuate in the World Twenty20, and at fans' "notoriously twitchy attention spans". In a hilarious tongue-in-cheek piece in the Times he wonders whether the organisers are concerned that the crowd's attention will slide because of the long national anthems before each match.

And how are they going to stop the audience at home visiting the fridge or deciding to throw it all in and go on YouTube instead? ... It's a genuine worry. Which is why we propose the composing, as soon as possible, of special, shorter format, Twenty20 versions of the anthems. Just a couple of bars from the verse and a chorus, say. Or (still more in keeping) just replace them all with another quick blast of James Brown's I Feel Good - get the job done and then on with the cricket. And then off with the cricket, as short a time as possible later. It makes sense

Pakistan's game against Netherlands could just be the most important match for the nation since the 1992 World Cup final, writes Imran Yusuf in the Dawn

Younus Khan has said that he has ‘never attached too much importance to Twenty20 cricket.’ Younus, quite simply, you’re wrong. Pakistan are cricket’s outcasts. No team is willing to play in our country. Last month the whole world (including The Netherlands’ Dirk Nannes) apart from us were invited to the biggest party in cricket, the IPL. We need to belong again. We need to prove - again, as much to ourselves as to the world – that Pakistan matters.

In only one respect was England's victory over Pakistan fortunate and that was that England came up against the one team who had looked even rustier than themselves in the warm-up games, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.

Pakistan’s fielding was horrific and reflected a team short on cricket and confidence. Pakistan’s supporters drifted away long before the end, followed by the inevitable “Are you England in disguise?” As the Netherlands showed, anyone can win a Twenty20 match, and to the relief of the ECB and its marketing department, last night belonged emphatically to England.

Kevin Pietersen is the diva of cricket, Paul Weaver writes in the Guardian. It is not enough that he is respected; he demands to be loved too. He probably had it inserted in his recently drafted central contract. And how the crowd adored him here last night.

Pietersen has been bleeding lately and his blood has marked all our clothes. He has been bleeding since the start of the year, when the captaincy was torn from him. King Lear, who was mad, demanded love from his daughters; Pietersen, it seems, insists it is forthcoming from every­one and his performances feed from that affection.

The latest Andrew Symonds controversy is starting to fade but Robert Craddock, writing in the Courier-Mail, says the scars will linger for many years.

Symonds is understood to be in a very bad head space and so are the playing group in England who started the push to sack him. They are uneasy because they know, cricketing-wise, they have handed down a life sentence. They know they were right, but it is still a heavy burden and it's a small wonder some of them have had trouble sleeping since and Australia have gone belly-up in their first World Twenty20 match against the West Indies.

The other MCC – the Melbourne Cricket Club – is facing some of the same accusations the Marylebone Cricket Club has had to deal with during its long history. Cameron Stewart reports in the Australian about claims it is an undemocratic old boys' retreat that has lost touch with the modern world.

The unprecedented internal assault on the values of the powerful 171-year-old blue-blood club is contained in a private letter to the MCC president from Colin Beames, son of Melbourne sporting icon Percy Beames. Mr Beames is a 40-year MCC member whose late father was a sporting journalist, footballer and cricketer and has a bar named after him inside the members' area of the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

In the Observer, Will Buckley goes behind the scenes at the MCC at Lord's on the opening day of the World Twenty20.

After the naps were powered there was a sense of disappointment in the Library. "Which Royal have we got?" asked one Member. "The Duke of Kent," replied another. "Jesus." The aura of low key persisted when it was announced: "The opening ceremony has been abandoned for safety reasons." This drew a few groans, but I think a useful precedent has been set for 2012.

In the Library, meanwhile, a Member, who had earlier opened a grand window, decided to sing along to the National Anthem. He got as far as "Gracious Queen" before heavy stares forced him to desist. It was agreed that the Dutch effort was "lovely".

In taking the World Cup away from Pakistan, the ICC suggests that terrorism is limited to Pakistan, which is untrue because incidents show that risks are prevalent to varying degrees in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. However, it is beyond doubt that the security planned and assured in writing by the law enforcers was not provided for the Sri Lankans in March and the PCB made a big mistake by not taking strict action against its own staff, writes Malik Arshed Gilani in Dawn.

Whilst there can be no such thing as complete security, surely the ICC should be able to take on the responsibility of ensuring that acceptable security is identified, planned and assured by the respective countries which should subsequently be monitored. The ICC should also examine the possibility of sourcing affordable insurance which could provide comfort to the cricketers and their families. Cricketers must also remember that being professionals, they will need to accept the hardships that added security might impose on some tours, for the greater good of cricket.

