After having experienced more highs and lows than most players, Steve Harmison's international career may seem to have hit a roadblock, but the Durham fast bowler is not fretting over what might have been. In a free-flowing interview with the Independent, Harmison talks about the giddy highs of spearheading two successful Ashes campaigns, the jostling for fast-bowling spots in the English side, the state of pitches in England and more.

England have an exciting group of fast bowlers, and if they can leave the most skilful of them, Jimmy Anderson, out of the one-day team, then it shows how much competition there is. I'm really pleased for Steven Finn. England need a tall hit-the-deck bowler, and Finn gives them that. He'll make mistakes, but I hope people are more patient with him than they were with me.

Conroy Ievers Gunasekera, the former Sri Lankan first-class cricketer and All Ceylon Captain, famously known as 'CI', died in Colombo on Thursday, July 29 at the age of 90. Venkat Ananth recounts meeting Gunasekara in 2007, and says though Gunasekara died a lonely man, he will always be remembered as one of the most celebrated sportsmen in Sri Lankan history.

I quizzed him further about his batting style, and he said, “I used to play tennis regularly, and that’s where I learnt shot-making from. My strength in tennis was hitting the ball as hard as I can, because I was gifted with powerful forearms.” That’s where when one of the most ferocious strokeplayers of Ceylon cricket, learnt his trade, unusual yet amazing.

Kevin Pietersen's failure on the first day in Trent Bridge is one too many for Henry Blofeld who writes in the Daily Express that the flashy batsman is completely out of form and living on borrowed time in the longest version.

We cannot go on saying Pietersen is a batsman who can change a Test match in a couple of hours. He used to be able to do that but he has not scored a Test hundred in 22 innings since March 2009 in Trinidad.

Nasser Hussain in the Daily Mail blames Pietersen's failure on his lack of match practice ahead of the Test, due to a fractious relationship with his county Hampshire.

Counties should do everything possible to help the England team but Hampshire were within their rights to say last week: ‘Sorry Kev, you have never done anything for us when we needed you, why should we put you in our 40-over team now you need us?’

I was talking to Shane Warne about Pietersen yesterday and he said that he could be as good as anyone in the world, with the exception of Sachin Tendulkar. But he has to remember that when he was scoring lots of hundreds, he was playing regularly. England players are generally overworked these days but Pietersen is undercooked.

Vic Marks in the Guardian writes that Eoin Morgan's century and Ian Bell's form may have the selectors thinking about leaving Pietersen out of the Ashes tour party.

It is a century that puts the cat among the pigeons. Ian Bell, nursing his injured ankle, can only look on from the sidelines, albeit with his stock high. Ravi Bopara is scoring stacks of runs for Essex. And yet England are only likely to pick seven batsmen in their tour party to Australia. After this innings it would be remarkable if Morgan was not one of those.

Surely they could not omit Kevin Pietersen? It remains just about unthinkable but Pietersen was all at sea today. He has been practising assiduously in the nets at Lord's, but that is not the same as scoring runs in the middle in county cricket. The problem is that there appears to be nowhere for him to play county cricket now that his ties with Hampshire are being severed.

Despite the Ashes win in 2009, there are faultlines in the England Test line-up that were evident during the defeat in South Africa, writes James Lawton in the Independent. The series against Pakistan is a chance to address them ahead of the Ashes later in the year he says.

Now, there is a new invitation to prove that English cricket has grown strong again at some extremely broken places. The Pakistanis have new leadership, new talent and apparently a fresh appetite for returning to the mainstream of Test cricket after the ravaging impact of last year's terrorism. It offers the perfect challenge for a team who enjoy plenty of reasons to believe that they will triumph here before going back to Australia to consign to history the memory of an England team that simply fell apart four years ago.

An unassuming basement office in a residential colony in South Delhi gives no indication that they're the establishment which has struck a record deal with India's captain, MS Dhoni. Rhiti Sports Management is run by Arun Pandey, a friend of Dhoni's, and Sangeet Shirodkar, who used to manage Harbhajan Singh. Ratna Bhushan and Avinash Singh of the Economic Times caught up with the pair, who talk about working with their biggest client yet.

It seems to have robbed him of sleep, though. Sporting a two-day stubble and the after-effects of a siesta, Pandey is slumped in a plush leather chair behind a huge mahogany desk. There’s no trace of polish in his ways, not even an effort to project it. Fiddling with his two BlackBerry’s, eyes constantly wavering to detect incoming activity on them, Pandey, 33, smiles a knowing smile. Next to him, Rhiti’s marketing man, Sangeet Shirodkar, a cherubic 25-year-old, does the same.

Former Zimbabwe fast bowler, Henry Olonga, recently released his autobiography Blood, Sweat and Treason, the first published by a Zimbabwean Test player. Martin Chandler calls it "one of the most compelling stories I have ever read" in his review on Cricketweb.

There is though, of course, much else besides cricket in this book and many will read it primarily for the insights it gives into life in Zimbabwe. This is where the narrative is at its best as Olonga thoughtfully and concisely gives his reader just enough information about the nation's history and politics to enable his story to be fully understood.

After watching a low-scoring thriller between Pakistan and Australia at Headingley, Jarrod Kimber pleads for Test pitches with more help for bowlers. On Cricdude, he contrasts the Headlingley Test with the one going on at the SSC, where only eight wickets fell in 267 overs, and says the Sri Lanka match is a poor one even if there is a result because the first three days were about "pointless stat collecting by batsmen".

Runs on pitches like this SSC one mean very little. The bowlers are not in the game; they are hardly required at all. New ball bowlers come on and get smashed, spin bowlers come on and do everything they cannot to be smashed. Wickets come from luck and lapses in concentration. It isn’t a fair fight. And it makes the tests bloody dull.

Mohammad Aamer was a handful for the Australians and will look to continue in the same form in the upcoming Test series against England. Writing in the Guardian, Dileep Premachandran says that from wanting to imitate Wasim Akram, Aamer today is a far more complete bowler than his idol was at the same age.

While he aspires to be the "second Rawalpindi Express", there are no doubts in Aamer's mind over the identity of the man he idolises. Mudassar and Aaqib Javed have been big influences, but for a left-handed kid from Pakistan bowling fast there could only ever be one hero. "It's always been Wasim [Akram]," he said in a TV interview earlier this year.

In addition to the stock delivery that leaves the right-hander, Aamer has learnt to bring the ball back in. He bowls a mean bouncer, and the yorker can surprise the most accomplished batsmen

In a country that was cut up along ethnic lines, Muttiah Muralitharan was the poster-boy of Sinhalese-Tamil unity, writes Sutirtho Patranobis in the Hindustan Times. Post-war,Tamil-dominated Jaffna, is beginning to see signs of a revival in cricket.

In the middle '70s and '80s as violence spread like forest fire in the north and east of Sri Lanka - where Lankan Tamils are in majority - cricket took the sad but inevitable backseat.

Post-war, a cricket revival has begun in Tamil-dominated Jaffna. I'm sure Murali would find a willing hand there to leave his "doosra'' legacy behind. And he could also do that in Sinhalese-majority Hambantota.

England may continue to be Pakistan's new 'home' in world cricket, since it could be a while before international cricket is played in Pakistan. Writing on the Dreamcricket website, Suresh Menon says that the thing to note in the just concluded Pakistan-Australia Test series was the presence of non-partisan fans who turned up to watch two teams they had no emotional stake in. It is the non-partisan spectator who does not care which team wins so long as the match is competitive and played in the right spirit, who might be the game’s new fan base.

Cross-national fandom is not unusual. Sachin Tendulkar is popular in Australia, England, the West Indies, anywhere he plays. An India versus Pakistan match in Australia is guaranteed to bring in the crowds, both ardent supporters of the teams as well as the neutrals.

Perhaps it is a giant leap from watching Pakistan play Australia in England to assuming that South Africa playing Sri Lanka in, say, Mysore is what cricket needs. But if that happens, the spectator will not complain.

Writing in the Guardian, Mike Selvey lets us in on an unexpected discovery from Warwickshire allrounder Bob Wyatt's autobiography - that Douglas Jardine was not the first person to use the controversial leg theory.

Far from being an innovative idea, the principle of bodyline, although not called that of course, had been around and exploited for at least four years previously, and maybe before that. Wyatt himself, and others, were actually on the receiving end of it. Wyatt was to be Jardine's vice-captain in Australia, and although he is generally thought of as being opposed to the use of bodyline, it doesn't quite marry with his own account, which says: "I think Jardine was fully justified in using him [Larwood] as he did."

