Pritish Nandy, writing in the Mumbai Mirror, says, as brilliant as Sachin Tendulkar is, he doesn't deserve a Bharat Ratna. Nor can we take away Shoaib Akhtar's right to be heard, no matter how outrageous his views.

A not exactly accurate quote about Sachin attributed to him by some sections of the media ensured that his book launch in Mumbai never happened. Two political parties took credit for forcing the cancellation. The CCI gave some feeble excuse. This is increasingly becoming the tragedy of today’s India. There’s simply too much of free floating outrage — that politics finally exploits.

Even if Shoaib was critical of Sachin’s ability to play fast bowling or win a match, I would have loved to hear why. It’s an interesting point of view and every point of view has a right to be heard, engaged. If we disagree with Shoaib, as I am sure many of us do, we could have argued with him, disproved him. In any case, cricket history doesn’t bear Shoaib out.

Ashok Malik pays tribute to Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi in the Deccan Chronicle.

The effervescence was short-lived. Shammi and Tiger were prophets before their age. The 1960s proved a false dawn, and society soon surrendered to the cynical and underperforming statism of the 1970s — free India’s most wasted decade. It took another generation, and the cusp of a new millennium, for the legacy of both Shammi and Tiger to be fully appreciated, and for the rest of us to catch up with them.

Saba Karim, the former India wicketkeeper, also suffered from impaired vision in his right eye and speaks to India Today of how Pataudi helped him cope with it.

The Independent's Brian Viner caught up with Makhaya Ntini and Glenn McGrath at the Archbishop Tenison's School in Canterbury, while Andy Roberts and other fast-bowling greats had a bit of a bowl against the pupils. More here.

With a casual half-stride, the only kind of run-up of which he remains capable, Andy Roberts zipped a plastic ball off the tarmac with enough speed and accuracy to clatter two of the three plastic stumps behind a 14-year-old still in the process of playing his stylish forward-defensive prod. Big gleaming grins signalled the appreciation of the watching Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose ...

" ... it bloody kills me [McGrath] to say it, but I can't see too many teams getting close to England. They've got a great bowling attack, and in the last [Ashes] series our boys [Australia] just weren't doing the basics well, weren't landing two balls in the same spot. But when you lose seven senior players in a two-year period, that would destroy most teams ... " Looking slightly less far ahead, I asked McGrath whether he was pleased to be going to that evening's dinner. "Yeah, it's great to get the intelligent players together," he said. I told him that I'd attended the batting version in 2008. "That," he said, po-faced, "would have been pretty dull."

Aakash Chopra says in the Hindustan Times that Indian cricketers have been fudging their ages since the time he was playing. The problem he says is too much importance is attached to age-level cricket, prompting players to want to spend an extra year or two playing at Under-19 level.

I distinctly remember an under-16 match against Punjab in which one of the bowlers had a fully-grown beard. The player went on to play for India and that's when I got to know that he was four years younger to me, which means that he was only 12 when I played against him in that under-16 match. Is it biologically possible to grow a beard at that age?

Paying tribute to MAK Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar in the Hindustan Times writes that besides Pataudi's cricket skills, his wit and humour stood out. There will never be another one like him, writes Gavaskar.

I don't think there was a single budding teenage cricketer in the country who did not try to walk like him or have a stance like him. The open stance was unique since he had lost one eye and so opened his stance to get a better look at the bowler. We all tried to copy that but kept getting out bowled or leg before playing across the line. We couldn't copy his fielding since in that era he was pretty much a one-off who could slide and save the ball.

Rajdeep Sardesai, writing for Firstpost.com, looks back on the 'republican prince who united Indian cricket'.

In a sense, Pataudi typified a 60s generation of romantic dreams, of chivalrous men and enchanting women who were enamoured with the idea of a Nehruvian India. If actor Shammi Kapoor redefined cinema in this period by wooing his heroines with passionate ardour, Pataudi changed the face of Indian cricket through his charismatic persona. He gave the sport a ‘star’ value, a new-found aggression that typified the spirit of a nation yearning to break free of its colonial baggage.

David Frith, writing in the Guardian, pays tribute to the Nawab.

He was ... an innovative, dignified and much respected leader with a sharp sense of humour, adored by his players, envied for his calmness and intelligence, never one to reveal his emotions and always ready to turn defence into attack.

Stephen Brenkley, in the Independent on Sunday, recaps an excellent summer for England.

Never has an English season started so early – for a century and more May was perfectly acceptable – and never has it finished so late. (The first hundred, incidentally, was scored for MCC by Rahul Dravid, who was to leave a deeper imprint later). There was plenty to cherish and savour in the filling.

India's reluctance to accept the Decision Review System is regrettable writes Peter Roebuck in the Hindu. The BCCI wants to wait till the technology has been rendered foolproof. But humanity cannot wait upon perfection or else we'd all still be in caves.

The wrong question has been asked. The issue is not whether the systems are 100 per cent reliable but whether better verdicts are reached. To my mind, more appeals are answered correctly than ever before. Of course, the new ways are not perfect — players will find loopholes, third umpires will err — but let's get on with it.

Dominic Cork has retired from professional cricket. Barney Ronay pays tribute in the Guardian and says Cork renews the nostalgia for the 1990s, a decade of contrasts for English cricket.

If the 1990s was a period when everybody in the England team seemed to have wandered in from a different movie – the parping slapstick of Phil Tufnell, the lonesome John Wayne heroics of Mike Atherton, the cannon-fodder bit parts of all those endlessly machine-gunned one-Test extras – Cork at least found a franchise sequel in county cricket. Here he ossified into a reassuringly timeless figure, a constant of the Ceefax page and the buried county scores panel, a kind of modern pastoral sprite forever nosing his walnut-trim six-gear Ford Mondeo saloon around some county ground gyratory system.

One of India's most charismatic cricketers, and one of the youngest Test captains, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi died on September 22. Author Jeffrey Archer first met Pataudi almost 50 years ago through some common friends at Oxford, and the first thing that struck him about Pataudi was "the God-given gift he possessed to treat all men as equals". Archer recounts his association with the 'Maharaja' as he called Pataudi in the Indian Express.

I too was a great fan of the cricketer, enough to base ‘The Century’, a short story from A Quiver Full of Arrows, on him. Not many people know that it was about the Nawab, considering the protagonist is a nameless character and appeared in a book with several other stories of fiction. But it was indeed a tribute to the cricketer I adored.

Paying tribute to Pataudi, Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times writes that Pataudi was the architect of India's rise as a modern cricket outfit.

It won't be wrong to say that had there been no Pataudi, Indian cricket would have taken much more time to graduate into a combative, cohesive unit, which played to win and not lose.

Ramchandra Guha in the Telegraph tries to answer the question: what kind of sportsman was Pataudi?

That question can best be answered by setting him alongside his contemporaries. Think then of a player who was as charismatic as Salim Durani, as brave as Mohinder Amarnath, as independent-minded as Bishan Singh Bedi, and as affable in personal demeanour as G.R. Viswanath. That man was Tiger Pataudi.

Writing in Mid-Day, Ian Chappell says Pataudi was "a wonderful mixture of larrikin and worldliness, with a dry wit thrown in".

That same evening I asked him what he did for a job when he wasn't playing cricket; "Ian, I'm a Prince." Not being familiar with the concept I continued to prod him about what he did between the hours of nine and five. Exasperated, he replied: "Ian, I'm a bloody Prince."

Paying tribute to Pataudi, Ayaz Memon in the Mumbai Mirror writes that Pataudi was of regal carriage on and off the field, played with inimitable style and flamboyance, and captained the team as a natural born leader.