Tony Cozier, writing in the Stabroek News, while acknowledging that Twenty20 cricket remains the game of the present, says Test cricket's continued survival despite competition from different versions of the sport is an achievement in itself.

It all adds to the appeal of the sport but it is accompanied by a general concern over the impact of such rapid expansion on Test cricket, for 132 years the bedrock of the game.

There is widespread doubt that it can survive the counter-attraction of latest development to its long-held primacy. It is increasingly seen as an anachronism in an age that has no time for a leisurely pursuit extending to five days, six hours a day.

Siddhartha Mishra, in his article in the Indian Express, tries to examine some of the reasons why Zimbabwe, who lit up the previous World Twenty20 with a shock win over Australia, find themselves in oblivion two years hence.

Why is Zimbabwe, a cricketing nation with Full Member status, not out there, entertaining our 20/20 vision-endowed eyeballs with its brand of sl­am-bang cricket? Politics. Much as the question is thought-provoking, the answer, shorn of subtl­e­ty, is disappointingly clichéd.

Partab Ramchand, in the Indian Express, profiles the late MJ Gopalan, one of India's few double internationals, on his hundredth birth anniversary. He represented India in cricket and hockey.

In 1936, he was on the horns of a dilemma having to choose between the cricket tour of England and a sure gold medal with the hockey team at the Berlin Olympics. Gopalan decided on the former and with the benefit of hindsight probably made the wrong decision for while India predictably won the gold medal at Berlin the cricket tour was an unhappy one marred by controversies.

The ICL has lost a huge number of players after the BCCI announced it's decision to award amnesty to those who has signed up with the league. Though they took up the offer, many of the players appreciate the experience and the money they got from the ICL. The Indian Express spoke to some of them:

Avinash Yadav’s family lived on the frugal earnings of his father, who grazed cattle and sold milk for a living. But with an ICL cheque of about Rs 70 lakh, the Yadavs now have their own house in Benaras and a gleaming SX4 to give company to the cows and buffaloes in the courtyard. “I’m from a lower-middle class family. They don’t know what the BCCI is or what the ICL means. All they know is that because of cricket our lives have become more comfortable,” says the left-arm spinner, who didn’t go beyond playing a few Ranji Trophy games because of Murali Kartik’s presence in the Central Zone side.

The ICC will meet to discuss the Future Tours Programme next week and serious noises are being made that the top four want to play each other more often, which means the rest could be sidelined in the new programme, writes Dylan Cleaver in the Herald on Sunday.

In fact India hold nearly all of the cards. The commercial success of the IPL has added another revenue stream to coffers that were already bulging with broadcasting cash, the Champions League will add more, and they lord over the "Asian bloc" that dominates the ICC voting. In scale, New Zealand rates as no more than a pimple on the BCCI's backside.

Neil Manthorp, writing on the Supersport website, says the cricketing public in England has taken to the World Twenty20 quite well, despite the frustrating weather and the home team's dismal loss in the tournament opener.

It was still only 11.00am, an hour after the scheduled start of the New Zealand-Scotland match, but Dads were grimly and determindly sipping their first pint of beer - duty called. The difference to most such occasions was that their children were with them. There were children everywhere, completely unburdened by the weather and unperturbably thrilled by the prospect of seeing international cricket - at some point - while they sat cross-legged under the rafters munching the cheese and pickle sandwiches packed for two hours later.

	How many times did Ian Botham play and miss in the Headingley Test of 1981? © Getty Images

Through lenses of nostalgia and historical determinism, we easily feel that things could not have been different. Yet how many times did Botham play and miss on what was a horrible pitch for batting, or carve the ball over the slips? What if Rod Marsh had got an eighth of an inch more bat on the hook that Graham Dilley caught a yard inside the fine-leg boundary on that last afternoon, or Mike Gatting and Botham himself not held excellent catches an inch or two off the ground in the over before lunch on the same day? Yet in retrospect it is tempting to see the chain of events as not only inevitable but morally appropriate. We were bound to win; we won because we deserved to, and we deserved to because of some ineffable quality or spirit lacking in other teams at other times.

In the same paper, Barney Ronay looks at the ten best moments from Ashes series.