The caveat was that it only worked because of Larwood's unique combination of extreme pace and accuracy. "The ill-feeling it caused was not good for cricket," Wyatt adds.

Why are many Tests these days getting boring, despite fast scoring-rates? It's because runs are coming at the expense of wickets. You need runs in a Test but wickets are the actual currency. If wickets aren’t falling in a Test, you’re not getting any nearer a result, and the current India-Sri Lanka Test seems to be heading that way, writes Alex Bowden in the Wisden Cricketer.

My point is that an innings of 500 is not five times as exciting as one of 100. A target’s a target, so in reality they’re equally exciting. However, for the very same reason, a run is one fifth as exciting in the high scoring match because it’s only one fifth as important. In the highly unlikely event that Test cricket pitches were consistently made a little more challenging for batsmen, maybe people would be five times as interested in each day’s play.

The Old Batsman blog pays tribute to the Sussex allrounder Robin Martin-Jenkins, who has retired to pursue his new career as a Geography and RS teacher at Hurstpierpoint College.

RM-J was a name like no other, not just because of the famous - and rightly proud - father, but with its feel for the amateur days of decades past. There was something of the curate about him, and the Sussex faithful would sometimes serenade him with a chorus of 'RM-J my Lord' as he bustled in with his quicker-than-you-think medium pacers.

England's Ashes thoughts must go on the backburner with Pakistan looming, writes Andy Bull in Spin, the Guardian's weekly cricket email. If England look too far ahead they will miss obstacles in front of them. Pakistan pose their own easily underestimated challenge.

It will be hard enough to get through the next 800 words without mentioning the A-word. Never mind the next four weeks. Such is the hold of that series on the public imagination that both Australia and England have found their upcoming fixtures against India and Pakistan are being framed in terms of what they will mean for this winter's contest.

If England fail to focus on the here and now of the next match then they may find that, once this series ends, that sing-song confidence is not be quite so voluble.

Nasser Hussain tips England to win the Tests against Pakistan 2-1. In the Daily Mail he lists five things England have to be fearful about in this series, and five reasons for them to be cheerful.

MS Dhoni, the India captain, is the new king of good times with an endorsement deal that is worth Rs 210 crores. But is he worth that much, asks Ninad D. Sheth in Open, a weekly news magazine. And why are marketers in India so sold on celebrities as a way to boost their sales?

Why do the world’s best-known brands splurge so much cash on endorsements? What are the values they’re trying to turbo charge their own brand recall with? And finally, how enduring are these values?

This blend of an earthy image with the fact that Dhoni has not left his roots too far behind is critical for advertisers. Dhoni wears no cape, he is not invincible, yet he achieves and succeeds. He is someone you know and you like—there is an element of the real.

Cricket is one of the more forward thinking sports when it comes to using technology to get things right. Of course, for all its virtues, technology isn’t full proof. But its very rare lapses actually prove its worth, says Edward Craig in the Wisden Cricketer.

This all makes Hawk-Eye look good – it reinforces the quality of the technology to hand. How many mistakes can you remember Hawk-Eye making? One – this one, as all the other gadgets at the broadcaster’s disposal quickly proved.

How many mistakes have you seen umpires make? Plenty – and with an umpire review system in place, technology can quickly iron those out too.

Amid the turmoil in Pakistan cricket, the national team comprising young players, with its thrilling win over Australia, has "offered a powerful argument for a revolution," writes Kamran Abbasi in the Dawn.

We all assumed that Wasim Akram was a once-in-a-lifetime bowler, but perhaps we were wrong. The most remarkable aspect of Pakistan’s first defeat of Australia in 15 years is that a relatively young and untried side has succeeded in the face of endless controversies.

Setbacks, groupings, and any disaster you could wish to imagine have hampered Pakistan’s progress. Three Test captains have tackled Australia this year, which itself speaks volumes.

There are concerns amid the victory, says Khalid Hussain in the News, and they lie in the batting which he believes is not good enough to win Pakistan a Test series.

Suddenly the Trent Bridge Test, which begins on Thursday, has a bit of spice. England will not be playing a ramshackle band of exiles rudderless in a foreign land. They will be playing the conquerors of mighty Australia. Pakistan have just played four matches against Australia (two Tests and two Twenty20s) and they have won three of them, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.

Stephen Brenkley has similar thoughts in the Independent on Sunday.

A question that was continually asked at Headingley during the second Test between Pakistan and Australia concerned which attack any self-respecting batting order would prefer to face. The answer was always the same. Australia's attack has been largely inconsistent and unthreatening, awry in length, especially, and line. Their leading wicket-taker in this short series has been Shane Watson, a muscular bowler who can demand concentration if there is swing around but who should cause no batsman sleepless nights ...

Pakistan's seam-bowling trio, led by the 18-year-old speed merchant Mohammad Aamer, was constantly on the money in Leeds. If conditions helped, they were all convincing in various parts of the match. There will be no cheap runs for England's batsmen and the new ball threatens to provide England's top order with a torrid time.

England fast bowler Steven Finn is a keen writer as well as cricketer. Here is his first published effort in the Observer – about his hero Glenn McGrath.

I have only ever seen McGrath bowl live once, at the Walker Ground in Southgate in 2004 against Yorkshire. McGrath donned the blues of Middlesex in three national league games that summer. I remember perambulating round the ground, taking in the performance of my idol from as many angles as possible. From side on, I could see the incredible carry that he was getting, sending the ball firing through to the wicketkeeper. From behind his arm I could see the "shape" he was getting on the ball, taking it consistently away from the right-hander. The rhythmic run‑up and the unique and individual way he jumps in towards the stumps at release of the ball – just as every coaching manual says you shouldn't! This all added to the magic of the moment I was caught in. It showed he did it his way and also gave me something to relate to as a cricketer. Because I was doing a similar thing when I was bowling.

Finn emphasised his admiration for McGrath in an interview to Donald McRae.

"You know," Finn says, "I would spend hours in a net like that, trying to bowl like McGrath, or copy his mannerisms. That's where my love of cricket started, dreaming of bowling like McGrath or Flintoff. And that's why, now, it seems bizarre I'm actually that person on TV when I'm playing for England. Your mind can start racing then and you can get ahead of yourself. But that's why it's important to remain realistic. I've only played four Tests against Bangladesh and, although I've got some wickets, I know how much I've got to learn. I've got some big challenges ahead – whether it's to try and stay in the Test team for the series against Pakistan or to get stronger in my body. I've been thinking a lot about how much better I can get if I work hard and stay level-headed."

England made Kevin Pietersen available for Hampshire because he needed some batting practice ahead of the Tests against Pakistan. Hampshire, however, decided not to select him. in the Sunday Telegraph, Steve James says the situation needs to be sorted out.

You can see Hampshire's point. Pietersen has already said very publicly and very pointedly that he will not be a Hampshire player next season. Their chairman, Rod Bransgrove, is a good, proud man of strong principles. He feels let down. He was miffed that the England and Wales Cricket Board would not permit Pietersen to speak at a Q&A session the night before the Australia one-day international at the Rose Bowl. He is hardly a friend or ally of ECB chairman, Giles Clarke.

And, yes, Pietersen can sometimes be gauche. Whatever his inner thoughts and feelings, he should not have revealed them so soon. His commitment is questionable in the extreme ...

But is this snub right? Overseas players flit in and out of counties like partygoers trawling High Street pubs on a Saturday night. It seems bewildering that, amid the smorgasbord of county fixtures, Pietersen could not find some practice. Only in this country could this happen.

"It has been a disappointing month or so in England for the Australian cricket team, in all forms of the game. Australia will be asking themselves: “Where did we go wrong?" writes Shane Warne in the Sunday Telegraph.

So, Australia return with plenty of questions about the make-up of their side. They have to ask how can they improve the team. Is there anyone outside the squad who can come in and make it better? They have to look at their combination of bowlers and ask how they are going to take 20 wickets.

They will be asking if Doug Bollinger and Ben Hilfenhaus is the best new-ball pairing, should Mitchell Johnson be first change, is Nathan Hauritz or Steven Smith our best spinner, or even do we play two spinners?

"In assessing Murali one cannot avoid the issue of his action," writes Mike Brearley in the Guardian. "Australian umpires called him for throwing in 1995 and 1998, and he has been defended by some who have seen this as a racist prejudice. At the same time, Bishen Bedi, the great Indian slow left‑arm spinner, has described him as a "shot putter" (he also described Shoaib Akhtar as a "javelin thrower"). My own response is more accepting. One thing I am convinced of: Murali's bowling has enhanced cricket. The range of his skills made him a fascinating bowler to watch and, I imagine, to bat against."