Former India cricketer Abbas Ali Baig describes Pataudi as the "cricketing legend with whom he shared some of the best moments of his life, be it socialising with him or playing as his teammate at Oxford University." He relives some of the memories in the Hindustan Times.

What, for me, stands out in the man is not that he led India, something which might have had to do with the socio-academic background he came from, though it obviously was not handed over to him on a platter.

It is what he made of the job given to him. He showed tremendous understanding of the job he was doing and did not follow the hackneyed path which would not have taken Indian cricket anywhere in the cricketing world.

An editorial in the Indian Express says that it cannot be overstated how much Indian cricket benefited from Pataudi's attitude.

Pataudi was the first Indian team captain Ajit Wadekar played under, and also the last. Wadekar says that Pataudi was "one of the greatest batsmen that Indian cricket has seen." More from the Times of India.

An editorial in the Hindu states that were times when Pataudi's batting reached a level of subliminal beauty rarely matched by anyone in that era.

Revealing his lighter side, Pataudi, in an interview to the Times of India in 2002 talks about wooing Sharmila Tagore, the practical jokes he played on his team-mates and more.

Q: You actually got a refrigerator for her from England?

MAK: Yes I thought that's something she would be interested in.

Old Hindi songs always brought a smile to Pataudi’s face and music developed as an indulgent interest alongside his professional cricket. Devendra Pandey has more in the Indian Express.

Former Indian Test opener Kenia Jayantilal also recalls Pataudi’s unique habit for carrying musical instruments during tours. “Beyond cricket, he was very fond of Indian instruments — both playing them and listening to them. He played the tabla and sitar very well, and sometimes even traveled with them,” he says

Mid-Day has carried a chapter from Pataudi's autobiography in which he recalls the day when he lost his right eye in a car mishap.

It took me a long time to realize I had virtually lost the use of one eye, but even then, never for an instant did I consider I might not be able to play cricket again. Possibly, I refused to let myself believe it could be the finish

Vivek Sengupta was a junior at the Ananda Bazar Publishing house when Pataudi was an editor there. He also worked directly with Pataudi when both of them worked for Kapil Dev’s Dev Features in Delhi. On mxmindia.com he pays tribute to Pataudi, the 'editor'.

How was Pataudi as an editor? By all accounts he was an exceptional leader, who preferred to inspire rather than control or micro manage. He was a man who led with a light hand and who, by his sheer gentility and understatement, made himself unforgettable. A man of very few words, he had a terrific sense of humour and an ability to connect with people on the strength of his easygoing manner.

It's been 25 years since the second tied Test was played in Chennai featuring India and Australia. Key players in that Test look back on that game. More from the Hindu.

“We could have won it; we could have lost it. At the end, it was a fair result,” says Ravi Shastri, who stood devastated as last man Maninder Singh fell leg-before to Greg Matthews. Though both the Indians still believe that there was nick, umpire V. Vikramraju thinks otherwise.

New Zealand Cricket CEO Justin Vaughan stepped down from his position earlier this week, and writing in the The Press, Geoff Longely observes that much of the time when Justin Vaughan headed NZC it was in turmoil either on or off the field. And while it is unlikely Vaughan was squeezed out yet there was still a lingering feeling that he had not carried staff along with his vision in the manner of predecessors, Christopher Doig or Martin Snedden.

Outwardly, Vaughan can point to progress in a number of areas and issues under his watch, with a more stable financial footing being secured, the weak US dollar aside. Internally, the former doctor performed some substantial surgery but it is arguable if the patient (NZC) is in any better condition.

In Mid-Day, Clayton Murzello tells the story of India domestic cricket star Ramesh Saxena and the challenging times which led to his death.

Bishan Singh Bedi, who knew Saxena since his junior cricket days, said he, “never saw anyone in Indian cricket who could jump out to spinners like Saxena. He could create terror for the opposition.

Parthiv Patel, who opened the batting for India in the recently-concluded ODI series against England looks back on the tour, talks about the way he prepared for it, and the road ahead for him. More from the Indian Express.

Does it disturb you that you are still trying to cement your place in the Indian team?

I have stopped thinking about it. When you have the world’s best openers, you have to wait. You can’t do much except going back to domestic cricket, keep scoring runs and wait. But I make sure that every chance I get counts. For me, every chance is last chance.

Just like the Hawker Hurricane aircraft was the unsung hero of the Battle of Britain during the second World War, Rahul Dravid will never be given enough credit for what he has done for Indian cricket, Sidin Vadukut writes on the new New York Times India-centric blog India Ink.

Mr. Dravid has been given a frustrating nickname: “The Wall.” Walls are passive. Walls don’t react. Walls just stand there soaking up punishment without retaliating. Walls don’t back down, or step up. But Rahul Dravid always stepped up. He never backed down. Rahul Dravid ran and ran till perspiration flowed from his face. And Rahul Dravid reacted plenty. Usually in one of two ways. Sometimes, when he took a catch or scored a century he reacted with this odd ferocity. You can almost sense his teeth gnashing.

Peter Moores, the former England coach who oversaw Lancashire's rise to the top in the County Championship this season, reflects on his side's success and whether or not he would have done things differently when in charge of England, in an interview in the Guardian.

Moores might be intent on creating a legacy for Lancashire but he can also claim to have played some part in England's remarkable rise. Asked where he contributed most during his difficult 20 months in charge of the national team he pinpoints three areas – player selection, appointing various support coaches and, most tellingly, in restructuring the national academy at Loughborough. "I took over from Rodney Marsh at the Academy [in 2005] and as soon as I got there I sensed something was wrong. It was geared towards about 18 or so 23-year-olds. What it really needed to be was a performance centre that could support everything to do with England cricket. I had a big role to play in turning that academy into a performance centre and it was hard to do.

Chris Cutmore profiles, and speaks to, England cricket's newest star Jonny Bairstow in the Daily Mail.

Bairstow's power suggests he could, in future, fill the glaring gap in England's one-day batting order, a missing link that was painfully exposed in the World Cup quarter-final mauling by Sri Lanka. England have longed for an attacking opening batsman to clear the infield during the crucial opening overs and powerplays; can Bairstow fill such a role in future?

A second shoulder surgery followed by the resultant rehabilitation has left India opener Virender Sehwag "very bored" and "missing cricket". He tells Rakesh Rao in the Hindu about how he is spending his time away from the game.

Though Sehwag the cricketer is a touch restless to return to doing what he enjoys the most, the eternal student in him has found a new teacher, away from cricket. “These days, my four-year-old son (Aaryavir) is teaching me how to count — 1-2-3 besides making me write A-B-C-D — honestly I am enjoying my time with my family.” His second son (Vedant) is one year old and keeps him busy too.

Ajinkya Rahane, who made his international debut during the ODI series in England, spoke to Devendra Pandey in the Indian Express about the experience of playing in England, and on what has changed for him in the last three weeks.

Now that you have made it to the Indian team, what do you think you need to do in order to cement your place?

I have just entered international cricket. One thing is clear that it will not be an easy task. Surviving for a long period will demand more hard work. One has to be even more focussed than before. Getting in is easy but staying at the top will be tough.

Rahul Dravid’s recall to ODI and T20 during the England tour was an afterthought, a desperate move to squelch the English bowling attack and secure a bruised Indian team states an editorial in the Indian Express. It, in the end, turned out to be one last glorious chance to witness the Dravid-ian aesthetics in one-dayers, to record in every cricketing brain those three consecutive sixes in his first and last T20 match, to say proper, tearful goodbyes.