1983, DRAMA IN THE SLIPS
One of the great dramatic finishes. Chasing 292 to win in the fourth Test at Melbourne in the 1982-83 series Australia were 255 for nine overnight. On the final morning 10,000 people came in for free as the last-wicket pair, Jeff Thomson and Allan Border, nurdled them ever closer. With just three runs required the younger‑model Ian Botham returned to the attack. Botham's away swing drew an edge from Thomson. Chris Tavare at slip parried it. And Geoff Miller grabbed it sensationally on the rebound. England had kept the series alive, but Aussie TV was on a commercial break.

In the Sunday Times former Australian opener Justin Langer talks to Martin Johnson about facing the first ball of the previous two series and his predictions on the upcoming one.

“That first ball flew past me and when Geraint Jones took it above his head, I looked around to see the England players all over us, in our faces, like bees to a honeypot,” said Langer. Harmison’s next delivery hit Langer on the elbow and, after initially giving the bowler an “is that all you’ve got, sonny?” stare, Langer couldn’t bluff it out and had to call for the painkilling spray.
“The England boys were buzzing even more,” said Langer. “It felt more like the rugby World Cup than a cricket match and when I was getting treatment from the physio I said to Matty Hayden, ‘Jeez, mate, it looks like these guys really mean business’.

With thousands of cricketers chasing fame and riches in India, it is inevitable many are left disaffected and depressed after failing to fulfill their ambitions. In this week's cover story in Outlook, the magazine's staff investigate the subject by speaking to players such as former Uttar Pradesh fast bowler Obaid Kamal, who was saved from suicide because of the Islamic injunction against it, and Sumit Kundu, a former Haryana Under-17 captain who slipped into depression after failing to make the state U-19 team.

The magazine also has a piece by the author of the masterpiece on cricketing suicides By his own hand, David Frith, which looks into why there has been an increase in the number of cricketers taking their lives in India in recent times.

English cricket has plumbed some pretty low depths in its time but defeat by Pakistan would surely set a new level of ignominy that may not be beaten until the Afghans, or Eskimos, visit Lord’s, writes Simon Wilde in Sunday Times.

Pakistan have been deprived of so much cricket of late because of the security crisis surrounding their country and they are simply grateful to be back in the thick of the action again. They are also rebuilding their side and possess some gifted teenagers who won’t die wondering. Twenty20 cricket is for daredevils and risk-taking isn’t in the Anglo-Saxon genes. Without Kevin Pietersen and Graeme Swann, England played a cautious game, while the Dutch were bold and brave.

	Stuart Braod should tell himself that in the final moments of England's humiliation, he did nothing wrong © Getty Images

Where did it all go wrong for England last night? Questions must be asked initially about team selection. With Kevin Pietersen unavailable through injury, the selectors had the perfect opportunity to stiffen an already thin bowling line-up and substitute Pietersen’s firepower by bringing in Graham Napier or Dimitri Mascarenhas. They did neither, replacing Pietersen with Robert Key, who after England’s bright start was demoted in the order and came in late on precisely when a big hitter was needed. Mascarenhas should have played.

Why was England's middle order replete with players possessing no power of stroke, asks David Hopps in the Guardian.

Broad will wonder how victory eluded England. He should tell himself that in the final moments of their humiliation, he did nothing wrong. His reliance on a round-the-wicket approach to the right-hander, slanting the ball across, worked like a dream. All that happened was that he did not get the breaks.

In the same paper, Mike Selvey writes that for Twenty20 the coaching manual has been torn asunder and a new one drawn up for the modern age that would have had The Don blanching.

True to their footballing cousins, the Dutch played total cricket, a brand that mixed equally the lusty slogs of the village blacksmith with subtler shots of the Pro cricketer, of which there are four in this side, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph.

The Netherlands have only 5,000 cricketers and that includes the women who play the game, so this was a massive humiliation for England despite Twenty20's ability to make fools of the favourites, and despite the last ball finish.

On cricinfo.com, Andrew Miller writes that England got exactly what they deserved as they dared to treat a global tournament as a side-show.

	Andrew Symonds is no longer flying high © Getty Images

Peter Lalor, writing in the Weekend Australian, looks back at Andrew Symonds’ behaviour over the past year. He says Symonds sees life through the glass darkly.

This summer his team-mates were told they had to keep a close eye on him. Management told the players that he couldn't be left alone when out drinking, his peers had to tell him when he had had enough and when it was time to go home. Unfortunately for the 33-year-old his peers have left the Australian cricket team.