Writing in the Herald on Sunday, Paul Lewis pins the blame for the debate surrounding Muttiah Muralitharan's action and achievements on the ICC.

The villain of the piece is not Murali himself. It's the International Cricket Council. The ICC stand alone in sport as a body who rewrote the laws of their game to suit one man.

They pulled together a big-name technical committee, including Test bowlers Michael Holding, Angus Fraser and Sunil Gavaskar. They undertook electronic research which purported to show that most bowlers, including some greats of the game, bent their arms further than the permitted angle of five to 10 degrees (five degrees for spinners; 10 degrees for quicks).

Using this platform, the ICC then decreed that all bowlers were permitted to bend their arms up to 15 degrees in match conditions. The joke? Murali usually bowls with a 14-degree flex. Is this sounding like a strategy yet?

Pooran Singh, an Indian immigrant, died in Victoria in 1947 and wished that his ashes be scattered in the Ganges. Sixty three years later, Kapil Dev is travelling to Warrnambool to make that wish come true. Sushi Das tells the story in the Age.

Then last month, SBS reporter Manpreet Singh (no relation) aired a story about the life of Pooran Singh and the fact his ashes were still awaiting collection. The story made it to India and reporters tracked down Pooran's family in the village of Uppal Bhupa, near Jalandhar in Punjab. The family confirmed a telegram had been received in 1947 informing it of Pooran's death and that the nephews had received their inheritance. But they were too poor to come to Australia.

Kapil Dev was so touched by the story that he offered to come to Australia to collect the ashes. ''[I would] just feel happy and proud if somebody's last wish can be fulfilled,'' Dev said on radio recently.

Once a breeding ground for international cricketers, the Dadar Union Club has been fighting for survival over the last few years, but former Indian batsman Dilip Vengsarkar is determined to revive his former club, writes Devendra Pandey in the Indian Express.

“It will be the right time to repay all my dues to the club which helped me and a number of others to play for India. It is a great institution, which produced many players for the country,” explains Vengsarkar, who spent 25 years with Dadar Union.

There are others who took their initial steps towards cricketing stardom at Dadar Union — among those are a number of international cricketers like Madhav Mantri, Narendra Tamhane, Sunil Gavaskar, Ramnath Parkar and Sanjay Manjrekar — and polished their game. Legend has it that Gavaskar ended up playing a Kanga league match for the club just after landing from his record-breaking maiden international tour to the West Indies.

A disheveled Mashrafe Mortaza was spot on when he raised "real concern" with the Bangladesh team's bowling after arriving home from the tour of the UK, writes Mohammad Isam in the Daily Star.

When bowling first in 2010, they have literally gone through the ceiling: conceding 309 runs per innings in six matches. In the dreadful Asia Cup campaign, the bowlers gave away 313 and 386 in consecutive games. And even when the batsmen have amassed 260, 250, 199 (in 30 overs) or even 296, scores that are far higher than Tigers' ODI average (226 runs), the bowlers failed to defend the total. Wickets, averages, runs per over and strike-rates have all taken a hammering this year.

Writing for Yahoo, Venkat Ananth lauds the most endearing aspect of Muttiah Muralitharan's brilliance - the charming smile that epitomised his sportsmanship.

Above all, what defined Murali is his smile - whether it came when employing the typical agricultural hoick over midwicket, or that extraordinarily blind pull shot that often used to get him out, or even while bowling: he would be smashed for six, and what you noticed was the wide smile, the enjoyment he took in every contest, even when he was being bested [among contemporary greats, Murali alone stood out for never giving a bested batsman a send-off; he reveled in the contest, but when he won, he accepted that triumph with a grace and humility bordering on the inhuman].

Mike Selvey in the Guardian begins his tribute by reliving the drama preceding Murali's 800th wicket.

When Hirst and Rhodes famously "got 'em in singles", a spectator is said to have gnawed his way through the handle of his umbrella such was the tension. No brolly would have been safe yesterday. And what a roar must have echoed off the fort walls as Mahela Jayawardene plunged to pilfer the catch that sealed the innings and, as if it ever needed further defining, Muttiah Muralitharan's place in the pantheon. An 800th Test wicket, the final one of his final innings, with his last ball on the final day of a peerless career.

An editorial in the Hindu terms Murali's 800 as 'Mount Improbable' and classifies it in the same league as Don Bradman's Test average of 99.94 - an achievement that is unlikely to ever be scaled.

The numbers challenge belief — 800 wickets from 133 matches at 22.72 is a record that, like Sir Donald Bradman's average of 99.94, will probably stand forever. However, it is Murali's role in broadening perception that offers a measure of his bowling. It was fitting that he was born in Sri Lanka, where cricketers are allowed to develop organically, free from the chains of petty orthodoxies. Blessed with singular physical gifts — the combination of a hyper-mobile shoulder and an elastic wrist helped him put more work on the ball than any spinner in the history of the game — Murali set about customising his craft.

The Times of India editorial focuses on what Murali symbolised for Sri Lanka, by being a Tamil as much as by being a star cricketer.

That a Tamil emerged as Sri Lanka's greatest sporting icon when that nation was fighting a bitter ethnic war, offers the hope that there is life beyond narrowly defined ethnic identities. When officials in Australia questioned Murali's bowling action, the Sri Lankan team and administration under Arjuna Ranatunga fiercely defended his honour. For a nation that needs to put aside the ravages of war and ethnic mistrust, there's perhaps no better example than Murali to inspire a process of mutual respect and reconciliation.

Nasser Hussain writes in the Daily Mail that finishing with 800 wickets in a win against India was the perfect way for Murali to sign off. He also describes a famous run-in with the Sri Lankan spinner.

I was coming to the end of my career and I needed something to fire me up. I just thought our players were being a bit too friendly with Murali, the smiling assassin.

Andrew Flintoff had even lent him his bat and, when Murali scored a quick 30 against us, it was the last straw to me. It was hard enough playing against him as it was without us helping him!

So I let rip at Murali and, though I denied it to the referee, I called him a cheating chucker with an expletive thrown in, as it were, for good measure. I think Murali was pretty shocked, to be honest, but I really didn’t mean it. It was just the place I was in at that stage of my career.

Mohammad Aamer's swing and zip at Leeds on the opening day was brilliant from cricket's perspective and the upshot was two fold. Firstly, it is evident that the Pakistan trio could test England as much, if not more. Secondly, though, it rammed home just how important Pakistan cricket is to the wellbeing of the game, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.

There is no shying away from the fact that Pakistan's cricket has had its own self-generated problems over the past couple of decades, but the situation in which they now find themselves, forced to play matches in the Middle East or Lord's and Headingley as "neutral" venues, is not of their doing. Security issues were already playing havoc with international cricket in Pakistan even before the atrocity involving the Sri Lanka team in Lahore. Domestic cricket has been unaffected largely, but the public have no top-level cricket to maintain their interest beyond that on television. For the health of Pakistan cricket then, there has to be an imperative to find a way that the national side can compete at home.

All Test long the television cameras have been panning to Muttiah Muralitharan’s wife, Madhimalar, who has been joyously cheering her husband’s every ball as his remarkable career draws to a close. In an interview with the Times of India, she reveals that she tried to convince him to carry on, but Murali had made up his mind.

The grand farewell at Galle has overwhelmed her, but she seems sad this is Murali's last Test. "I have been watching each and every ball of this Test. I've been here day from morning to evening. He discussed his plans with me before making them public. I wanted him to carry on, but when we realized he had made up his mind there was nothing we could do about it. We wanted him to at least play the whole series, but he would have none of it. Once he has made up his mind he won't listen to anyone," she says, shaking her head.

"Murali never brings cricket or his troubles home, and I don't prod him. But this time he discussed. He said he wanted to give youngsters an opportunity and not hang on."

Andy Bull, writing in his blog The Spin in the Guardian, says Shahid Afridi's daring, swashbuckling approach to the game is what makes him the most enjoyable cricketer to watch.

At the age of 30 Afridi still bats like the 16-year-old who hit the fastest-ever ODI century in his very first international innings. Reckless, irresponsible, idiotic, there is not another player in the game who is as much fun to watch. He is a proper swashbuckler, a cricketer who, as I wrote last year, bowls leg-spin with the cunning of Cardinal Richelieu and bats with the foolhardy panache of all three Musketeers rolled into one.

