Telford Vice, writing in Business Day, reviews Robin Jackman's autobiography. Jackers: A Life in Cricket isn’t all about cricket, he says; there is enough there to satisfy aficionados, and a lot else besides.

The value of Jackman’s life is that it would have a book in it even if he wasn’t a public figure. His father, a British army colonel who lost a leg in a shooting accident and wrote sentimental verse, is straight out of Wodehouse. One of his poems was titled Fred’s Erection. No, sport-lovers, it’s not what you think. Patrick Cargill, star of British sitcom Father Dear Father and two Carry On films, was Jackman’s uncle. At 15, Jackman was invited to a lunch to celebrate the completion of the filming of A Countess from Hong Kong, Charlie Chaplin’s last project as a director. It featured Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando.

The coverage of the go-karting trip by sections of the Indian media has once again highlighted why the players try to stay as far away from reporters as possible. In the Open magazine, Boria Majumdar details how both parties are to blame for the impending collapse of trust between India's cricketers and its news media.

Whatever the Indian media’s compulsions, the reasons for India’s failure have to do with issues that have been highlighted in this magazine over the past few weeks. The moot questions are, does India consider Test cricket its top priority? Secondly, will the BCCI stop criticising the media for rightly blaming inconsequential tournaments like the Champions League as the real cause behind player fatigue and injury? Finally, will the BCCI ensure Indian players get enough rest?

It is the duty of the media to highlight these issues and to put pressure on the BCCI to take correctives. The BCCI cannot begrudge them that. However, unreasonable stories like the go-karting or winery excursions will not help our cricket. Nor will such stories enhance the anyway dubious reputation of the media. Instead, these stories will divide the team and the touring media who need to feed off each other at times of crisis.

The Indian cricket team should use businessman Jack Welch's strategy of phasing out of the deadwoods from a company, Vijay Tagore writes in DNA. He says that while the BCCI is essentially now a big corporate house, its functioning is retrograde.

A defeat of this magnitude calls for not only a review, but a revamp of the system. However, history tells us that the BCCI is loath to such an initiative. Its petulance, one understands, has something to do with history. The last such review, following India’s premature exit from the 2007 World Cup, resulted in a sort of indictment of the board’s mandarins. The former captains, who attended the review meeting, found fault with the board than players. Once bitten, the BCCI is forever shy.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Sourav Ganguly says Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman have earned the right to decide when they should quit the Test side, and the selectors should give them that respect.

I do not disagree that performance is the sole criteria in picking teams, but the seniors need to be handled well. They are mature enough to know what is right for the team as they have huge contributions to the game in our part of the world, and I firmly believe they should be allowed to decide when to go. We all understand the time is not far off for them, and I will not be surprised if the announcements come in the not too distant future, but they should be allowed to do it on their own terms.

All the discourse after India's dismal tours of England and Australia has been about a structural overhaul of Indian cricket, Siddhartha Vaidyanathan says on his blog, but, while that is a worthy aspiration, it is unlikely to happen. He says India needs to focus on goals for the next four or five years, and work on those.

India go through four Tests with almost no change in personnel. Do the captain and coach think Rohit Sharma is fit for Test cricket? Is he part of their medium-term vision? Wasn’t it worth giving him at least one – yes, one – Test to try and gauge his temperament? Hasn’t Virat Kohli shown us the benefits of persisting with a young cricketer? Where do Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar fit into the Test team’s medium-term future? Do the selectors plan to sit back and wait (an agonizing wait) for the players to decide on their own exits?

Graham Ford, the new Sri Lanka coach, speaks to Rex Clementine in the Island about the reasons he took the job and what he intends to achieve with the team.

Sometimes you could feel that you were having the better of certain teams, but with Sri Lanka you always knew that they would come back fighting. It was that character that excites one about Sri Lankan cricket and their last tour to South Africa showed it. Everyone in South Africa gave them no chance whatsoever as it was tough for them to come and adjust to South African conditions. They were blown away in the first Test and to bounce back by showing unbelievable character, spoke of their toughness. The characteristics that I feared as a coach years ago are still there and that’s exciting.

In the Sunday Guardian, Dileep Premachandran writes that India's batting greats should bow out like Nasser Hussain, who scored a century in his final Test and timed his retirement perfectly, and not like Kapil Dev and Javed Mianded, who played on for longer than they should have.

Regardless of where the big three go from here – and let's hope it's not down the Kapil-Miandad route – Indian fans would do well to eviscerate these two tours from memory. For more than a decade, these same men made a country proud, taking Indian cricket to heights it had never scaled before. This ignominious end shouldn't obscure that.