In an interview to Indian Express, he said, “You never get a chance to choose how you make your debut and you never get a chance to choose how you will finish. It’s life.” What Dravid left out is what happens, what you choose to do, between the first and the last match, that gruelling self-actualisation of greatness that takes place in the middle, on every hallowed cricket ground, in every nondescript session at the nets

Andrew Alderson, writing in the New Zealand Herald, says the scheduling of the upcoming New Zealand domestic season, with a 76 day gap between the rounds of the Plunket Shield, the four-day competition, doesn't augur well for those preparing for Test cricket.

It could be time to admit the game's up and let New Zealand focus on being one-day and T20 specialists like Ireland or the Netherlands. It is certainly time to consider whether plans for improving the country's test credentials need a revamp. The regular rhetoric about wanting a better test team may be impossible to action.

New Zealand's test ranking is eighth; below them are just Bangladesh and their opponents Zimbabwe. Plenty of words have been spouted that the test format remains a focus - but the reality is four-day cricket has been reduced to bookending the domestic season.

As West Indies arrive in England to play two "unwanted" Twenty20 matches, we are reminded of English cricket's "ill-advise" association with Allen Stanford some three years ago, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

This, then, is the man who was to be one of the saviours of English cricket. How far removed all this is from the summer afternoon in 2008 when Stanford, who owned banks in Antigua and offered financial advice to the super-rich, landed at Lord's in a helicopter to formalise his deal with the ECB. How the ECB must wish it had never happened. Stanford, who had already promoted Twenty20 cricket in the West Indies with some success, had been looking for an inter-national partner for a while. England eventually fell into his arms.

Martin Crowe, 49, is going to make a comeback. "The question is: can he produce this [his form in the nets] at the pinnacle of club cricket and represent Auckland again at first-class level? asks Andrew Alderson in the New Zealand Herald.

"I'm on track, religiously practising at the Papatoetoe indoor nets and at Cornwall," Crowe says. "The skills sessions are going great. I've been working through a few niggles with my hip flexor and hamstrings but apart from that, I'm fine. I'm not due to play until November [when two-day club cricket begins]. As tempting as it may be, I won't play 50-over cricket; that's a young man's game.

Shahshank Manohar, who has been the President of the BCCI for the past three years, looks back at his tenure, as he prepares to step down from the post. He talks to Sumit Mukherjee in the Times of India.

It must have been tough to suspend Lalit Modi? What convinced you that he has to go?
It was a conscience call. The situation called for a corrective decision. There was no personal issue involved. Once I was convinced about the wrongdoings on part of Modi, it was a fairly simple decision. I sat in the BCCI office for four days (April 20-24, 2010) and examined each document pertaining to IPL contracts. What prompted me to check the documents was the dispute with regard to Kochi franchise and Modi’s refusal to sign the franchisee agreement days after their bid was accepted. Team Kochi owners had also called me to inform that they were being threatened to surrender their franchise rights. After poring over the documents I was convinced that it was time to act.

Looking back at India's winless tour of England, David Frith in DNA writes that for all their lustrous batting line-up, and with their admirers looking nervously at the calendar, India need to find some bright new batsmen, and quickly. Nor is the bowling situation any more uplifting.

There were people willing to predict that England would win not only the Test series but the 50-over and Twenty20 contests as well. But I know of nobody — probably there simply wasn’t anybody — who was prepared to predict that India would go home this week without a single victory against England in any of the formats. Shades of 1959, when England won all five Test matches here against DK Gaekwad’s team. There was no such thing as international limited-overs cricket then, so we’ll never know whether the 1959 Indians might have descended to even deeper depths of disappointment half-a-century ago.

While the 2011 tour of England will be remembered as one of Indian cricket’s lowest trough, the performances of Rahul Dravid — over all three formats — will remain the standout feature of the tour. Talking to Sandeep Dwivedi in the Sunday Express Dravid looks back on the series, how it is likely to impact the future of Indian cricket and more.

I don’t believe that you judge careers, or what people have done for 15-20 years based on one or two matches at the end. It is the body of work over a lifetime that goes into making a success story. It is brilliant to finish nicely, but it may or may not happen and that’s life. To try and finish in a particular way has never been one of my goals. I felt I had some good cricket left in me during the lows and that’s why I continued. It was not a question of proving anything to anybody. It was just nice for me to reinforce the support that I have received from the people. That is what this tour has meant to me.

Looking back at Jonny Bairstow's matchwinning 41 off 21 balls on international debut, that helped England win the final ODI against India, Jonathan Agnew on BBC Sport writes that Bairstow looked absolutely as if he belonged. To come out and play like that in his first innings was remarkable.

I thought the way India's Rahul Dravid shook him by the hand suggested even he thought that was pretty special and I'm sure that was what he was saying to Bairstow at the end.

He has to go on the winter tours - I don't think you could have a more impressive shop window that that. To go out and play like that in such a tense situation with such maturity, collness and authority was absolutely brilliant.

Jonny Bairstow stands out for inclusion in England's one-day team for India, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.

India's boycott of the ICC awards ceremony more closely resembled a student protest than the conduct of mature sportsmen enriched by the game and obliged to promote its interests, writes Peter Roebuck in the Hindu.

Numerous excuses can be offered, but the fact remains they did not turn up. Presumably it was a protest against the ridiculous demands put on them by their governing body. Certainly the fixture list is absurd, with series and T20 tournaments piled on top of each other. Players have been treated like automatons. But no-one needs to feel any sympathy for them. India's top players only have themselves to blame because they did not band together to put their points across. Instead they have remained as individuals and so ineffective

He made headlines by bowling the fastest ball ever recorded on Indian soil. Yet Varun Aaron became the only India squad member to finish the tour of England without having made his international debut. Sandeep Dwivedi has more in the Indian Express.

The only time the 21-year old Aaron has stepped onto an English ground to play a game of cricket on this tour was during the practice game against Leicestershire. But so ordinary was his launch that, like most others on the ground that day, Dhoni was not impressed by what he saw. In the three overs that he bowled, Aaron was smashed for 34 runs. Although he did seem to have the pace that everyone back home was talking about, lack of movement in the air or off the wicket meant that the county batsmen faced no problems in putting him away. Besides, the youngster’s action was so classical for a tearaway that there wasn’t even an element of surprise before the ball was bowled.

The Australia batting order presented in Colombo, with Shaun Marsh displacing Ricky Ponting at No. 3, looks a more convincing line-up, says Peter Roebuck, writing in the Age.

Upon reflection, changing the order is worth a go. In some quarters it might be regarded as weak, with captains past and present retreating and a newcomer thrown to the wolves. Moreover, the shift does not solve the problem, merely avoids it. Of late Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke have been failing in their previous locations, averaging in the mid twenties ....

To these eyes, anyhow, the order presented in Colombo looked more convincing. While the idea of putting Ponting at six is absurd - if he needs that much protection then he is finished - four is still an important position, a point emphasised yesterday. He has not exactly been withdrawn from the firing line.

The Guardian's Andy Wilson on Lancashire's long-awaited triumph in the county Championship.

The pennant will now be hung somewhere at Old Trafford for the first time having been introduced in 1951, the year after Lancashire shared the title with Surrey. Since their last outright win, as some in Yorkshire have pointed out, the Old Trafford pavilion has been bombed by the Luftwaffe. Generations of fine Lancastrian cricketers, from Roy Tattersall to David Hughes, Jack Bond to Andrew Flintoff, have played their whole careers without winning a championship. Imports such as Ken Grieves, Farokh Engineer, Clive Lloyd, Wasim Akram and Muttiah Muralitharan helped to secure plenty of Lord's finals and one-day trophies, but never the prize most coveted by all county cricketers.

Former Lancashire player Jack Simmons gives us his take on the victory in the Daily Telegraph.