Australia will try to beat Pakistan for the 14th consecutive time in Test matches when the two teams take the field today. But while Australia still has that winning touch, the team has lost some of its magic, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent

But Warne is not alone in assessing – given his conclusion of the likely scenario this winter – that Australia are not as good as they used to be and England are better then they were. Australia's bowling attack, like most around the world, still appears to lack a cutting edge, that magic ingredient given them for so long by Warne and Glenn McGrath. They will persist in playing a four-man attack which might yet play into English hands. Two of the quartet will almost certainly be Ben Hilfenhaus, who hopes to recover from a sore shoulder to play in Leeds, and Mitchell Johnson, the world cricketer of the year. But Hilfenhaus, excellent though he is, for his accuracy and late movement, is not yet McGrath (who is?) and Johnson is again going through one of his most notoriously inconstant phases.

Development isn’t just an economic buzzword, it has become a sporting one as well. Across the globe, various professional sports bodies are pushing the development of their respective disciplines. Implicit in development is the concept of inclusion – the more people you can get playing your sport, the better your chances of success. Writing in the Guardian, David Conn finds fault with the ECB’s approach, saying it hasn't been inclusive enough.

Clarke accepts that cricket, perhaps more than any other sport, reflects this country's gaping inequality, with laundered fields and pavilions at private schools while Tye labours ina series of meetings to see an Astroturf strip laid in his school's local Ordsall Park.

"It is fair to point to the divide," says Clarke, "although it is a wider problem than just cricket. Our job is to encourage participation, and integration of different ethnic groups, which cricket has a great ability to do because of Asian communities' enthusiasm for the game. We are having to address years of decay and deprivation, but we are making progress."

World cricket could be on the cusp of facing a huge drugs problem. The Old Batsman blog looks at why Twenty20 cricket - a combination of financial reward, worldwide fame and a variant of the sport increasingly reliant on power - brings with it the threat of drug usage.

T20's big threat is the one no-one is writing about. I realised it again when I heard a county coach saying something along the lines of, all the young players he now had coming his way 'just want to get in the gym, bulk up and smack the ball miles'. It's entirely logical that they should, too.

While no one can deny that Shahid Afridi and Chris Gayle are the two coolest cricketers around, writing in The Wisden Cricketer John Stern says, the fact that both have chosen not to play Test cricket is worrying.

They might be mavericks but I don’t imagine they are alone in their views. I suspect there are dozens, hundreds even, of players at various levels of the professional game who pay lip service to the primacy of Test cricket but, given a no-strings-attached choice, would ditch it quicker than you could say IPL.

Injuries had kept Lasith Malinga out of the Sri Lankan Test squad for over two and a half years. But he's now back in the scheme of things for the Test series against India. He tells Nihal Koshie from the Indian Express why he will not compromise on his pace and reveals the stories behind his tattoos.

"Injuries come and go, but I have to stick to what has got me wickets. I am a wicket-taking bowler and I can’t compromise on pace."

‘1-7-2004’ is an important date, the day he made his Test debut against Australia in Darwin. Also inscribed is ‘28-3-2007’, the day he took four wickets in four balls against South Africa at the Providence Stadium in Guyana during a World Cup match.

It has been an impressive Test debut for Karnataka's Abhimanyu Mithun so far. Amol Karhadkar in the Hindustan Times writes that what makes Mithun stand out is his stint as an athlete during his teenage years as well as the support he received from his father who is a trainer.

“One of the main things is his father himself is a trainer, so he’s into gym from a very young age and he has been absolutely fit,” said Karnataka coach Sanath Kumar.

Cricket Australia’s latest proposal to revitalise the one-day format would give one batsman from each team the opportunity to bat twice. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the proposal has come in for some stick from both players and the media. While Daniel Brettig of the AAP likes some of the other modifications – allowing two bouncers an over, for example – he says giving one batsman a second chance is just not cricket.

However the prospect of one nominated "super striker'' getting the chance to bat in the second bracket of overs having been dismissed in the first is as cheap and nasty as it is unnecessary. Batting is based upon the harsh but fair concept that one mistake can mean the end of the road for a batsman. So for one player to get twice as much opportunity as the rest is a scenario that clearly defies this most basic tenet.

Among the numerous arguments against the idea is that it will unfairly reward teams with insufficient depth - Chris Gayle's West Indies, for one - while there is also the matter of what would be done with scoreboards and records.

The unique polygon-shaped Eden Park in Auckland is now a thing of the past. Following a makeover for the Rugby World Cup next year, the ground authorities have removed the boundary irregularities and made the ground into a more traditional oval. Andrew Alderson of the New Zealand Herald provides the lowdown on the venue.

Strokes square of the wicket will need to travel about 66m to the rope, compared to up to 70m in the past. While that sounds as if such shots have less distance to travel, the reality is that Eden Park's former shape meant some boundaries were much shorter than that - and one in particular was only 51m away. The changes have given the ground a longer average distance to score a boundary square of the wicket.

"It is Australia's bowling that usually arouses scrutiny because it no longer contains either superstars or geniuses" © PA Photos

Looking back at the first Test between Australia and Pakistan in Lord's, Stephen Brenkley of The Independent draws two conclusions. Firstly, Pakistan's disintegration was predictable. And secondly, the evidence of Lord's suggest that England should not be too worried looking ahead to the Ashes.

Pakistan were bowled out twice by different part-time bowlers, Shane Watson in the first innings and Marcus North in the second. It is difficult to decide which was the greater transgression.

If the match told plenty that was already feared about Pakistan, it also gave something away about Australia, another source of limitless fascination because of the Ashes this winter. Bar a tweak here or there – the return of Brad Haddin behind the stumps, the replacement of the spinner – this is the team that Australia want to play against England. The evidence of Lord's is that England should not be afraid. Australia simply do not emanate the power that once seemed destined to last forever. They remain tough, capable cricketers but in almost every case it does not go beyond that.

The implementation of the UDRS continues to generate debate. If the ICC believes the UDRS is needed for cricket to progress then it should get all its members to toe the line, writes Sa'adi Thawfeeq in The Nation. He says a rule should be either mandatory or not exist at all.

What has happened with the UDRS today is that there has been no consistency of its use in Test cricket. While some countries are for it like Sri Lanka, there are others like India who are against it. In such circumstances where does the ICC draw the line? It cannot just leave it hanging loosely hoping that all Test playing countries will one day come to some form of agreement and use it constantly. As the governing body the ICC has its responsibilities to ensure that once it takes a decision it is mandatory to all and sundry, not leave it in the hands of the host country to convince their opponents of the merits of the system.

The oldest domestic competition in the world, The County Championship, begins on July 20. Stephen Brenkley of The Independent looks forward to the return of the Championship.

The oldest domestic competition in the world has been treated dismissively lately, rather like the old duffer in the pub whose tales of yesteryear are tolerated but who some say has outstayed his welcome and frankly is going gaga.

It fails to garner the necessary coverage any more, in any form of the media; it is treated as an afterthought, an irrelevance, a necessary evil. It has done nothing to deserve this.

Muttiah Muralitharan will be playing his final Test in Galle © AFP

All the talk in the build-up to the series has been about Muttiah Muralitharan's impending retirement.Nihal Koshie of the Indian Express visits Murali's hometown, Kandy, and speaks to the offspinner's long-time mentor, Sunil Fernando, and Murali's school friends.

Say ‘Murali’ and people are ready to spare time for a chat. They still prefer to talk about him as the boy who could turn the ball more than anyone else. The doosra and other variations don’t appeal to people in Murali’s hometown. Here people know him as the keen medium-pacer and middle-order bat, who started bowling big off-spinners.

In the Times of India, Partha Bhaduri pays tribute to the world's leading wicket-taker.

Muttiah Muralitharan's story unfolded through his eyes. Burning, bulging, crazily intent, they were a steely monochrome to the contortionist's impossibly flexible wrists, inward rotating shoulders and that bent elbow which haunted his domain like a vengeful poltergeist. They were eyes that would kill. And wouldn't let go until they did, having foretold doom 792 times in Test cricket before Sunday, 84 more than a more flamboyant Australian world-beater with whom mathematical games will forever continue.

The Sri Lankan newspaper the Nation (PDF link) has a 16-page pullout on Murali. There are tributes from Kumar Sangakkara and MS Dhoni, an interview with Murali, and much else.

Arun Pandey, the founder president of RSPL, the company that has inked a record-breaking endorsement deal with MS Dhoni, is a former first-class spinner who used to trouble the India captain in the nets, and his very close friend. G S Vivek of the Indian Express finds out more about the man behind the scenes.