In one of the greatest sports pieces ever written, Sports Illustrated's Frank Deford said this of Johnny Unitas, the Baltimore Colts quarterback who was also a boyhood hero. "Ultimately, you see, what he conveyed to his teammates and to Baltimore and to a wider world was the utter faith that he could do it. He could make it work. Somehow, he could win. He would win. It almost didn't matter when he actually couldn't. The point was that with Johnny U, it always seemed possible. You so very seldom get that, even with the best of them. Johnny U's talents were his own. The belief he gave us was his gift."

Abdur Rehman took 6 for 25 as England were rolled over for 72 © Getty Images

Mike Selvey writes in the Observer that England's old failings against spin has already put their top ranking in jeopardy. He also looks at what changes England's batsmen made in their bid to counter Pakistan's trio of twirlers.

Andrew Strauss, who for much of his innings stayed on the back foot and scored in his habitual areas square. Others, such as Kevin Pietersen, strive to use their height and get forward, knowing that the pace at which Abdur Rehman and Saeed Ajmal can bowl can catch batsmen all too readily on the back foot. Essentially, though, where pad play was once an integral part of technique against spin, the ball has to be played with the bat.

In The National Osman Samiuddin turns to Sufi theories and bad jokes as he tries to make sense of Pakistan's logic defying victory.

These are perfectly sensible explanations but I prefer one that draws from Sufism (and this may sound overblown at first and probably is even on reflection but we will stick with it). In these moments, they enter a state of Haal, a kind of temporary state of a different consciousness to the state normally inhabited.

They walk and act differently, with greater urgency and settle upon some central figures around whom they all whir in unison towards one central purpose.

In his column in the Mail on Sunday, James Anderson sums up how England are feeling.

The over-riding feeling was one of shock. Shock that we'd allowed a winning position to slip away so easily and shock that we'd allowed a pressure situation to get the better of us.

An editorial in the Express Tribune says that with this series win over the world's top-ranked side, Misbah-ul-Haq "now deserves to be elevated to the pantheon of great Pakistani captains".

In the Sunday Telegraph, Michael Vaughan says teams can't expect to win when only two of their top six batsmen are playing with confidence, and has some advice on how to tackle spin.

The best players of spin have the ability to score 360 degrees of the ground.

At the moment England have too many players who can only hit through 90 degrees. It makes it easier for Pakistan to defend the boundary leaving England with not enough options to take the pressure off.

England need to look at the way Misbah-ul-Haq plays the spinners. He plants his front foot down and either plays through extra cover or hits over the top. Unless you are a brilliant sweeper, that is the way to play.

In his blog on the Times of India's website, Avijit Ghosh says Indian fans should thank Australia for doling out a thumping that will force the India team to confront harsh realities. The series, he says, will settle the debate on whether ageing players should be allowed to continue, make the selectors consider dropping the opening pair, and perhaps even the ineffective Ishant Sharma.

Let us accept that Tendulkar’s form too is a major issue. What do you do with a player who plays badly but cannot be dropped? Tendulkar started the series better than his colleagues but faded away in the last two Tests. His fans will say, he still has the best average in the team. But the truth is that he has not played a single innings that makes any difference to the team’s fortunes for eight straight Test matches away from home. Tendulkar doesn’t look out of form but he seems to have lost the ability to play big knocks.

Watching the movie Moneyball got Stuart MacGill thinking about how much use statistical analysis has in sport. Having worked with John Buchanan, a notorious statistics boffin, MacGill says computers and stats have a role to play in sport, but the basic principles of the game are more important. The only statistics that matter in cricket, MacGill writes in the Sydney Morning Herald, are: make more runs than the opposition and bowl them out twice.

John excitedly told me that whenever I pitched the ball on off stump, the batsman wasn't scoring. He generally took half an hour to make a point and, considering the tea break at a Test match is only 20 minutes, we were already walking back onto the field at the time. I turned to him and replied that the reason they weren't scoring when I bowled that particular delivery was because the ball had been turning half a metre and they couldn't actually reach it. I thanked him kindly for his input and asked him whether or not he thought I should concentrate instead on getting them out. His blank face indicated that he would have to go back to the laptop before he could respond.

India's insipid performance made Australia look better than they are, Greg Baum writes in the Sydney Morning Herald, but the confidence the 4-0 series win will give Australia is invaluable.

One thing leads to another. On the second evening in Melbourne, the inspired Siddle sheared through Tendulkar. From that moment, Australia's seamers became a pack of dogs with a bone. Bowling coach Craig McDermott emerged as an unsung hero. When Lyon finally got his chance, he seized it by the seam. At last, Australia has stopped trying to find the next Shane Warne, figuring that if they finds one half as good, they will be happy.

In the Courier Mail, Malcolm Conn says there will be tougher challenges to come for Australia, and there are still questions about who will replace the senior batsmen when they retire, but the resurgent bowling attack and the emergence of David Warner as a Test star bode well for Australian cricket.