Michael Vaughan, writing in the same paper, says the county game may have its flaws but it is still the best domestic structure in world cricket.

Rahul Dravid is all set to make his final ODI appearance for India in the fifth ODI against England in Cardiff. Sachin Tendulkar talking to Devendra Pandey in the Indian Express describes Dravid as "the unsung hero of the Indian team, despite having such a remarkable career."

He may not give you a quick start, but he will surely make his innings count in terms of time spent at the crease. You need such players in the team, and he was the best man for the job. Others in the team played around him, while Rahul batted as the situation demanded. It wasn’t that he couldn’t bat quickly, he just made sure that he batted according to the situation. His Test innings are of course more famous, but I still fondly remember one ODI innings that he played in 2007 at Bristol where he scored a 90 that came off 60-odd balls. It wasn’t a surprise to any of us, and even in the past, he scored a terrific 50 against NZ.

He is the perfect team man; when he was asked to keep wickets we all knew that he will do well because he was initially a wicketkeeper. It later helped him, and came as a big help to all of us in the Indian team during the 2003 World Cup. He got better by the day during that campaign, and also managed to score quick runs with the bat.

Looking back at Dravid's ODI career, former team-mate and state-mate Anil Kumble says that Dravid has probably been the most important player from an Indian perspective. More from the Hindustan Times.

For a long time, not many people believed Dravid could be a successful one-day cricketer. But he has gone on and on, unfazed by criticism and having supreme confidence in his abilities. He is not someone who will go out and tonk sixes at will but he gets the job done. Rahul's approach has changed in the way he uses the pace of the bowler, looks to take the early singles and keep the board ticking over.

Sriram Veera writing in the Mumbai Mirror states that the real farewell for Dravid will be when his Test career ends.

Karthik Krishnaswamy in the Indian Express looks at the changing nature of radio commentary in India.

The entry of superstars like Kapil and Gavaskar was supposed to spark new life into Indian radio. But their debut has been marred by a lack of understanding of the medium, or its consumers.

Rob Smyth, in the Guardian, looks back at the career of Kim Hughes, a story also captured in the book Golden Boy by Christian Ryan.

Hughes was undeniably a genius, with the qualities of the Prom King, yet perversely these led to unpopularity. Hughes was not entirely blameless, but in essence he was a thoroughly decent man whose apparent destiny to captain Australia happily ever after was compromised by factors beyond his control. His story is harder than most to distil. The main themes are the mutinous behaviour of senior players while he was Australian captain, the only partial fulfilment of his rare ability, and a horrible, grubby ending to his international career: a tearful resignation, two runs in his last four Tests, and finally a rebel tour to South Africa.

Curtly Ambrose, who was inducted into the ICC's Hall of Fame during the ICC awards ceremony in London, tormented some of the best batsmen of his era, Rob Bagchi writes in the Guardian. Ambrose's special skill, Bagchi writes, was as an ability to get on a roll when Caribbean pride was at stake and skittle teams in plundering spells.

He was a magnificent bowler, a terrifying prospect to face, capable of inflicting serious injury as the ball sped out of his hand at 90mph plus from a height of 10 feet. But elite batsmen are not physical cowards and the danger he posed them was more subtle, shredding their technique as he made them contort into S-shapes to fend off his steepling bounce, his remorselessly precise line snuffing out their scoring shots and the spectre of his devastating yorker arrowing towards their toe-caps kindling their insecurity.

The BBC's Alison Mitchell was at the first day-night first-class match in England, between Kent and Glamorgan in Canterbury, and got the reactions of players, coaches and fans on the experiment with the pink ball.

As it turned out, the stitching on the ball split early on in the match and the players just had to get on with it; far from ideal in a First Class match, albeit one which has no bearing on Division Two promotion. The performance of the ball got mixed reactions.

Sourav Ganguly talks to the Times of India about India's dismal tour of England, and says that India looked ordinary without Zaheer Khan. He said a captain is only as good as his team, and that he will not be involved in commentary regularly since he does not want to spend too much time away from home.

I captained the side a long time ago. A lot of changes have taken place since then. This is a different era, a different phase, but the team is still focussed on winning matches. Any team that can win matches in Australia, South Africa and England has to be good.

Andrew Wallace, the doctor who operated on Sachin Tendulkar's elbow and Virender Sehwag's shoulder, tells the Indian Express' Sandeep Dwivedi about the experience.

Things only got worse as the date of the surgery — Tendulkar was operated at the St John’s & Elizabeth Hospital in London — approached. “There were five camera crews, 150 phone calls, 180 emails and the hospital had to appoint a special PR agency just to manage the situation,” says the man who restored an elbow that has been the fulcrum of Indian cricket for two decades.

Australia deserved considerable credit for their tireless efforts to shift a Sri Lankan batting order intent on survival. It was hard yakka because the pitch in Pallekele was as inoffensive as an Andy Williams song writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Here's a conundrum. The pitch in Galle was considered so dubious that it has been reported to the ICC, and presently a dogsbody is expected to give the curator the cricketing equivalent of a kick up the backside. Yet the Test was a fascinating contest.

Any chance of asking spectators for an opinion about pitches? Maybe Galle was a bit dusty but batsmen cannot spend their entire lives smacking the ball around on roads. Pallekele was unduly placid but no one seemed too worried about that.

Stuart Broad's shoulder injury leaves his Twenty20 side searching for leader. Who better than an in-form Kevin Pietersen, asks Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.

It is possible that the selectors might ask Alastair Cook, the 50-over captain, to step in as a short-term measure. Although Cook is not in the T20 side because he is deemed not to have quite the appropriate qualities, it would be a valid call.

Equally, Cook has already had a long summer and may need the week off before leading the team on the sub-continent. Pietersen is more at ease with himself than for some time and is also in splendid form. Although he was a reluctant convert to T20 he has shown himself to be highly adept at it.

Jonathan Trott and Alastair Cook have an aversion to flamboyancy but nothing could contain the air of triumph as England swept the board at Monday's ICC awards, writes Barney Ronay in the Guardian. Before Monday night no Englishman had been anointed ICC Cricketer of the Year in the seven-year history of cricket's grandest gongs. Andrew Flintoff had a share in 2005 but no Englishman had been granted the Test laurels outright either.

And so to Trott and Cook's triumph, the centrepiece of the evening. This really did feel like a defining moment of ascension for a team built around two of the most quietly acquisitive, notably unflamboyant of modern batsmen. England players talk reflexively of building, working hard, staying hungry (Cook promised to work hard "for the 24 months coming up". OK, Alastair. And do try and enjoy it a little bit). But for one night at least this was a moment to take a deep breath and enjoy the view.

No individual in the game's history has had such an impact on his team's fortunes as Muttiah Muralitharan, Dileep Premachandran says in the National. The effect his retirement has had on Sri Lanka brings to mind New Zealand's woes post Richard Hadlee, he writes.

Before Muralitharan made his debut in 1992, Sri Lanka had won just two Tests. Over a 132-Test career in which he took 795 wickets - five were against Australia for the International Cricket Council World XI in 2005 - he contributed to 54 wins. In those triumphs, he took a staggering 438 wickets at 16.18. Over the past two decades, Sri Lanka have won just five times without him. Since his exit against India in Galle last year, they have lost three Tests and drawn six.

Vikram Kapur, writing in the Hindu, says while fellow Maratha Anna Hazare straddled the Indian consciousness like a larger-than-life Bollywood hero in August, Sachin Tendulkar went in the opposite direction with an unconvincing performance in England.