Pandey’s own cricketing skills are well respected in Delhi’s local circuit. A student of Bishan Singh Bedi, he is known to have the knack of getting Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir out cheaply. “Once when Viru met Mahi, he told him how I had got him out once again. Apparently, they laughed their heads off when Mahi said, ‘Now, I will hear this story from Pandeyji again’. Actually, I have dismissed Viru some 8-9 times,” Pandey says.

Robert Craddock, writing in The Sunday Mail, discusses Ricky Ponting’s age – and his future.

When a Test batsman turns 35, it's much like a businessman turning 60. With retirement looming, you quietly sense you are not what you were but are happy to still be giving a bit of cheek and you celebrate those moments when you give those young bucks a shake-up.

It's not easy, though. History tells us that 35 is about the age when the great become good, the good become average and the bad are long gone. Australian cricket fans should not be shocked that Ricky Ponting, who has reached this watershed age, failed twice in the Lord's Test or that he has averaged just 38 in the last year. He is not what he was, but he is not bad.

Cricket and baseball have long had a complicated relationship. Fans of one have generally tended to dismiss fans of the other. But the two sports have been growing closer in recent times, and while baseball might owe its origins to cricket, it is now influencing how cricket is played, writes Scyld Berry in the Telegraph.

Australia's cricketers owed their primacy as the world's Test and one-day champions partly to their American baseball coach, Michael Young, who taught their fielders to corner the batsman like a hunting pack; and this summer he was seconded to Somerset.

A generation ago, fielders did not dive; now they swoop, fling, leap and pirouette, before firing the ball over the stumps with a flat throw of no more than one bounce. Baseball has brought athleticism and choreography to cricket.

Shahid Afridi slogged his fourth ball to midwicket © Getty Images

Steve James of the Daily Telegraph doesn't rate Shahid Afridi highly as a Test cricketer, and welcomes the Pakistan captain's decision to end his Test career.

His Test career is over. Injured side or not, he will surely not play next week at Leeds and, quite frankly, Test cricket will be none the poorer for his absence. His brainless batting besmirched this match; his astonishing lack of leadership mocked some of his team-mates’ best efforts.

He was a curious choice as captain anyway; cricketers who pirouette deliberately on a length to scuff up a pitch and bite cricket balls do not generally get to captain their country. But then Afridi joins a list of Pakistan captains that is at once both a gallery of rogues and a roll call of truly great cricketers. It sums up Pakistan’s bewildering contradiction; its brilliance mixed with its villainy.

Lalit Modi was rarely away from television cameras or the front pages when the IPL was on, but now that he's embroiled in a huge controversy, he's hardly seen. 'Where in the world is Lalit Modi?' asks Anand Vasu in the Hindustan Times.

Modi has shouted from the rooftops that those in power in the Board of Control for Cricket in India are out to get him. He has consistently alleged that certain people are maligning him and thrusting false charges on him. Modi has a team of high-profile, and occasionally very voluble, lawyers doing what they can to take his case forward. And Modi is on a yacht a world away? Does this make any sense to you?

Franchise Twenty20 cricket seems closer than ever in England after this season had smaller crowds due to a bloated fixture list, high prices and lack of star names, writes Will Hawkes in the Independent.

There may have been more games this season, but that hasn't necessarily translated into more spectators. Take Surrey. In past seasons they have sold out home games for fun, but this time only the London derby with Middlesex attracted what they might consider a decent crowd.

Derbyshire, meanwhile, drew more to their game with the Australians (3,000) than came to any of their previous six home Twenty20 matches

In an in-depth interview with Abdul Habib from cricistan.com, David Dwyer, Pakistan's fitness trainer, talks about the lack of a properly structured and competitive junior programme in Pakistan cricket and the need for consistency in personnel; discusses the work he has put in with various players and highlights his three golden fitness rules for the Pakistan team.

The only thing preventing this country from taking over world cricket is the lack of a properly structured and competitive junior program. A program that instills the basics from an early age. There are some other things such as the lack of access to gym equipment and that logistically there's not as many grounds. But it's scary to think how strong Pakistan cricket would be if it had the sort of support structures we have in place in Australia

There's a core of players with very good athletic ability. Umar Gul, Fawad Alam and Younis Khan's fitness levels are through the roof. They can run for days. Salman Butt has done a huge amount of work recently and Mohammad Yousuf has trained very hard with me over the past three years. Misbah is a great trainer, so is Kamran Akmal

MS Dhoni currently has 24 endorsements © AFP

In Back Page Lead, Sharda Ugra analyses the rise of MS Dhoni the cricketer and the brand, which resulted in a US$42m two-year deal last week. She looks at Dhoni's media strategy and notes that the one person who had a similar tightly controlled media image was Tiger Woods.

He [Dhoni] keeps print and TV journalists at arm's length and one-on-one interviews can either be boring email responses through his manager-du-jour or nothing at all. A former Indian captain laughed: “It should have been my template.”

This tack gives Dhoni his space and privacy and also ensures that journalists turn into infatuated stalkers, starving for morsels of information.

It is why his recent, secret wedding led desperate reporters to interview florists.

It is why the $42m is being seen as a gee-whiz deal. It’s a Dhoni story and that’s gold dust.

Rediff.com asks several of India's best known brand gurus what makes Brand Dhoni tick. Most of them say Dhoni's success despite his small-town roots and the lack of a godfather in cricket combined with his equanimity on the field is what makes him so appealing.

The composition of the Indian and Pakistani Test sides are a study in contrasts. One has power-heavy batters and the other has a bowling attack capable of softening Australia. Both teams aren't blessed with the best of both worlds, both have had contrasting fortunes in recent Tests, but they're united by one thing: envy of the other's resources, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian.

A side featuring India's batsmen and Pakistan's bowlers would most likely sweep aside all comers, but the real world has no time for such fantasy cricket. Over the next month, both teams – batsman-heavy India and pace-blessed Pakistan – will have to battle their frailties and maximise their strengths as they seek to overcome opponents who appear that much more balanced.

The Lord's pavilion is hosting an unusual exhibition - one which celebrates the similarities and differences between cricket and baseball - two sports that have for long been disparaged by fans of the other. John F. Burn of the New York Times reports on how the exhibition "conveys the unmistakable theme that what many Americans view as their national game was originally an English sport, played by children nearly 300 years ago".

Curators say, baseball — or base-ball, as it was known then — originated in England at least as early as the first decades of the 18th century, perhaps even earlier, and was taken to the United States by 19th-century immigrants.

The exhibit also makes the case that cricket, played in America from as early as 1709, was America’s principal bat-and-ball game until the eve of the Civil War, with thriving cricket clubs in many major East Coast cities, including New York, Brooklyn, Newark, Boston and especially Philadelphia.

Sportsmen of all stripes tend to spout platitudes to the press. Worried about generating the faintest whiff of controversy, today’s top players content themselves with the blandest of statements, which are then prettily packaged by journalists and devoured by readers. It is a vicious cycle. Occasionally, however, some players manage to break the mould. In his Guardian blog, The Spin, Andy Bull claims the greatest achievement of the Andrew Strauss – Andy Flower combination has been to their willingness to tell it like it is.

The single best thing about the tenure of Strauss and Andy Flower is that they have banished bullshit. Listening to Peter Moores explain away his team's poor performances you felt like you were taking part in a motivational seminar for middle-managers at a municipal leisure centre. You could go in, sit down, switch on a tape-recorder and hum Bob Dylan's To Ramona to yourself ("I can see that your head/has been twisted and fed/by worthless foam from the mouth") safe in the knowledge that 30 minutes later you would be typing up a piece about the need for consistency, good areas and missing pieces of the jigsaw.

Vithushan Ethantharajah of sport.co.uk indulges Kevin Pietersen in a free-wheeling interview that deals with unsolicited 'rotation', non-existent Twenty20 freelancers, and criticism from the man he displaced from the England side - Graham Thorpe.

“I think he’s probably been wanting to say it for a long time since I took his place. It’s nice that Thorpey’s got himself mentioned in a few interviews and that he’s done an interview. It’s probably nice for him to see his name in the papers, it’s nice, and it’s good. I couldn’t care what he says or anything else; it’s not constructive and probably no point saying it. I’ll be in his position in a few years time! He’ll talk about players who are in-form and out of form, but at least he’s got himself in the media, must be really nice for him!”

In his Yahoo column, Graham Thorpe is startled by the decline of James Anderson's stocks, from being touted as the leader of the England attack to losing his Twenty20 spot and being 'rotated' out of the Bangladesh series.