Some impressive talent has burst forth in the process under the fresh leadership of Clarke. David Warner wasn't even a NSW Sheffield Shield regular last summer when Australia lost the Ashes; now he shapes as one of Test cricket's greatest drawcards since Shane Warne. And there is great excitement about having injured pace pair James Pattinson and Pat Cummins on the park together for an extended run with the new ball.

In Caravan Magazine, Rahul Bhatia looks back on how Mark Mascarenhas - who was in fatal car accident ten years ago to a day - first broke open the business of cricket.

Over the course of the era that he helped define—and then in the decade after him—the sport grew up from a gawky adolescence to an irresponsible adulthood, and the hesitations of yesterday were cast aside for the noisy satisfactions of a protracted financial bender. Looking back now, the sums involved were minute, but they made headlines at the time: when one of Mascarenhas’s clients became the first cricket millionaire in 1995, it was big enough news to make the cover of the weekly news magazine Outlook. A million dollars is what some cricketers now earn in a month. Mascarenhas was derided for the price he paid to acquire the 1996 World Cup; 16 years later, that amount wouldn’t have bought him two days of Indian cricket coverage. The transformation of the game wasn’t accomplished by one man alone, but Mascarenhas made the first move.

Over the past few months, there has been plenty of debate in India over whether Sachin Tendulkar should receive the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour. He wasn't awarded it this year, and Aakar Patel argues in business newspaper Mint that Tendulkar shouldn't get the honour.

In 2010, the Indian Air Force made Tendulkar a group captain, the only sportsman ever to hold this rank. Tendulkar is already Padma Vibhushan, the second highest honour the Republic of India can give. Kumar Gandharva took apart the gharana system, transformed the culture of Hindustani music and was also given the Padma Vibhushan. Tendulkar hit cricket balls. Many cricket balls, and very far. But Bharat Ratna?

Aakash Chopra, in his column for Cricketnext.com writes that getting rid of India's senior players in one go will not improve India's Test record in the immediate future. He says India missed a trick by not grooming the next generation in the home series against West Indies.

We should have taken the seniors into confidence and asked them to play only two of the three Test matches, therefore allowing a couple of youngsters a longer run in the five-day format. Even though we missed the trick earlier, we can exercise the same option next time we play Test cricket. Seniors aren't liabilities but are the much needed cushions for youngsters. It's imperative to have a few experienced men around who can soak in the pressure and give youngsters the allowance to fail.

In the same website, Jamie Alter writes that Virat Kohli has put all insecurities to one side and set about proving that he's more than just a limited-overs wonder.

This 116 wasn't quite in the class of the knocks that the Australians have reeled off this series, but it was a performance of great resolve and substance, the like of which India have failed to produce on tour. As a unit they have mislaid the art of the meaningful innings, the ability to bat out sessions and turn starts into centuries.

In Livemint, Ayaz Memon writes that Gautam Gambhir's comment that India should wear opposition teams down on turning pitches is worrying because it could not be just his opinion, but that of the cricketing establishment.

The timing and tone of Gambhir’s diatribe was unexpected, and perhaps more pertinently, unhelpful. If pique and surliness could win matches, India would have been clear winners instead of being three Tests down and facing a second successive whitewash overseas. If anything, this could only rile the Australians into being even more determined to win at Adelaide.

In the same paper, one of India's younger brigade, Manoj Tiwary, says he's been preparing for the conditions in Australia by practicing with wet tennis balls bowled from a shorter distance.

I am sure the dressing room atmosphere is good. I have spoken to some of my teammates there and the morale is high despite the loss. I don’t believe the other players will think about the defeat either.

Misbah-ul-Haq has been the architect of the series so far to a great extent with his stoic batting, writes Scyld Berry in the Daily Telegraph.

Misbah is not as good a player as Inzamam-ul-Haq, a consummate hooker who would have dealt with Broad’s bouncers. But Misbah has something of Inzamam’s lordly demeanour, and he is a far more impressive captain.

Out of Pakistan’s spot-fixing scandal, Misbah is the best thing to have come – along with the virtues he has inculcated in his inexperienced team. While Salman Butt is serving a 30-month sentence, Misbah is serving his country.

Monty Panesar made a good comeback to international cricket but Pakistan adapted to his tactics well in Abu Dhabi, writes Simon Hughes in the same newspaper.

Nasser Hussain looks back on an "excellent day" for England, in the Daily Mail.

Panesar deserved more for his hard work on the first day in Abu Dhabi, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

Nearly 30 years ago, an accountant in Sri Lanka, Mahinda Wijesinghe, made one of the earliest calls for video replays to assist the umpires at a time when technology in cricket was still in its infancy. His suggestion to the ICC were rejected. In The National, Osman Samiuddin chronicles the history of technology in cricket from the 1990s.