His [Tendulkar's] performance in the Test series in England saw him fall from the pedestal of a cricketing god. As the failures multiplied and the hundredth international ton refused to come, he began to look more and more the ageing athlete clinging on after his day had passed for the sake of a record ...

If Tendulkar had retired after the World Cup, the last memory of him in the blue of India would have been of him holding the trophy. And the last memory of him in Test match whites would have been a tremendous century on a brute of a pitch in Cape Town against Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel at their nastiest. An innings that helped India come back undefeated for the first time from South Africa.

Peter Roebuck points out some lessons to be learned from the poor crowds at the Pallekele Test in the Natal Witness. Stadiums should be built with more foresight he says, and Test cricket in general needs to take steps to become more viewer-friendly.

Test cricket needs to fight for its audience and ought to permit free entry into the public areas. Also, it could provide transport, shelter and other facilities in the ground. Faster over rates can also help, as players spend an inordinate time standing around chatting, drinking and moving sight screens. Obviously, too, it’s no use building vast stadiums far from population centres.

Today is Lala Amarnath's birth centenary. Vijay Lokpallay pays tribute to to the man who made a century on debut - which was also India's first century in Tests. More from the Hindu.

Lalaji was known for his temper as much for his discipline. He was sent back, ironically on disciplinary grounds, from the 1936 tour to England but Don Bradman viewed Lalaji thus: “I found Amarnath charming in every respect. He was such a splendid ambassador that it makes it all the more difficult to understand his recent suspension by the Indian Board. He certainly believed in speaking his mind.”

Another tribute in the DNA states that if ever there was a man in Indian cricket who was his own master, it was the majestic Lala — both on and off the field. In the same newspaper, Lala Amarnath's son Mohinder Amarnath says that his father was always independent in his thinking. And among the current cricketers, it was Rahul Dravid whom Lala admired.

England have called the shots against India so far on green pitches that have fuelled their dominance. But the boot will be on the other foot on upcoming tours of India writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent on Sunday.

If this inequality of surfaces seems to bestow unfair advantages, far better that than the bland alternative. It provides an examination. The hegemonyof homogeny must be resisted.

It has the potential to be as horrible for England in the near future as it is for India in the present. Except that England are a truly accomplished team who, if they learn to be patient, will operate with aplomb anywhere.

Scyld Berry in the Sunday Telegraph echoes a similar view, adding that England’s job over the next two months is to make themselves something more than solid: to unearth some flair in addition to Eoin Morgan’s which, in four years’ time, can turn semi-finalists into World Cup winners

Shouldn't the board secretary sacrifice the interests of his IPL team for the larger interest of Indian cricket, asks Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.

The body is bruised, the mind jaded by playing more cricket than anyone else has in this India team and it is a marvel that he [Dhoni] has still not broken down. Should we allow a player of his ability to become a martyr to greed, be it of the player himself or of the board? It is time to rest Dhoni from the Champions League, so that he re-energises himself for another round of strenuous challenges ahead.

Venkat Ananth, writing for Yahoo Cricket, says Ajinkya Rahane has shown talent, technique and temperament in England, and has looked every bit the top-grade cricketer.

The most impressive observation about Rahane's knocks in England is not quite the strokeplay but some of the finer details in batting, which are usually not taught but learnt as a batsman goes along, for example - strike rotation (which both he and Parthiv Patel have been doing brilliantly) or for that matter, playing the waiting game by giving the bowler his moments before taking him on (Stuart Broad at the Rose Bowl) and making the bowler earn his wicket rather than throwing it away. Of course, these less-glorious yet enormously significant attributes don't get the mention they deserve sadly, overshadowed by a more lyrical appreciation of the batsman's ability to play strokes.

Sandipan Deb explains in Mint why he won't be watching the Champions League T20 later this month.

The Indian cricket team has just got the worst drubbing of their lives, the dressing room has turned into an infirmary, we have trouble getting eleven unjet-lagged players of some quality onto the ground for the one-dayers, and already we are being swamped with rousing calls to line up for the next episode of the Indian cricket circus. What do they think we are, a nation of patsies?

In Mint, Aakash Chopra recounts a harrowing trip to Dharmashala in 2007 for a first-class match against Himachal Pradesh. An uncomfortable journey to reach the hill station in winter was followed by the humiliation of Delhi being bowled out for 75. Head here to see how the match panned out.

Geoff Miller, England's national selector, has overseen the most settled regime in the post war history of English cricket. Daniel Narcross, of Spin magazine, asks him all about it.

“We’re looking for players not to be looking over their shoulder the whole time so they can instead focus on the team ethic,” says Miller. “We give the players honesty. We give them a fair crack. We give them consistency and continuity. It’s no accident [that we have a settled side]. It’s done by meticulous method. When I was playing, far better players than me didn’t know if they’d be in the side from one game to the next.”

Abu Choudhury, writing for BanglaCricket.com, examines Shakib Al Hasan's fall from grace. There is not much you could fault the former Bangladesh captain with for his on-field performances, says Choudhury, but off it he was asking for trouble.

There will be those who condemn this as a grotesque overreaction by the BCB to a lacklustre tour. Such a conclusion, however, is misleading and ignores a pattern of poor behaviour by both the captain and his deputy. Shakib’s fall from grace is in fact the culmination of a series of acts by the Bangladesh skipper which could at best be described as naïve and at worst considered wilfully arrogant.

Michael Holding, in Firstpost.com, says India's captain cannot really prevent England from dominating with the bowlers he has at his disposal.

There have been a few comments surrounding Dhoni’s captaincy in this series but this is mediocre bowling and hence the results produced cannot be a reflection on Dhoni’s captaincy. He is captaining the team that is best available to him. Even if Clive Lloyd, Steve Waugh, Ian Chappell, Mark Taylor or Stephen Fleming or any of the other great and successful captains from the past were to captain this side they would have struggled. The fact is India needs to find some good bowlers and quickly at that.

With England's cricket season nearing its conclusion, the Daily Mail's Paul Newman chats with Nasser Hussain and David Lloyd to recap a year in which England reached the top of the Test rankings.

NEWMAN: What's your favourite memory from the summer, Nass?

NASSER: I enjoyed Bresnan v Tendulkar at The Oval. You could feel the tension as the Little Master moved towards his 100th hundred. Then the ball hit his pads, it didn't look plumb, but Rod Tucker gave it without the fallback of the review system. We all waited for HawkEye and that said he was right. Can you imagine if he'd got it wrong? Part of me wanted Sachin to get it so I could say I was there but I also thought it would have papered over the cracks.

For a man who wasn't deemed good enough to make the one-day outfit in the World Cup, Alastair Cook has surprised many with his outstanding ODI form in the home season. The Independent's Stephen Brenkley leads the praise for the England ODI captain.

It has not only been the weight of runs but the pace at which they have come. The critics have been scattered to the four winds where Cook now appears capable of hitting his strokes.

It is not always a comfortable sight and it is never elegant. But Cook somehow is forcing himself to adapt, playing shots down the ground and clearing the front leg to whip it to cow corner. Instead of carrying Yorick's skull he has a water-spraying carnation.

In the Daily Telegraph Simon Hughes says it seems extraordinary now that there were doubts whether Cook was suited to opening in ODIs.

Previously typecasting him as a stolid batsman, we should have known what team director Andy Flower and batting coach Graham Gooch had already realised, that the best players can adapt their game to suit any format and that the resourceful and totally focused Cook would find a way.

And he has. Despite not getting much of the strike initially on Tuesday, he kept up with Craig Kieswetter’s scoring rate.

Osman Samiuddin, writing in the National, looks back on the magic that was once cricket in Sharjah, as the venue prepares to make a comeback on the global stage.