In the Sydney Morning Herald Will Swanton analyses the picture of Ricky Ponting wearing a VB cap while lamenting the ruinous effect of alcohol on Symonds.

Ironic? Hypocritical? Irresponsible choice of major sponsor? Cricket Australia freely promotes alcohol and makes millions of dollars from it.

Chloe Saltau says in the Age that if Symonds had been sent home from the England tour in 2005 it would have saved Australian cricket a lot of trouble. In the Herald Sun Ruth Lamperd looks at the financial implications for Symonds.

In the space of about 12 hours late this week, Shane Bond's international career took a substantial step towards revival, while Andrew Symonds' was placed in the round filing bin. But the developments with Bond will be watched with earnest. Will he still have the old zip? Nature has a way of providing answers to questions like that but the word is he's still pretty sharp, writes David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald.

The public reaction will be interesting. There will inevitably be a school of thought that he placed his chips and must live with that. But there are times when the need to move ahead is paramount. There's one other thing about Bond. Most people are capable of engendering a variety of emotions depending on one's dealings with them.

In the Guardian, Duncan Fletcher discusses England's chances at the ICC World Twenty20, and what keeps the nation from reaching great heights.

I'm not writing off the chances of the current side, because they are playing with a lot of confidence at the moment after beating West Indies in all forms of the game over the last month. But I always felt English cricketers were not encouraged to improve their one-day skills by a system that simply presents them with another chance as soon as the previous one has passed.

In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley thinks England will do well to reach the semi-finals.

Mike Selvey writes in the Guardian on the future of ODI cricket, which he feels is bleak, thanks to the rapid rise of Twenty20.

It may be then that 50-over cricket, the link between the longest and shortest forms of the game, is the format to go, and if this would be a pity – for all its apparent mid-innings flaws, it still has the capacity to produce the sort of enthralling come-back and counter-punches that Twenty20 by its frenetic nature cannot – then for the good of the game, something has to give. Beyond the next World Cup, scheduled in 2011 to be staged goodness knows where, the opportunity is there to rationalise the programme, free the logjam. A World Cup of Twenty20 cricket to be played every two years should be ample.

Rohit Sharma's 53-ball 80 carried India to an emphatic victory in the much-anticipated warm-up game against Pakistan on Wednesday. Harsha Bhogle writes in the Indian Express that Rohit's performance is the sort that the new breed of Indian cricketer, who emerged in 2004, likes to play. "Fearless, confident, willing to live for the day and for whom a shot was a calculated gamble, not a risk-free effort," is how Bhogle describes the new type of Indian player.

With Sharma, as with Raina and Sehwag and Yuvraj and Gambhir, you sit back and enjoy, not get frustrated because they are not playing the way you want them to. It is a different generation; ideas of restraint and conformity and frugality have long been replaced, having a dark side is not worth a sleepless night, the first ball can be hit over mid-wicket from just behind a good length.

Robert Craddock writes in the Courier-Mail that Andrew Symonds was a player never humble enough to learn from his mistakes, governed by weak officials who let him get away with far too much for far too long.

I live in Queensland and have had Bulls players tell me all summer that Symonds' head was nowhere near right for a recall to international cricket. That he simply is not the player he was. That he was distressed at the fact he lost millions of dollars in the collapse of the Storm Financial Group and, even more painfully, that his family lost money as well. And that he had fallen out of love with the game. It showed almost every innings he played in a season when he averaged 15 for the Bulls.

The national selectors' decision to recall him for the Twenty20 championships in England showed how completely out of touch they really are with his mindset and the game in general. Somewhere in Adelaide last night I can just picture head selector Andrew Hilditch getting the news and saying, "Oh really? What, not Symo? I'm stunned". It's going to be a terrible shock for Hilditch when he finds out Harold Holt has gone missing.

In the Herald Sun, Ron Reed considers how Symonds has let down his good friends within the team.

Symonds is an arrogant and often sullen character - not the sharpest card in the pack, either - who believes the rules are not made for him. His biggest crime is one that resonates with most Australians, whether they are sports stars or not - he let down his mates who went in to bat for him.

Symonds finds support in his Kent captain David Fulton, who writes in the Times that the Australian brought great passion to the game, but was undone by the constant public spotlight.

David Hopps writes in the Guardian about how Symonds can spend his time from here on, if this is the end of his international cricketing career.