Three months later, in the New Year's Ashes Test at Sydney, arrived the first of many false tipping points. John Dyson was run out by Bob Willis off his own bowling in the match's first over, by at least 18 inches, the Wisden Almanack recorded. Except he was not, because Mel Johnson, the square leg umpire, did not think so. Dyson made a five-hour 79 in a game that was ultimately drawn, allowing Australia to regain the Ashes.

The stock of Indian cricket is at its lowest since the match-fixing crisis of 2000, says Ashok Malik, writing in the Hindustan Times.

As the Dravid-Tendulkar generation moves on, as India starts to put together a new team, the India XI's performances will be erratic and valuations will drop. In these circumstances, the entire Indian cricket industry that has come up in the past seven to 10 years - and which now employs tens of thousands - could find the IPL a safer bet. This may sound abhorrent to some but is undeniable.

However, it is equally true that the incestuous relationship between those who run the IPL and those responsible for India's international commitments cannot continue. A business conglomerate can promote a lucrative tobacco and cigarettes division as well as a more sober health-care division. Both these divisions can report to the same board or holding company, but they cannot have common managers with serious conflicts of interest.

As India tumbles from one defeat to another in Australia, Rohit Mahajan looks at what needs to be done to rectify the situation. Here's his story in the weekly magazine Outlook.

Top players in Ranji Trophy: Ranji Trophy would become more competitive if our best players are there. But in 23 years since his first class debut, Tendulkar has played only 33 Ranji matches. Anil Kumble has never ever bowled to him in a domestic match. In 15 seasons of first-class cricket, Harbhajan Singh has played only 29 Ranji Trophy matches. How is the mountain of runs going to be judged if the best cricketers of the land aren’t playing?

In the Jamaican Gleaner, levyl blogs on the reasons Jamaica are not able to replicate their success in other formats in the Caribbean T20. He says the Jamaica team has not adapted to the specific requirements of the Twenty20 format and continue to play formulaic cricket rather than the instinctive cricket Twenty20 requires.

We all watch with great trepidation the manner in which Marlon Samuels, for example, consistently puts his team under pressure by using up sometimes as many as five overs before he gets going; if he gets going. Dot ball after dot ball usually puts the batsmen coming in after him under incredible pressure. In the game against the Combined Colleges and Campuses, he ‘rescued’ Jamaica from certain defeat with some lusty hitting at the end, but it was he who put the team under pressure in the first place.

Otago allrounder Sam Wells' selection to the New Zealand squad for the Zimbabwe Test has taken most people by surprise. If you haven't heard of him, listen to this from Radio Sport.

Andrew Faulkner, writing in the Australian, reminisces how watching Graham Yallop thump India at the Adelaide Oval 34 years ago drew him into a lifelong love of cricket.

Out on the off-white and scorching concrete Adelaide Oval terraces, the boy watched Graham Yallop score 121 against India 34 years ago. Young minds as they are, Yallop sounded like wallop, which is exactly what the future Australian captain did that day in Adelaide. The boy's fascination with Yallop, along with the dash of debutant opener Rick Darling and obduracy of Bob Simpson, ended his parents' dreams of him winning Wimbledon.

With India looking to avoid a whitewash in Australia, Rohit Mahajan, writing in Outlook, has ten suggestions for the BCCI to help resurrect Indian cricket. Among them are giving the India coach the power to stop cricketers from participating in other tournaments, involving top players in Ranji Trophy games and improving the marketing of Test cricket.

When he coached England, current Indian coach Duncan Fletcher conceptualised the central contract system, wherein country came before county. Thus Andy Flower, the England coach, can withhold players from domestic cricket if he thinks it’s in the national team’s interest. England have too much T20 at the domestic level, but a player like Graeme Swann plays around eight matches a year, including the ones for England, because the interests of the country come first, not that of Nottinghamshire. Fletcher needs to be given the freedom to implement this in India.

In a detailed interview with Dawn, Wasim Akram tells Shoaib Naveed about his early days bowling with a tape ball, some of his memorable performances and the batsmen he has bowled to. Brian Lara, he says, was the most difficult batsman to bowl to, while Adam Gilchrist was the most intimidating because he was not just a pinch-hitter but a proper batsman who could hit you anywhere, anytime.

I got Ponting out on several occasions, without getting hit around much. As for Tendulkar, I didn’t play a Test against him for ten years at the peak of my career, I have also dismissed Lara but I think he was the most difficult. He seemed very unusual to a bowler’s eye, with the bat coming down from up high at an awkward angle. He would also jump here and there, so it made him a very different and difficult batsman to bowl to.

Dwindling crowds have put the five-day game in a crisis, says James Corrigan in the Independent on Sunday, but Pakistan's victory offers hope of reviving interest in the format back home.

The point is, it isn't Test cricket's fault that it finds itself in a modern world where the kicks must beinstant. So many Tests from that last half decade shows that it still has the propensity to excite and excite in a way which the upstart formats could never contrive. But as the players hunt down the £1m deals and as the fans go in search of high-five thrills, the senior game needs some help.