When Abdulrahman Bukhatir was studying in Karachi and falling in love with the game, his hero was Hanif [Mohammad]. So when he subsequently returned to the Emirates, Bukhatir naturally patronised the game among the growing population of subcontinent expatriates in numerous, smaller ways until, in 1981, came the big moment ...

Bukhatir took [Asif] Iqbal to a vast plot of land, empty of life but full of sand. It was October. "Bring me two teams," Bukhatir told Iqbal, "and everything will be up and running for March ..." On that land near the Sharjah Club ... grass was grown and an all-weather synthetic surface fixed on top of the usual cement turf. Scaffolding was set up for spectators. They were not expecting many. Iqbal used his network to pull in, essentially, the entire first teams of India and Pakistan: the Sunil Gavaskar XI and the Javed Miandad XI. On April 3, 1981 everything was ready. Nearly 8,000 came ...

Though it can be a little startling on first viewing, Eoin Morgan's wobbly-kneed, crouching trigger movement is simply a technical refinement, writes Barney Ronay in The Spin Guardian blog. What's more, Morgan's "defining exoticism" suits him, and you might as well get used to it because it's here to stay.

Perhaps the first unusual thing about the Lunge is that it should be seen as unusual at all. It is a mark of how carefully styled batting techniques have become in the age of top-down micro-analysis that this bending of the knees should seem so striking. In the pre-modern era the range of different "set-ups" was far more varied. Notable stand-outs included: the swaying, wafting bat waggle of David Gower; the hunched, fidgeting broad-shouldered ballerina elegance of Mohammed Azharuddin; the extraordinary Kim Barnett, who used to come Riverdancing in from short leg; Derek Randall who appeared to have been caught sneaking off towards point; and Peter Willey who simply stood there, front on, like a caveman playing French cricket.

The larger debate on accountability in Indian sport has been overshadowed by how the new sports bill will affect cricket writes Kunal Pradhan in the Mumbai Mirror. Taking control of cricket and putting it under the RTI are two mutually exclusive ideas; while the first would be disastrous, the second is necessary.

But there is another aspect to this discussion that is being glossed over by most experts (even those who’re not on the BCCI payroll). Should any body that performs a public service, especially a ‘non-profit organisation’ such as the Indian cricket board, have a problem with the RTI Act? If anything, the BCCI, which projects itself as a beacon of hope at a time when other sports are dying, save for a few gifted athletes here and there, should volunteer to be open to public scrutiny.

"It is a very tough individual sport within a team game and I love watching it," says All Blacks star Conrad Smith, who played cricket right till he started university. Wynne Gray in the New Zealand Herald finds out more.

"I know enough about cricket to understand it is a cruel sport. I would never judge anyone who plays it. The mind games in that sport are cruel ... as a batsman you get one chance. In rugby if you make a hash of something you get a chance at redemption."

MS Dhoni is the most overworked cricketer in the country and the selection committee should seriously think about protecting him, writes Suresh Menon on espnstar.com.

Protect him from the excessive physical and mental demands so that he is at the top of his game for longer than his workload might indicate? To keep wickets is a full-time, nerve-wracking job; to lead a side, ditto; to be one of the main batsmen with responsibilities to control the innings, ditto. And Dhoni does the job of three men in three different formats of the game while maintaining one of the coolest responses to victory and defeat by any captain.

He didn’t burst into tears when India were thrashed in England (at least one international captain in recent memory walked off centre stage in tears), he didn’t suggest it was the end of the world. Such self-control is both awe-inspiring and frankly, a bit worrying. How does this man let off steam?

It's time to have a look at some of the players picked for the ODIs in England and see if they have been anywhere near selection for the Indian team, says Sunil Gavaskar. Just because the IPL has more viewership than the Ranji Trophy does not mean that the players who do well in that should get the India cap, he writes in Mid-Day, but have a look at some of the players picked for the ODIs and see if they have done well and been anywhere near selection for the Indian team. So the caps were quite clearly undeserved and a waste.

The Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy are the premier tournaments for selection and have always been so, but how many of the games are watched by selectors who are now paid to do so? The selectors are seen at Test and international matches in India and that too even when the Ranji or Duleep games are going on and it would be far more productive if the selectors were out for those and look for new talent than go to a Test and see players whom they have seen so many times before. Mind you, with most if not all Ranji games being played without the international players it doesn’t always give a correct picture of the ability and temperament of the player. Still to ignore that is not a smart thing to do.

Ricky Ponting’s absence for Australia’s second Test against Sri Lanka – he flew home for the birth of his second child – is an opportunity for the younger generation to display their credentials for Test cricket. In the Age, Peter Roebuck runs the rule over those next in line.

David Warner deserves his chance. His career has been held back partly because NSW has mishandled him and partly because he has suffered from hotness in the head. Nevertheless he is only 24 and averages 53 in state cricket. Of all the younger batsmen he had the tightest technique, just that his career threw him into another world and gradually looseness crept in.

In many respects Warner is the first product of the new cricketing age. It has been his fate to be denied the traditional batting education and instead to be encouraged to hit hard and often. Fame and fortune smiled on every six.

Saad Shafqat, writing in the Dawn, says Lahore’s great Test centre is no ordinary stadium and it is a travesty for it to carry the name that it does.

It [the Gaddafi Stadium] is the headquarters of the Pakistan Cricket Board, which makes it not just the spiritual but also the official home of Pakistan cricket. It is a magnificent arena that has seen some stirring cricketing moments ... Contemplating a new name for this hallowed turf is not a straightforward exercise ...

It seems to me that the best chance of reaching universal agreement would be to honour a cricketing personality of enormous significance, and who better than some who also happens to be a son of Lahore. No, I’m not thinking of Imran Khan, although God knows he deserves it. The problem with Imran is that his political dimensions would prevent any such attempts proceeding further in our [Pakistan's] current national climate. And since Gaddafi is now a laughing stock, we really have no time to waste. I believe the ideal new name for Lahore’s famous Test centre would be Kardar Stadium. Just saying it out loud is gratifying—it resonates with a lovely ring.

Tom Alter, writing for Firstpost.com, looks back on Farokh Engineer's career. Engineer, he says, still has the swagger, the bravado and enthusiasm with which he played the great game back in the old days.

He was light-years ahead of his time; he had style – that swaggered, buttons open, collar up style – long before Tong Greig and Viv Richards made it popular. He did an ad campaign – Brylcream, before Dhoni was born, he batted with complete abandon before even the one-day game had been dreamed of in India. He made England his playing home when just to get to England was a miracle – he played for India while playing very little domestic cricket, in the era where to play Ranji Trophy was the rule and when he stumped someone, especially if it was Alan Knott, he led the whole stadium know of his magic.

England overwhelming their opponents has been admirable but not as exciting as the domestic scene, writes Vic Marks in the Observer.

With the international summer of cricket, where a strange pattern was soon established: England turn up and overwhelm their opponents. Which has been admirable but seldom gripping.

But domestically we are constantly surprised. The devotees can cast an eye at the next round of fixtures, which start on Wednesday and in Division One there is not a "dead" game to be found. There will be no late-season blooding of youngsters just for the sake of it. Instead there will be late fitness tests in the hope that some old stalwart can drag his body out one more time in the last-ditch pursuit of glory or survival. There are no end-of-season parties in July in Division One.

In their 96 one-day internationals since the end of the 2007 World Cup, England have tried 19 different opening combinations between 12 players writes Steve James in the Sunday Telegraph. And Saturday’s brief proceedings with the bat in the first one-day international against India at Chester-le-Street emphasised why it has been so difficult to find a settled England pairing.