It is not good for team morale to simply 'rotate' your key players as it leads everyone to believe that they have been dropped. Which, given Anderson's shoddy form of late, is entirely believable. If Anderson was being rested, which coach Andy Flower implied in his post-match interviews, then the fact that he spent most of the Bangladesh innings on the field as a workhorse substitute fielder is absurd.

When Ian Bell limped out to bat as the last man standing between Bangladesh and a first ever win over England, he joined a long line of injured warriors who have put their country before their body. Writing in the Guardian, Rob Bagchi runs through the list of those who have toughed it out and wonders whether such acts of courage are worth the risk in this age of endless cricket.

The appearance of an injured batsman is a rare enough sight in Test cricket but I struggle to remember even one example of it in one-day matches. So numerous and throwaway are the fixtures that you assume the results in the long term matter as little to the players as they do to the spectators and not worth the risk of participating while hurt.

Even in Tests, the potential hazards seem too great. Nasser Hussain sometimes gritted his teeth to complete a match when one of his frequently broken "poppadom" fingers suffered its latest injury but discretion usually resurfaced in time for him to sit out the subsequent games until they had properly healed.

While it's common in football to have celebrity match-ups and marriages, the WAGs trend is not quite the same as far as India's cricketers are concerned. With such a hectic lifestyle travelling across the globe and managing their own celebrity status, many of India's star players now prefer settling down with women who can take care of their families, as opposed to a trophy wife. Players who come from less-fortunate backgrounds make for an interesting study. There are instances of such cricketers choosing partners who are often better educated and more qualified than themselves. Arpita Basu has more in Outlook.

Cricket’s current first lady Sakshi, for instance—an alumnus of Welham Girls School in Dehradun, a hotel management graduate from Aurangabad, and a resident of Alipore, one of Calcutta’s more affluent pockets—enjoyed, according to Yudhajit, “a kind of exposure during her growing up years that was quite different from Dhoni’s”. Sachin Tendulkar, who did not complete college, went on to marry Dr Anjali Mehta, the daughter of an industrialist, and older than him.

BBC Radio was the first broadcaster to cover every ball of a Test match when it launched its Test Match Special in 1957. While cricket commentary had been on air before then, it was relayed only in fits and start. Today you’ll find many a spectator at a match in England listening to the show using a portable radio and headphones; commentary radios are even sold at the grounds. In the Guardian, Bob Chaundy pays tribute to Robert Hudson, the man who started it all.

In 1955, while Hudson was commentating for radio on a Yorkshire v Nottinghamshire county match, Fred Trueman was on a hat-trick with only a few minutes of airtime remaining. The incoming batsman, Cyril Poole, took an age to prepare for Trueman's next delivery, which, with only seconds to spare, had him caught at short leg. Hudson had just enough time to yell: "It's a hat-trick, back to the studio."

The experience made him determined to liberate cricket from its piecemeal scheduling that might see coverage move between three different BBC radio networks during a single day's play. Less than half of Jim Laker's record-breaking 19-wicket haul at the 1956 Old Trafford Test against Australia was broadcast. In 1957 Hudson persuaded his superiors, despite howls of protest from the music lobby, to allow Test cricket on to the little listened-to Network Three, the forerunner of Radio 3, and to broadcast every ball bowled.

Ireland barely broke a sweat in retaining its ICC’s world league Division One championship against Scotland on Saturday. The result was hardly a surprise given the team’s dominance throughout the tournament, despite missing several key players. Writing in the New York Times, Huw Richards says Ireland's performance has strengthened its claim to become the world’s 11th Test playing nation.

Ireland’s usual captain William Porterfield, the hard-hitting batsman Niall O’Brien — the elder brother of Kevin — the wicket-keeper Gary Wilson and the fast bowler Boyd Rankin all missed the tournament in the Netherlands because of club commitments.

That Ireland did so well in their absence demonstrated impressive depth, in particular offering further evidence of the quality of two rising stars. Paul Stirling, a hard-hitting, heavyset batsman who will not be 20 until September, was Ireland’s highest and fastest scorer during the tournament.

Facing Murali was a mental trial beyond comparison © Getty Images

One of the highlights of Muttiah Muralitharan's career is the 16-wicket match haul at The Oval in 1998 to lead Sri Lanka to a resounding win over England. Steve James, who now writes for the Sunday Telegraph, opened for England in that match, battling for 85 overs to make 61 runs over two innings. He recounts his struggles against Murali.

It was a mental trial beyond comparison. There was no physical threat, just an unremitting battle against a bowler of supreme accuracy and stamina, with pace and degrees of turn being varied almost imperceptibly.

In he came from his angled run-up, beginning with hands clasped to his stomach and lips pursed, arms then flapping like wings with ball tossed from hand to hand. From over the wicket the delivery position on the crease was as wide as his eyes as he launched into the most controversial action of all time.

The worst thing about him? The omnipresent smile. Even slow bowlers are sometimes supposed to snarl and chirp, and send you on your way. Not Muralitharan. He never said a word. He just grinned, knowing full well that he'd ultimately get you.

Umar Akmal needs to have a big series © Getty Images

In the Sunday Telegraph, Wisden editor Scyld Berry cheers on Pakistan who he fears will be thrashed in the Tests against England and Australia over the next two months. He says that despite their potent bowling attack, they will struggle due to the lack of a settled pair of openers, the absence of a senior batsman in the middle order and the short time to switch from Twenty20 to Tests.

... it will be surprising if such a disorganised team is not hammered in the next two months by countries with all the necessary infrastructure to hand. And the impact of such a hammering could be even more far-reaching.

What pleasure will the new generation of Pakistani cricketers – real talents like Aamer and the cavalier batsman Umar Akmal, officially 20 – find in Test cricket, if it means nothing more than a flogging thousands of miles from home? Pakistan zindabad! Underdogs, come on!

Forget about Australia's one-day form, Pakistan will provide a better measure of Ricky Ponting's team in the neutral Tests ahead of the Ashes, writes Steve James in the Sunday Telegraph.

All we can really conclude from the recent one-day series is that these Australians are like walnuts: seriously tough to crack. ... Now [in the Tests against Pakistan] we can gauge more prudently whether, say, Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke do have genuine problems against the short ball, because one-day cricket's endless demand for scoring can blur both judgments and perceptions. Did the West Indian Kemar Roach really inflict lasting psychological damage upon Ponting in Perth last winter? Mohammad Aamer, Mohammad Asif and Umar Gul may provide the answer.

Brendon McCullum has already given up the gloves in Tests © Getty Images

The Otago Daily Times has an extract from the new autobiography Brendon McCullum: Inside Twenty20 in which the New Zealand wicketkeeper reveals his thinking behind making a move towards becoming a specialist batsman.

My hands are starting to become butchered, but that is par for the course in the keeping trade. I've broken pretty much everything in there and I've got a dicky back that is starting to give me a bit of grief, but that's not the major reason I want to hand over the gloves in Twenty20. For me it's about driving the game from the field and communicating constantly with the bowlers.

Eight weeks short of his 20th birthday, Ireland batsman Paul Stirling is already being compared to Eoin Morgan. Like the new England sensation, Stirling could well follow the route from Ireland to the English side through a stint with Middlesex. Ian Callender of the Belfast Telegraph profiles the youngster and explores the possibilities ahead of him.

One of his Ireland team-mates, John Mooney, said this week if he was given the choice of paying to watch Morgan, Stirling or Ed Joyce, the former Ireland and England batsman who is set to return to the Irish side, it would be Stirling every time.

Ajantha Mendis tormented India's batsmen when they last visited Sri Lanka for a Test series. But Virender Sehwag says things could be different this time around. Sehwag, who is making a return from injury, has spent time playing at different academies on different wickets against unorthodox bowlers, in the build-up for the upcoming Test series in Sri Lanka. He tells GS Vivek from the Indian Express that winning is top priority in Sri Lanka.

He [Mendis] had a really good series against us last time. But we have played him rather well since then. They didn't pick him in the one-dayers (Asia Cup). Even if he is not picked for the Tests we have to prepare for Rangana Herath and Suraj Randiv.

We have failed to win a Test series in Sri Lanka in the recent past. We have some unfinished business... like an unfinished assignment in Sri Lanka. We will definitely try to win this time.

In an interview with DNA, Rahul Dravid echoes Sehwag's opinion and is not too concerned by the threat of Mendis.

Look, theirs is not a one-dimensional attack. They have a quality bowling, Mendis or not. Sri Lanka are always a difficult team to play at home. But we can take confidence from the fact that we won a Test each in our last two away series against them. We could not sustain that success throughout the series though. May be we can do it this time. It is a question of maintaining the form right through the series. I think we have a good balanced side which is capable of beating them.