Scyld Berry, in the Daily Telegraph, calls England's performance with the bat in Dubai as their worst in Asia, but says there is hope of an improved display on a flatter track in Abu Dhabi though it can't be guaranteed.

Saeed Ajmal has planted insecurity into the minds of the England batsmen and, in Abu Dhabi, they'll need to use their minds to master his spin, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

With Brendon McCullum playing as a specialist batsman in Tests, New Zealand have been searching for someone to replace him. Reece Young was dropped after five Tests, and the latest candidates are BJ Watling and Kruger van Wyk. Simon Doull weighs in on the debate with a column for Fairfax NZ News.

Watling, despite having only kept intermittently for Northern Districts in recent years, is not a part-timer.

He was, by all accounts, a very good wicketkeeper right up to under-19 level and that should hold him in good stead this summer.

While his test batting average in six matches is a disappointing 24.5, Watling probably offers more with the bat than Young.

He started his test career as a top order batsman and with the keeping duties might feel a degree of pressure off his shoulders to perform with the willow.

The Herald on Sunday thinks the topic is important enough to merit two columns. Mark Richardson looks at the pros and cons of picking Watling for the Zimbabwe Test here, and Paul Lewis says here that playing Watling provides New Zealand the option of going in with five bowlers.

Having Doug Bracewell matching up with Chris Martin, Tim Southee, Trent Boult, soon-to-be-newcomer Neil Wagner, the injured Hamish Bennett, plus Kyle Mills, along with the evergreen Vettori gives the New Zealand attack depth and competition - and, more to the point, gives the Black Caps the potential to bowl sides out, rather than just restrict them.

Having four quicks on hand allows bowlers to come back fresh and keeps the pressure on the opposing batsmen. This is the raison d'etre behind Watling - and Wright is to be congratulated for having the cojones to give it a crack.

Shoaib Naveed says all the controversy about Saeed Ajmal's action could be avoided if people realised that his bowling has nothing to do with how much he bends his elbow, but everything to do with how he uses his wrist. Naveed writes, in Dawn, that it is a myth that offspinners use their fingers to turn the ball. While most use their forearms, and Muttiah Muralitharan used his shoulder, Ajmal, Naveed says, uses his wrist, reversing the process a legspinner uses.

So, Ajmal, instead of using his wrist to pass on the ball to the fingers, (as Swann, or any conventional ‘offie’ would do) uses his wrist as the major body part imparting the spin. Getting the wrist in position for an off-break takes that extra fraction of a second, which in turn means he has the delayed, jerky action that is so hotly debated. This novel wrist-spinning style is also the reason why Ajmal has been able to stock up his bowling arsenal with a ‘skiddy’ straighter-one, or what he likes to term the teesra.

Anshuman Gaekwad, the former India batsman, writes in DNA that Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir are not focusing enough on defence in Australia. Gaekwad writes about the extreme methods of preparation batsmen of his generation used to prepare for tours, and says that Sehwag, in particular, is not living up to his talent.

Mohinder Amarnath, now a member of the national selection panel, told bowlers to bowl from halfway down the pitch. That’s how seriously he prepared for a foreign tour. And mind you, we trained with ‘real’ cricket balls. There was a risk of getting injured even before the tour started. But we took our chances. Your concentration had to be impeccable, your footwork immaculate, your timing perfect and your judgment spot on. Anything outside the off or leg stump was left alone. Like I said before, the idea was always to stay on the wicket. Runs would follow.

Andrew Strauss's England side played a bit like the one that was mauled in the 2006-07 Ashes whitewash, Ted Corbett writes in the Hindu of England's loss to Pakistan in Dubai. England got their tactics wrong, Corbett says, which was reflected by the way their attacking batsmen went into their shells.

England's top batsmen submitted passively, stroke-less and without an attempt at assertion, for two totals that were not worthy of world dominance. It may be winner in its comfort zones of home and Australia, but as soon as it flies east of the Suez it collapses as if it was batting in a sandstorm.

Ishant Sharma's average of 81 and strike-rate of 131.2 on India's tour of Australia would have been more appropriate for a batsman, says G Unnikrishnan in the Deccan Herald. Unnikrishnan says Ishant has shown glimpses of promise, like during the tour of the West Indies in 2011, but has not sealed his role as the next leader of the Indian attack.

But one point is lost between all these arguments – the role of bowling coach Eric Simons. Before the arrival of the South African, Ishant has taken 54 wickets from 19 Tests at an average of 34.42 and his strike rate was 63.5. After the arrival of Simons (January 10, 2010), the right-arm pace bowler’s performance hasn’t touched the upward curve, grabbing 78 wickets from 25 Tests. Ishant’s average in this period has gone up to 39.11, and his strike rate too has touched 66.33.