This was a glimpse of what so much of county cricket’s one-day stuff is like. The ball nipped around under grey skies on a pudding of a pitch, and the bowling was of negligible pace. And the orders? Make maximum use of the powerplay overs and their concomitant field placings. Oh, and don’t get out. All the very best.

It is why so often the more conventional opener outscores the batsman built for savagery. As Jonathan Liew pointed out, in the recent Sri Lanka series Cook’s strike rate was higher than Kieswetter’s. Plod was quicker than the pugilist.

While sports bodies must be autonomous and free, they also have a responsibility to be accountable and transparent, Venkatesh Nayak writes in DNA. He says for an accountability mechanism for work it must be structured in a decentralised manner and be managed by individuals.

The BCCI makes its millions every season when cricket fever hits the country. Yet, it has zealously guarded its account books as well as its decision-making processes. As a society registered in Tamil Nadu even its annual report is not up on its website despite the law treating it is a document that should be accessible to anybody from the Registrar of Societies on payment of a nominal fee.

Archna Shukla, writing in the Indian Express, traces the rise of the BCCI from a nondescript organisation barely making ends meet to the world’s richest cricket board, as well as its strong points and its drawbacks.

If on the one hand, it was Dalmiya’s foresightedness to unlock cricket’s commercial potential, on the other, it was an evolving media and advertising environment—and the absence of a rival sport—that helped cricket, and hence BCCI establish its dominance in the market. Even today, media and sponsorship rights alone contribute more than 75 per cent to BCCI’s revenues.

Australia's win in the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle has shown that while they have not turned into a team of world beaters, they continue to play organised cricket, writes Peter Roebuck in the Herald on Sunday. Moreover, it confirmed that the culture - severely criticised in the Argus review - has improved, which will assist anyone joining the side.

In the field, though, the visitors continued to play tight cricket and to look like a much improved outfit. Heavily criticised in the Argus report, Australia's team culture has held up well. Of course it is early days. If a team lacks spark at the start of a summer and under a new captain and with a couple of country boys making their debuts, then the game is up.

The Daily Telegraph's Tom Sangster tells the story of how four balls in a third-grade game in 2005 transformed Trent Copeland from a wicketkeeper-batsman to a seamer.

The equation was simple: St George needed four wickets. The frontline bowlers were spent. Rain was looming. Umpires were grumbling. Only 10, maybe 15 minutes until the heavens opened and the game was done. Drawn. And nobody like draws. "It was almost like, 'Oh well, the game is done here, we may as well give Copes a bowl'," the Bathurst product recalls. Twelve balls later and Copeland had taken 4-1. Four swerving yorkers. Two LBWs. One scattered castle. And a snick to slips. St George had won, the beers were flowing, Oh When The Saints was blaring, a champion was born, and the rest is history.

Peter Roebuck, in the Sydney Morning Herald, says Ricky Ponting is looking fit, light and alert, but his dismissals in Galle suggest his mind is the one thing letting him down.

Most likely Ponting's mind has been liberated by his return to the ranks. Maybe he feels a bit like Berlin after the Wall was removed. Perhaps he is keen to play his shots, enjoy his cricket and so forth. But it's never as simple as that. Getting out hurts just as much.

The specific purpose of Ajay Maken’s National Sports Development Bill was to gain control of the cash-rich Board of Control for Cricket in India, writes Ashok Malik in the Pioneer. Malik asks that while the BCCI has much to answer for and is scarcely a model of corporate governance, does it deserve to be answerable under RTI provisions? After all it receives no grants from the Government and, instead, contributes to the public exchequer by paying taxes.More from the Pioneer.

Mr Maken argues the BCCI gets “indirect monetary help”.This is puzzling. Some of the properties cited by Mr Maken — such as the Feroze Shah Kotla Stadium managed by the DDCA in New Delhi — were set aside for use as sports venues decades ago. He says many stadiums used by the BCCI and its affiliates, the State cricket associations, have been built on land received “free of cost or at concessional rates from the Government”.

This is no different from social clubs — such as the Delhi Gymkhana Club or the Delhi Golf Club, to give two examples — that have got land at concessional rates from the Government as part of the process of developing civic spaces in a metropolis. Should the Gymkhana Club also come under the RTI Act?

Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times argues that the BCCI, mired as it is in many allegations of financial misdemeanour, especially in the IPL, should have welcomed the Sports Bill, instead of taking refuge behind the argument that being a private body, it is not subject to any government regulation.

In the Times of India, Sanjay Manjrekar, Bobilli Vijay Kumar and Yash Gupta weigh in with their opinions on the proposed bill. Manjrekar says while transparency is desirable it does not guarantee success of the national team; Kumar says the bill will make the BCCI less arrogant while Gupta says it is an opportunity for the board to change its image, which is that of a closed body.

Unimpressed by the predictability of limited-overs cricket, Greg Baum says, in the Age, it was refreshing to see Nathan Lyon and Trent Copeland stick to the basics of Test cricket in Galle.

There was no splintering of stumps, nor did some gaudily clad fieldsman perform boundary rope contortions to take a telegenic catch, nor was there a commentator's ejaculation. Rather, Nathan Lyon and his receding hairline shuffled a couple of steps, pivoted and looped his first ball in Test cricket towards Kumar Sangakkara. Innocuous to look at, it pitched, bit, brought up a puff of dust. Sangakkara prodded it uncertainly to slip, where Michael Clarke's reflexes were quick enough to track it and scoop it up in his outflung left hand.

A clearing up of the poor management in Australian cricket has given the players the confidence that they will be rewarded for playing for their team, Patrick Smith says in the Australian. As a result, the team are playing some of the most disciplined cricket they have in years in Sri Lanka, he writes.

Yet before the Argus report was tabled with its evisceration of Australia's cricket management, coaching protocols and aimless selection theories, it might be that Australian players were not confident enough to play cricket in the previous disciplined manner that was the tattoo of the great teams of the 1990s and early 2000s. If 12 wickets on debut guaranteed you just 49 more overs, if two hundreds in a Test was a pre-cursor to demotion as it was with Phil Hughes, then unity of purpose within any team can evaporate with each and every incomprehensible management decision.

A wicket off his first ball in Test cricket and a five-for on debut ... Nathan Lyon has made dream start to Test career but comparisons with spin legend may be a tad early writes Robin Scott-Elliot in the Independent.

There is no shortage of cautionary tales to accompany Lyon to the second Test, chief among them Krejza himself. The off-spinner took eight wickets in his first Test innings three years ago (although he also conceded a record 215 runs). Peter Taylor, the off-spinner who, legend has it, was chosen by accident, took six wickets on his debut against England in 1987 but played only 13 Tests, and that was seven more than Bob Massie, who took 16 wickets on his debut at Lord's in 1972, managed.

Warne's debut was anything but notable, 1 for 150 in his first innings against India. He went wicketless the first time he bowled in Sri Lanka too amid great expectation. For Lyon the expectation will only grow.

The last cricketer to take a wicket with their first ball in Tests was Sri Lanka's Chamila Gamage, and he only played one more Test. Gamage told Sri Lanka's Daily Mirror it was difficult to calm one's nerves enough to make your first ball count, and said he hoped Lyon plays more Tests than he did.

Lyon looks the goods, writes Malcolm Conn in the Daily Telegraph. With his loop, drift, turn and bounce he is more dangerous than left-armer Michael Beer, who played the last Test in Sydney and is on this tour. And unlike the many who have come before him recently, Lyon may be with us for some time, but don't expect miracles or another Warne-style record-breaking career.

Lyon's dream was to become head curator at the Adelaide Oval. Just months ago he was dreaming of growing grass in Adelaide, but now he is raising dust and hell in the shadow of the Galle fort, bamboozling some of the world's most experienced players of spin bowling. Peter Lalor in the Australian tracks Lyon's journey.