The speed gun is one of those rare innovations that have added excitement to the game. The instant a quick delivery is bowled, spectators and players alike crane their necks to see just how fast it was. But can we trust the results? Writing in the Guardian, Mike Selvey says speed gun readings should be taken with a big pinch of salt.

But as with Hawk-Eye, or the pitch mat for lbw, or Snicko, or even the enhanced technology of Hotspot, it is not there to be taken too seriously. It has its flaws. It is not definitive. There is a margin for error. It may even be open to a little trickery if there is a little tinkering with the calibration.

I was reminded of this during the first of England's recent one-day internationals with Australia at the Rose Bowl, when in the course of the England innings Ryan Harris was deemed to have sent down a delivery in excess of 96mph. This marks him down as one of the fastest bowlers in history, and while I bow to no one in admiration of Harris's blood-and-guts, in-yer-face bowling, he isn't that. Goodness only knows what that would make Tommo, or Mikey Holding, or Shoaib Akhtar.

The Old Batsman blogger has never taken guard against Muttiah Muralitharan, but he has faced the closest imitation - Merlyn, the bowling machine known for its ability to replicate any bowler in the world. He recounts his experience against 'Murali', and is left wondering how good the original must be.

Merlyn was programmed to be 'human', in that he would bowl the occasional bad ball. One looked like a full toss. Late in the flight, I realised it was a full toss, and got enough bat on it to get it through mid on, if there hadn't been one. I got semi-cocky. The fear-sweat diminished a degree or two. I waited for the next one from Merlyn's implacable dead eye.

Here it came again - another full toss! I was out to meet it this time, 'Murali' was getting belted. Then it whirred, then it dipped, and then pitched just in front of me and took off - there's no other description for it - took off from leg to off, past the bat, past everything, me stranded halfway down the wicket.

Gautam Gambhir talks to Kadambari Murali-Wade of the Hindustan Times about developing his bowling skills, batting with Virender Sehwag, MS Dhoni's captaincy, being written off after one bad series and more.

I am looking at working on my bowling too. If you're there as a pure batsman, then if you get out cheaply, the game's over for you. But if you can also bowl five-six overs in an ODI, pick up a couple of wickets, help the team, it's good.

After seeing fairly small crowds at many domestic Twenty20 games in England this season, Martin Samuel writes in the Daily Mail that the format is a passing fad. He says that while it may attract non-cricket fans people looking for entertainment, they won't be interested in it in the long run.

The biggest crowd of the season is the 15,000 that attended the derby between Middlesex and Surrey, although the same fixture attracted 26,500 in 2004. That match was the first Twenty20 fixture to be staged at Lord's, suggesting this was a novelty that will pass, like Pixie Geldof or the Liberal Democrats. In the end all that will be left is the same group of people that the ECB deemed irrelevant: boring old cricket fans.

And, unlike the mob that get excited by loud music and a six hit over cow corner, the traditionalists are a rather knowledgeable lot. They know when they are being hoodwinked, for instance, by boundaries set short at 55 yards to make the batting appear more spectacular and they know that a slog-fest with all technique and subtlety removed can be every bit as dull as a tea-time session on day four of a slow Test.

The BCCI have done well by appointing a long-term manager for the Indian team, and picked a worthy candidate for the role in Ranjib Biswal, according to sportzpower.com.

What works well for Biswal is that he is a former player, has played domestic cricket, played alongside the likes of Kumble, Ganguly, Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar in age-group cricket. And also is currently the president of a state association.

But probably the most important qualification for Biswal presently is the fact that he is a Congress leader. In various ways the board is mollifying the ruling party by appointing Biswal, a former Youth Congress leader and a close aide of Rahul Gandhi. The appointment of Congress' Union minister of state Jyotiraditya Scindia on the disciplinary panel probing suspended Indian Premier League chief Lalit Modi is also a case in point.

Muttiah Muralitharan sent down more deliveries than any bowler in Test cricket, and finished with more international wickets than anyone. Mike Selvey looks back at his feats and pays his tribute to the Sri Lankan spin wizard in the Guardian.

He did not carry the Sri Lanka attack for the bulk of his career, until his shoulder began to object and a little of the fizz went out of him – he was the Sri Lanka attack. Murali would occupy one end until play was done. Only his record against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, 176 wickets from 25 matches, diminishes him compared to Warne, who took only 17 from three games.

In the same paper, David Hopps takes a close look at the controversy surrounding Murali's bowling action.

Darryl Foster, a former Sri Lankan bowling coach, and by then working at the University of Western Australia, put suspicions about Murali down to an "optical illusion". Murali bowled in arm braces for the TV cameras, in Colombo he even bowled with an ankle brace on his elbow because that was all they could find. Attempts to emulate Murali by Sri Lankan youngsters granted neither a revolving wrist nor a locked elbow meant a chucker on every beach.

Lawrence Booth, in the Wisden Cricketer, argues that while Murali will always have his doubters, there can be no doubts about his greatness.

And yet the mud has stuck – largely because of the understandable conflation in many observers’ minds of an elbow incapable of straightening with a wrist apparently adept at doing loop-the-loops. Put the two together, throw in – if you’ll forgive the verb – a degree of elbow flexion that nevertheless remains within the ICC’s parameters of legality, and the whole thing doesn’t look great. Least of all from high up and front on.

But that gut reaction is precisely why Murali has been subjected to rat-lab tests and all but humiliated by bowling with his arm in a brace to satisfy the blood lust (although, despite the remarkable turn and accuracy he still achieved with the brace on, you’ll still find people who disregard the legitimacy of that experiment).

Plenty of ink has been spilt over the recent one day series between England and Australia and its implications for the Ashes. England won the first three games, and the series, to supposedly give them the edge come November. Then the Aussies roared back to win the final two games, giving them the momentum. But are any of these assumptions warranted? The BBC’s Oliver Brett doesn’t think so, saying a lot can change between July and November.

Perhaps a whitewash for either team would have adjusted the balance a bit, but Australia were warm favourites for the Ashes before the ODIs began, and they are still warm favourites now. There is so much that will be different on 25 November in Brisbane, when the first of five Tests starts: a raucous, partisan crowd, a red Kookaburra ball, and changes in personnel for both teams.

Neither starting XI can be determined beyond vague conjecture, particularly in the case of Australia whose fast bowling cortege has been badly affected by injuries for a while.

In his Yahoo column, Graham Thorpe hopes the England selectors will resist from bringing Andrew Flintoff back into the national side, that has moved on since his glory days.

The allrounder has been out of action since last summer due to knee surgery, and the 32-year-old has become more of a celebrity than a cricketer since the final Test at The Oval. Flintoff cannot expect to breeze back into a side which has just won the World Twenty20 and is forming a formidable unit in one-day international cricket. This kind of situation is where the selectors earn their money because there will inevitably be a clamour from the media to bring the Lancastrian straight back in.

In another Yahoo column, Thorpe writes about the possibility of Shaun Tait returning to whites, and on current form thinks England will be concerned by developments on that front.

Ricky Ponting admitted he would love to have Tait in his side for the Ashes, and that all depends on the balance of his pace attack as a whole. If the likes of Ben Hilfenhaus, Mitchell Johnson and Peter Siddle can rattle through a hefty number of overs between them, it would allow Tait to play purely as a strike bowler. Whoever else Australia pick in their pace attack, they would have to be the economical, work-horse type what could enable Tait to fly in with short, sharp and destructive spells. It is in these situations that coaches need to be brave, and Tim Nielsen will know that if Tait is asked to play in the Ashes he would surely do so - but is he courageous enough to pick his side accordingly?

Jonathan Trott has come a long way from being one of the late and most unlikely heroes in England's Ashes triumph back home. Despite a 50-plus average he is not a certainty in the Test starting XI, and is developing a reputation for his unusually long pre-ball routine. In an interview with Mail Online, the batsman says he is fed up of the undue attention his rituals at the crease are getting.

"I'm not an obsessive kind of guy. But if you speak to cricketers in general, you'll find we're all a bit crazy. We've all got our own weird routines. But I don't do mine to annoy opponents or to be different. I just do it to get myself ready.

"Alec Stewart used to look around behind square-leg before each ball, but no one used to go on about that. But because my crease-scratching takes a little bit longer, and because maybe there wasn't much else to talk about during my double-hundred at Lord's, people started to hone in on it."