After he was handed a ban in March 2010, Younis Khan’s Pakistan career seemed finished. He ditched the captaincy and walked out on Pakistan cricket, much like Shahid Afridi, and at one stage the PCB couldn’t locate him. Speaking to Osman Samiuddin in The National , Younis explains why he quit the captaincy in the first place, talks of his second coming as a batsman under Misbah-ul-Haq and his ambitions to revive Karachi’s club cricket scene.

And so who knows who Younis Khan really is, other than those friends and family he escaped to? A little like those dandelion seeds (and also like his cricket mentor Rashid Latif), he's engaging and substantial but the minute you've got it, you know you have nothing at all in your hands but the wisp of an elusive presence.

Nasser Hussain, in the Daily Mail, says England's batsmen can hardly complain about their poor performance in the defeat in Dubai, given they had four months of rest, and the major problem is their inability so far to read Saeed Ajmal.

The key to the last three days is that England still haven't been able to pick Saeed Ajmal's length. He can change his pace so quickly from his wrist and England just do not seem able to read his action.

People were still going back to full-length deliveries. So much of modern cricket is easier for batsmen, mainly because of the dearth of great fast bowlers, but the decision-review system and umpires' willingness to give lbws on the front foot makes it harder to play against decent spin.

The dispiriting thing about this defeat is that it came when one thought England had put their days of the dreaded collapse behind them, says Martin Samuel in the same newspaper.

Andrew Strauss' performance was a worry and how he recovers and picks himself up will depend on his self-belief, writes Scyld Berry in the Daily Telegraph.

England bowled well enough but their batsmen made Pakistan look more threatening with the ball than they should have been, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

In DNA, TA Sekhar, the fast-bowling coach, says that India do not do enough research on how to prepare fast bowlers and keep them away from injuries. There is no such thing as general coaching, he writes, and India need to assess individual fast bowlers' requirements and train them accordingly.

"It is amusing that the argument for drastic changes still needs to be made. Here are the bare facts. This Indian team hasn't just been beaten in seven consecutive overseas Tests, it has been decimated," writes Gaurav Kalra on ibnlive. "Not one of these Test matches has been competitive. Four have been lost by an innings. One by over 300 runs. One by nearly 200 runs. One by over 100 runs. Only two have gone into the fifth day. The last defeat came in under two and a half days."

Since the England tour these are the averages of India's top guns in overseas Tests: Sehwag: 15.90. Gambhir: 20.50. Dravid: 52.42. Tendulkar: 37.29. Laxman: 20.29. Dhoni: 26.83. Yet to question any of their spots is sacrilege. Alternatives on offer from the 17-man squad chosen for the tour are being cast aside with disdain. The message to Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma is this: You were really on the plane to make up the numbers. No matter how woeful the senior pros get, their positions remain untouched. No matter how good your first-class records might be or how obvious your talent is, you are the designated bench-warmers. Only when a permanent resident makes way of his own volition will a spot open up. Till then wait, watch and twiddle those thumbs. And oh yes, have a net.

In the Hindu, S Ram Mahesh has identified two worrying trends for Virender Sehwag as he returns to Adelaide, where he scored a terrific hundred on India's previous tour of Australia.

His recent form is one of them — just 428 runs have come in his last 17 innings. But form is a fleeting thing. Besides, in Sehwag, the ability to crack open a game forever lies latent, ready to burst forth of a sudden. The other trend is more serious. Since his 151 here, an innings remarkable for its richly restrained strokeplay, Sehwag hasn't made a century outside the sub-continent in 11 Tests.

We have finally got what we wanted from Pakistan - a rather uneventful day at the cricket - highlighting just how far they have come from the spot-fixing summer, writes Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail.

There was nothing here to question, nothing to arouse suspicion even in the most cynical observer. Scoring patterns were not like a particularly badly executed foxtrot — slow, slower, quickest, quick, slow — and while there were some unexpected dismissals, Jonathan Trott bagging the wicket of a settled Younis Khan for instance, there was nothing disquietingly unfathomable on view. And some may feel that is a pity. They may think that it was Pakistan’s maverick nature that made them such compelling opponents. Yet as so much of that eccentricity aroused justified suspicion, it became colour we could do without.

Given the sport’s oldest format is being played in one of its newest and most high-spec venues, day 2 in Dubai was a strike back for the good old days, writes Paul Radley in the National.

This England team live by the mantra that if you stand still you will be overtaken. Everything about their cricket is thoroughly modern, from their high-visibility, brilliant white kit, to their bleep test fielding drills with musical accompaniment. Their methods obviously do work. They are the world’s best side in an era in which macho players can score Test match hundreds in 69 balls. By stark contrast, Misbah-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s insouciant captain, barely moved out of second gear yesterday – and off-white gear it is, too.