Peter Roebuck, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, says there was a level of professionalism in Australia's combination in the Galle Test, as they produced their most suffocating bowling performance for a long time.

Throughout a fretful Sri Lankan innings, the visiting flingers forced their opponents to work for every run. Meanwhile, an alert captain set astute fields. It was a far cry from the gormless cricket observed in recent campaigns ...

Australia's bowlers contributed superbly. Already the attack looks stronger. Not that it is exactly lethal or that every day will go as smoothly. Nor will every pitch be as bone dry or the opponents as supine. But there is honesty and professionalism in this combination that has been missing.

Rahul Dravid, the other debutant for India in Wednesday's Twenty international, presumably played 21 balls without really caring about batting, says Kartikeya in A Cricketing View blog. This Dravid may have the same passport as the guy who made 146 not out at The Oval, but it was not the same batsman.

I rarely watch T20 games. The last game I watched carefully was the 2010 IPL Final. I watched because Sachin Tendulkar played that game. Having watched that game and now Dravid's batting in this game carefully, I can identify with the macabre fascination people have with watching bad horror movies. It was like watching an idle man trying to throw crumpled paper into a dustbin while sitting on a park bench. If he threw enough balls of crumpled paper, a few of them would eventually get in.

Ajinkya Rahane was depressed because he did not feel his achievements in domestic cricket were being recognised, his Mumbai coach Pravin Amre tells the Indian Express' Devendra Pandey. After plenty of runs on the domestic circuit Rahane finally got called up to the national side after an impressive showing in the Emerging Players Tournament.

Rahane wasn’t worried about his shot selection. Instead, he asked a question that was begging to be asked. “What more do I have to do to make it to the Indian team?” asked a frustrated Rahane, one of domestic cricket’s most prolific scorers over the last few seasons. Having earned the reputation of being a Mumbai run-machine so early in his career, it was natural for the youngster to think of getting a national call-up. Rahane, according to Amre, was entering a phase of depression.

In the Hindustan Times, Sanjay Dixit, the Rajasthan Cricket Academy secretary, writes that the bill proposed by the sports ministry to regulate all national sports bodies including the BCCI will control the cricket board too much. He says the bill prescribes too many specific things and will therefore interfere with the working of the BCCI.

As far as age prescriptions go, I am not clear how limiting it to below-70 would help. A sportsman spends all his youth playing and it’s only around the age of 40 he starts getting into sports administration. If we want experienced sportsmen to retire by 70, there is a huge contradiction here. Non-sportsmen get into administration much earlier. Thus, the avowed purpose of the Bill of making more sportsmen part of the top administration gets defeated by prescribing age limits.

Vidushpat Singhania, however, says in the same paper that the bill does not control the board but simply holds it accountable. He also suggests a means by which the BCCI can come under the Right to Information Act without there being too many unnecessary petitions filed.

A distinction that could be deliberated is to limit the scope of RTI in sports only to a decision or process having an economical impact, whilst leaving sporting decisions and rules outside its ambit. A similar distinction between pure sporting decisions and decisions having an economic impact has been discussed in Europe and a similar principle can be adopted in India.

Cricket currently represents the most fascinating and complex, given its three formats, laboratory for future industrial action, writes Osman Samiuddin in the National. And gradually, the increasing tension between owners and workers seems unavoidable, and maybe growing industrial action, too, and feels, Osman writes, queasily like an inevitability.

The scene is changing. Money, and lots of it, is flooding in, unevenly and mostly to privately-owned clubs in Twenty20 leagues in different countries rather than to national boards.Individuals, such as Andrew Symonds, Chris Gayle and Lasith Malinga, recognise the change and are beginning to prioritise lucrative club deals over national representation.

A recent Fica survey puts this trend into numbers. Nearly a third of the players questioned said they would retire from international cricket prematurely to pursue careers with club-based leagues such as the Indian Premier League (IPL); 40 per cent said that given the higher pay in such leagues they could foresee a day where obligations to leagues could take priority over obligation to national boards.

Writing in Mint about the proposed law to regulate sports bodies in India, Ayaz Memon points out that the Indian government has a dismal track record in sports administration. He believes though that the BCCI must be more transparent and open to public scrutiny.

The BCCI functions like some freemasonry, shrouded in secrecy and with a veneer of arrogance, which is not just unnecessary but also unacceptable in current climes. That said, I am vehemently opposed to the government taking over the BCCI; indeed, all sports bodies should be disencumbered from the government if Indian sport is to make real headway.

The Australian system, according to me, has strong merits. There is no sports ministry in that country. The government provides broad guidelines—sports for all, zero-tolerance for drugs and promoting health and healthy competition—on which the Australian Sports Commission​ (ASC) acts in collaboration with various federations and associations.

An editorial in the Indian Express says the proposed bill should "unquestionably be seen as a naked power-grab". In the same paper, Desh Gaurav Chopra Sekhri, while praising the bill's intents, questions its scope and methodology.

Bringing the BCCI under the RTI might be plausible when it comes to profit-making, or conflicts of interest-related queries. However, given an unlimited licence to question each aspect of the NSF’s activities and authority, it’s more than likely that the RTI will become a national referendum on team-selection processes involving the public. The risk of frivolity is extreme, and could actually inhibit any professional progress made by those federations who actually intend to promote and develop their respective sports.

Two years ago, ECB chairman Giles Clarke was widely criticised for the Stanford debacle, but now with the England team have a fantastic run, he is as secure as ever in the job and is expected to be elected unopposed for a third term next year. Paul Newman interviews Clarke in the Daily Mail.

"We will not stay at No 1 unless the conveyor belt is really strong. When one goes about the counties I find it fascinating to hear about the quality of the 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds coming through.

"We have shown what we can do if there is a shared focus across the country. I’m hugely encouraged England is now the place everybody is looking at to know what to do. For so long all we used to hear about was the Australian way."

Mike Selvey writes in the Guardian that Indian cricket has been complacent, banking on a few great players to pull through, and that the team could slide to fifth in the Test rankings over the next two years. He wonders whether the BCCI will have something along the lines of a Schofield report or the Argus review.

No one would expect the BCCI to announce such an investigation before the tour has finished, but all the indications are that no such review will be necessary. It is all a temporary blip. There have been injuries, players are tired, and of course England played very well in their own conditions (and just wait until they come to India). This is the stuff of ostriches.

Osman Samiuddin finds that night cricket in Abu Dhabi is big during Ramzan. He talks to several Sri Lankan and Pakistani first-class cricketers who turned up for the club competition during the festive period. More in the National.

It is serious stuff, as Azeem Ghumman, recently an Under 19 Pakistan and Hyderabad captain, explains. "I actually left a league in England to come and play here. There were a couple of players from Hyderabad who played here last season and I saw the improvement in them through the season back home." ...

The standards here, he says, have been good enough to provide a useful warm-up for a big season. The financial incentives, he adds, have not been bad either.

Madhav Mantri, the former Indian wicketkeeper who is also Sunil Gavaskar's uncle, turns 90 today. DNA's Derek Abraham met him before the big day.

The Mumbaikar played four Tests but it was his decision to introduce his nephew to the game that earned him more accolades. “I gave the little boy a copy of my first book. It was in Marathi and the title of the book translates to ‘How to Play Cricket’,” Mantri recalls.

“A day later, he came back and proclaimed, ‘Nana Mama, I’ve read the entire book, from start to finish’. I was obviously impressed,” he adds. That little boy went on to become a Little Master — Sunil Gavaskar.