In the Telegraph, Michael Vaughan is convinced that Australia should play Shaun Tait in the Ashes, and that England should bring in Eoin Morgan at Trott's expense to combat the fast bowler.

If Tait knocks over a couple with the new ball, which looks like happening every time, then it becomes very difficult for England. It means England must get their batting line-up spot on and that means sneaking Morgan in the side even if it means dropping Jonathan Trott despite his double hundred against Bangladesh. I look at Kevin Pietersen in 2005 and this feels like the same situation.

People said then he didn't play the short ball well but he had never faced it and unless we expose Morgan we will never know. With every player you can pick out a negative. I just look at the positives he brings to the team. He is calm, and composed, he fields well and is a great lad in the dressing room.

Suresh Menon writes on ESPNstar.com that though John Howard may not have been the ideal ICC vice-presidential candidate, his rejection could have been handled with more dignity. He also says newly-appointed ICC president Sharad Pawar must display statesmanship and diplomacy instead of helping the powerful countries ride roughshod over less influential ones.

For Australia and England, the ideal candidate would be someone who put India and their supporters in their place, while for India it would be someone who appreciated the ground reality and behaved accordingly. The ground reality being that India had the money, the muscle and the manpower and should thus be allowed to get their way.

The Staten Island field in New York may not have quite the same pedigree as Lord’s or Eden Gardens, but cricket has been played there for well over a century. Last month the Staten Island Cricket Club took on a visiting team from Merion, Pennsylvania in a rematch of the first game played at the ground almost 125 years ago. Writing in the New York Times, Alan Feuer pays tribute to the enduring nature of this cricketing outpost.

It was, as people said all day, approaching the 125th year of continual cricket at the field, once a portion of the Delafield estate but now owned by the city and known as Walker Park. The players who came out that day were not the British officers of yore, but Bangladeshi cabbies, Indian computer engineers and a Pakistani man who owns an auto-body shop. The Ladies’ Outdoor Amusement Club was not on hand to administer refreshments. Instead, there was D.J. Ralphie, of the so-called Chutney Bastards, blasting rowdy soca from a laptop.

“This is a momentous occasion,” said Clarence Modeste, president of the Staten Island squad. Mr. Modeste, a tall, slim man who is 80 and a native of Tobago, recognized the afternoon with a heartfelt introduction delivered to the teams, both dressed in their blazers and lined up facing one another on the field.

There’s a certain symbolism in how the City of Churches will lose its world-renowned cathedral views from Adelaide Oval when the old ground is redeveloped, writes Andrew Faulkner in the Australian.

St Peter's Cathedral - where the world's cricketing royalty bade farewell to Donald Bradman in 2001 - will be unseen from most of the ground when the oval becomes a multi-purpose stadium. Much more will be lost when the elegant old ground morphs into a 50,000 seat colosseum in order to welcome football back in four years.

Yes, the famous scoreboard, northern mounds and Moreton Bay Figs will stay - for now. But they too will most likely make way for more stands within 20 years.

Tim Lane, in the Age, casts his view on John Howard's rejection by members of the ICC, an indication of what he believes is a fractured organisation. He also writes of how Howard's career as a politician may have influenced his rejection, and the possible reasons for Cricket Australia to nominate him.

What is abundantly clear, though, is that international cricket is so rife with racial and cultural division that the future of its competitive framework is at risk. Soon after Howard's candidature for ICC office was announced, I suggested here that international cricket did not need Howard, it needed Nelson Mandela. Of course, there's only one Mandela, and that's the point. It will take an inordinately special human being to defuse the game's tensions.

The MCC has taken the lead ahead of the ICC, cricket's governing body, in suggesting suitable measures to ensure the survival of Test cricket, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday. The ICC, he adds, despite extensive discussions on the subject, has prevaricated.

There is a crucial difference between the composition of the ICC groups discussing this seminal restructuring and the MCC world committee. One former Test cricketer will be involved in the ICC's conversations, David Richardson, their head of cricket. It will otherwise include professional administrators. Whereas the MCC group is chaired by Tony Lewis, who with due respect, is one of its least illustrious members. The rest include former Test cricketers and accomplished men such as Andy Flower, Martin Crowe, Mike Atherton, Rahul Dravid, Majid Khan and, as it happens, Dave Richardson.

There is much to be set right about England's one-day side following their consecutive defeats at the hands of Australia in the two dead rubbers, writes David Lloyd in the Independent on Sunday.

In fairness, Strauss and Flower have been saying exactly that throughout the past fortnight. They know Australia will go into the 2011 World Cup, to be held on the subcontinent, as tournament favourites while England can expect to be among a cluster of countries considered capable, if everything comes together, of denying the holders a fourth consecutive triumph.

Shaun Tait's menacing pace has given England much food for thought in their ODI preparations, writes Steve James in the Telegraph.

Tait has risen magnificently to each occasion. The spells have been short and sometimes expensive, but they have always been box office.

With Australia already 2-0 down, his call-up was just too late to shift momentum immediately and change the series result but, without doubt, he has sent shuddering tremors through England’s batting ever since he bowled Craig Kieswetter first ball in the third match at Old Trafford. Even Eoin Morgan – conspicuously struggling with the short ball – has appeared mortal.

The New Zealand Herald says the trend of southern African cricketers making the transition into the New Zealand ranks looks set to continue over the coming year as three more players - Zimbabwean allrounder Colin de Grandhomme, and South Africans Neil Wagner and Kruger van Wyk - switch nationalities.

Former South African first-class representative Kruger van Wyk (30) is now eligible for the Black Caps and looks poised to have a crack at making the test side as a wicketkeeper, provided he can force his way into the Central Districts line-up ahead of veteran Bevan Griggs.

Former Zimbabwe under-19 and now Auckland all-rounder Colin de Grandhomme (23) will be cleared to play by the start of this season while left-arm pace bowler Neil Wagner (24) will have fulfilled his residency qualifications by the end of the season after playing provincially in South Africa and having a couple of stints as the Proteas' 12th man.

Pradeep Magazine, writing in the Hindustan Times, says given what he believes is former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's unfavourable reputation in the countries that rejected his nomination for vice-president of the ICC, it is 'shocking' Cricket Australia even considered putting his name forward.

I think those who favour Howard and his "honest" ways, and see this as a fight between the corrupt ICC and the common man, have failed to see the suspicion or even the depth of dislike the man evokes in our region.

It is because of this reason that Howard's nomination is shocking as it reflects how insensitive or ignorant Cricket Australia was to the sensibilities of the region

...

By still not grasping the reality and blaming India for using its money and muscle power in stopping Howard's nomination, they could be pushing the cricket world, already in a mess, to a precipice.

Nasser Hussain, writing in the Daily Mail, says England's recent limited-overs success gives plenty of hope but they have to determine how best they can transfer their current run into the World Cup in the sub-continent.

It has been interesting to watch Andrew Strauss in practice with batting coach Graham Gooch before each of the four one-day internationals because the captain is clearly working on his game with the sub-continent in mind.

India’s selection committee tends to attract more criticism than praise for its policies, much of it deserved. But in his column for Yahoo, Partab Ramchand writes that the selectors have actually gotten it right in picking the team to tour Sri Lanka.

It is obvious that a good deal of thinking and planning has gone into the selection of the Indian Test squad for the tour of Sri Lanka. If you look closely, Kris Srikkanth and his team has chosen what is expected to be the first eleven and then has added one player for each of five specialist slots – opening batsman, middle order batsman, wicket keeper, pace bowler and spinner.

The ICC snubbing of John Howard is a loss for cricket, writes Malcolm Conn in the Australian.

The rejection of Howard’s nomination for future president of cricket's governing body was a gutless act committed by the presidents of cricket's seven Afro-Asian countries, who could not even look Howard in the eye. They have destroyed the ICC's electoral system and cricket's credibility in the process.

In another story Conn says Howard was rejected for the reasons of money and power. “There was a collective fear that he would ask awkward questions about one and do his best to dilute the other.”

Australia's batting had been their weakest link in the series against England but with captain Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke hitting format The Oval, they posted a big enough total to avoid a whitewash. David Hopps says in the Guardian that Ponting's innings shows that it is still too early to write him off.

Ponting's 92 from 93 balls was an ideal retort to the suggestion that Australia, having lost the series, were in danger of a 5-0 whitewash and that his own appetite to lead Australia into next year's World Cup might diminish as a result. This was no angry riposte, driven by desperation. This was an innings of deliberation and exactitude, a reminder of his lasting prowess. He has averaged between 40 and 43 in ODIs for 10 years; there is absolutely no evidence of decline.