The lack of crowds in Dubai - one of the stranger settings for Test cricket - is not a fair indicator of Pakistan's interest levels in the longest format, writes Scyld Berry in the Telegraph.

You could seize on this figure as evidence of the decline, or imminent death, of Test cricket. But it would be fairer to observe that, back in Pakistan, Karachi and Lahore have not drawn Test crowds since the Seventies, and Faisalabad only did so in the Eighties because the municipality ran the Test match and forced local factories to buy tickets.

On deeper inspection, the more unsettling aspect of watching Pakistan over the past year - like the feeling, post-advertising, that what you've got is not what you were sold but will have to do - has not been their generally attritional, even dour approach. It has been that they have spun their way through it, writes Osman Samiuddin in the National.

Only twice have spinners bowled more balls in a year than the last, once in 2000 and once in 1987, a year that belonged to the modest duo of Iqbal Qasim, Tauseef Ahmed and the gloriously immodest Abdul Qadir. Partly circumstances have necessitated this, the loss of two opening bowlers and matches on surfaces where spin is more durable. But it is not as if there is a dearth of pace men suddenly; with Umar Gul, Junaid Khan, Wahab Riaz, Aizaz Cheema, and others at the door, there can't be. Yet that they have felt secondary to proceedings is mostly because the trio of Mohammad Hafeez, Abdur Rehman and Saeed Ajmal has been so outstanding.

The mystery about Saeed Ajmal's day in Dubai was not his teesra but how England were caused such embarrassment on a surface as harmless as an empty pincushion, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian.

No, England were undermined, not by the teesra, but by themselves and it was not so much a failure of technique, but of the mind. One of the problems when facing slow bowling is that there is time to think. So the brain comes into play as much as any instinctive hand/eye co-ordination. And England batted brainlessly, making poor choices all along the way. Ajmal, bowling no rubbish, just sat back and waited for another batsman's error. In Test cricket on a true surface it is usually necessary to wait a bit longer.

Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan and Graeme Swann all became the leading Test wicket-taker in a calendar year by spinning the ball a lot. Saeed Ajmal achieved the same last year by hardly spinning the ball at all, writes Simon Hughes in the Telegraph.

Ajmal has some parallels with Warne. He is able to turn the ball both ways and talks mischievously of ‘new’ deliveries, but in fact he primarily owes his success, like the great leg-spinner, to a high degree of accuracy and subtle variations of angle and degrees of spin.

Also in the Telegraph, Steve James says: "Ajmal’s action has been heavily scrutinised before, reported even. Indeed when it was cleared in 2009, the ICC report said: "whenever Ajmal bowls in a match in the future, his action will be under the scrutiny of the match officials". But, of course, there is now a 15-degree toleration in operation. I could not tell you whether Ajmal’s arm bends more than that in certain circumstances. It needs to be monitored, but for now it should not detract from a stellar effort."

In the Independent, James Lawton says: "Ajmal, who did not bowl a Test delivery until he was 31, not only achieved career-best figures of 7 for 55 with beautifully delivered off-spin leavened by the fabled doosra he inherited from his compatriot Saqlain Mushtaq on a wicket that offered such notable run-hoarders as Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen the equivalent of an empty supermarket trolley and a free pass through check-out. What he also did, with a smile that on such occasions is nearly as wide as the Punjab, is suggest we might indeed be in the middle of one of the most astonishing developments anywhere in world sport. This, of course, is the rebirth of a great cricket nation."

Jonathan Liew, a member of the Daily Telegraph, is put on Stuart Broad's diet for a few days, and tells the tale. The diet is great if you are a fast bowler, he says, or if you like the taste of pureed grass ...

The first delivery arrives in a handsome hessian box. Soulmate give you three meals and two snacks per day, to be eaten roughly three hours apart. In total, this provides about 2,000 calories, although this can vary from diner to diner. Cyclist Ed Clancy, for example, will receive about twice as much. Eagerly, I dig in. The mango and blueberry yoatie – oats smothered in yogurt – is fine; the chicken and peanut salad is particularly impressive, the meat fresh, tender and utterly lean. A pot of nuts, seeds and raisins is less enjoyable – generally, I try not to eat anything you could buy in a pet shop ...

Ian Chappell, writing in the Hindustan Times, says MS Dhoni is no longer India's answer in Test cricket.

He [Dhoni] has failed dismally to rally the troops in two disastrous overseas campaigns and his suspension from the Adelaide Test is almost a blessing in disguise. His own form, not just with the gloves but also with the bat no longer warrants a guaranteed place in the Test side and Wriddhiman Saha has a glorious opportunity to make a big impression in the fourth Test. As for finding a new Test captain, there are no obvious choices from those players who are likely to remain.