Tomorrow at Lord's Paul Collingwood will lead England into the first match of the World Twenty20, a second coming for him in the role and one regained perhaps reluctantly and probably by default. This time around, he, if not his team, might just thrive, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

It is almost certainly that brief time spent with the IPL in South Africa – rather than any overwhelming ambition or belief that, as he is over the trauma that affected his Test career, it is fine to resume the role that contributed to the trauma – which has convinced him that there would be no harm in leading the side again for what is a very limited period of time in any case. This will be more a working holiday than an encumbrance.

In the same paper Kevin Mitchell daydreams about how it would be if an England player gave as his prediction of the upcoming series with Australia, "Five-nil England – unless it rains".

It was Glenn McGrath's serial wind-up – with his own team replacing England of course – and it came painfully true in Australia in 2007, but I would back Ravi Bopara some time soon to mouth those cheeky words. Three Test centuries in a row did much for the Essex batsman's confidence, but they did even more for that of the selectors. They now believe in Bopara as much as he does himself. If he gets in the face of Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson – the only language they understand – anything is possible.

To Mike Atherton in the Times Dirk Nannes, who will spearhead Netherlands' attack in the World Twenty20, is something of a throwback to a time when sport could accommodate men with a varied hinterland, who were not prepared to be suffocated by the blinkered demands of professionalism.

Now it would be impossible for a precociously talented schoolboy to play two leading sports at the highest level because they are funnelled down a specialist path sooner than ever before. Football academies suck in the most talented at 9 years old and spit most out at 16. Cricket is a 12-month option for the brightest and best schoolboys. Eating, drinking and sleeping cricket is the order of the day at academies, which excludes those who would rather dabble at other things for a while, or indeed the late developers.

David Foot, in his article in the Guardian, grapples with the issue of the decline of highly capable cricketers due to stress, arguing that cricket, like no other sport, is played in the head.

Both Trescothick and Gimblett made the undisputed point that cricket is, like no other game, played with the head. There is too much to worry about, too many complications that are as much intellectual as technical. Tresco's disaffection was less marked and nowadays he looks infinitely more relaxed and at peace with himself. But there were times, in the worst of the doldrums, when he, too, was repelled by the sight of a cricket bat. The similarities and phobias of these two West Countrymen, both opening batsmen bountiful of innate talent, is uncanny.

Lawrence Booth, in his blog The Spin in the Guardian, tries to figure out why England have faltered in limited-overs cricket since the early 90's.

For the rest of the time since England reached the last of their three World Cup finals 17 years ago, their one-day form in global competitions has veered from laughable to execrable with a bit of abominable thrown in for good measure. No playwright could have combined comedy, tragedy and farce more seamlessly.

Paul Weaver, also writing in the Guardian, spells out some of the reasons for Robert Key's selection in England's World Twenty20 squad, despite the batsman not being in the best touch.

He was always popular in the dressing room, especially with Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison, which may not have met with the former coach Duncan Fletcher's complete approval, and he had a nous for the game. Indeed, essentially a championship player, he reinvented himself as a batsman when he became captain of Kent in 2006 to embrace changes within the game.

Meanwhile, Nitin Naik, writing in the Times of India, feels the World Twenty20 offers an excellent opportunity for cricket to regain its popularity in England after the euphoria of the Ashes win in 2005 faded significantly.

Is English cricket struggling to leave its past behind, or, with the advent of Twenty20, forgetting its history a little too quickly? Giles Smith tries to find some answers in his review of the BBC documentary The Empire of Cricket in the Times. Watch out for the interesting anecdote on the treatment meted out to WG Grace for his 'amateur' participation in an international tour.

The narrative arc seemed fairly typical for an English sport: invented it, lost it, never quite got over it. Here's my tip - don't bother coming up with a sport. Wait for someone else in another country to do it. Then casually perfect it while they're still sitting in leather chairs and hugging themselves about how clever they've been. It seems to work out so much more happily for everyone concerned if you don't “give the game to the world” but simply snitch it a few years later.

The IPL has a set a benchmark for entertaining cricket and according to Amrit Mathur in the Hindustan Times, the World Twenty20 is unlikely to match its buzz and hype.

There is no denying that the World Cup is a major event which features the best talent. But it also has sub-standard teams and mediocre players who drag down quality. Ireland versus Bangladesh might be attractive for the ICC but for a fan it is enough reason to reach for the TV remote and switch channels. The reason for the IPL's stunning success is that it produces top quality cricket, and is intensely competitive. The Kolkata Knight Riders may not have finished at the top but,on any given day, are capable of defeating the other seven sides and are stronger than half a dozen teams in the World Cup.