So BJ Watling has the inside running to be New Zealand's next Test wicketkeeper, but of the two contenders in the squad logic and pure numbers suggest Kruger van Wyk should be the frontrunner, says Fred Woodcock, writing for Fairfax NZ News.

The logic part is simple - of the two South African-born players, only van Wyk can claim to be a specialist gloveman. The 31-year-old has been doing the job for more than a decade at first-class level both in South Africa and New Zealand, while Watling, six years his junior, is a part-time keeper who is rated behind Peter McGlashan for his first-class team, Northern Districts, and only been mooted as a keeping option at international level during the past few weeks. You can get away with non-specialists at Twenty20, and possibly even one-day, level, but surely test cricket is the domain of specialists.

Stephen Brenkley, writing in the Independent, says Pakistan have rebuilt considerably since the scandal-marred England tour in 2010, ensuring consistency in team selection under Misbah-ul-Haq. But the behaviour of both teams, he says, will be closely scrutinized for signs of friction.

Pakistan seem, in short, to have got their act together. But that will not prevent an air of suspicion and intrigue around the Dubai International Cricket Stadium tomorrow. Misbah and Mohsin are trying desperately to move on. They have convinced their colleagues to forget the past and England too seem anxious to stress that what's gone is gone.

It may just be that Pakistan have pulled back from the brink of eternal disarray. Truly, it seems that being the pariahs of world cricket, the one activity above all that makes their nation special, was no fun any longer.

Nasser Hussain, the Daily Mail, gives England a slight edge in the UAE.

Stuart Broad, in the same newspaper, says there will still be some "negative feelings" over the events of 2010 but that, and the history between the teams, won't distract England from the task at hand.

Andy Bull, writing in the Guardian, says Pakistan have been dogged by controversy in recent years but changes in the regime have sparked a positive transformation.

Misbah has now been in charge for 12 Test matches, a longer run than anybody has managed since Inzamam-ul-Haq retired. Since he took over his team have been unbeaten in six Test series, and have won more one-day internationals than any other side. Under Misbah's captaincy Pakistan have adopted an avowedly pragmatic approach. It is not winning him fans, but nor is it losing him matches.

Sourav Ganguly, in his column in the Sydney Morning Herald, says India's selectors will need to take some strong, fair and honest decisions ahead of the Adelaide Test folowing the side's series loss.

Whoever has to be left out, whether they be young or old, equality has to be there and a proper message sent that puts a priority on performance. There will always be instances in cricket when one player selectors are more patient with than another. But it may not be the case this time.

In the same newspaper, Malcolm Knox says the focus on the old guard from both teams has allowed the younger players to step up, perform and even outshine their seniors.

The players apart, the role of Duncan Fletcher as coach must also come under scrutiny following India's run of defeats, says Sumit Chakraberty in Daily News and Analysis.

More than the series, India seem to have lost their ability to fight against the odds, writes Siddhartha Vaidyanathan on his blog.

Australia are enjoying the fruits of hard labour, putting several hours of practice, even in their spare time, and the Indians can learn a lesson from that, says Sunil Gavaskar in Mid Day.

India could not have asked for a better time than now to accept that the "use-by" date of some players has now come, says Andy O'Brien in the Telegraph.

Suresh Menon, on the BCC website, writes why India's cricket authorities cannot be silent spectators any longer.

Andrew Strauss should not get caught up in trying to ensure England's series against Pakistan in the UAE is incident-free, Michael Vaughan writes in the Daily Telegraph. England's aggressive body language in the field is one of their biggest strengths, Vaughan says, and they must use it because they will be up against the best bowling attack they have faced since they went to South Africa two winters ago.

Aggression is not all about being lippy. England are aggressive in other ways. In the field it is with their body language and the way they hunt in packs. They crowd the batsman and constantly throw the ball in to the keeper which annoys the opposition and keeps them on the back foot. Matt Prior is at the heart of it all with the tempo he brings to the fielding unit. England have a body language that says “we want to be out here”.

Scyld Berry, in the same paper, says Andrew Strauss and Misbah ul-Haq seem calm and wise, so the usual dose of controversy that England-Pakistan series spark might be missing from the field of play this time around.

Stephen Brenkley, writing in the Independent, says England have a selection conundrum on their hands in Monty Panesar.

Chloe Saltau, writing in the Age, says the "gluttony" of administrators in trying to squeeze in more limited-overs cricket, usually matches without context, is proving detrimental to the game. Embracing temperance as a virtue, Saltau says, is the way to go.

The effect of too much cricket, without context, is to induce a sleepiness in the same way a heavy turkey dinner releases tryptophan. It leads to an inability to recall details, to distinguish one innings or one game from the next.

India's rapid dip in fortunes since winning the World Cup should not surprise anyone, Mihir Bose says in Outlook. The Indian cricket team has a general lack of willingness to achieve greatness, he says, something which reflects a broader theme in the mentality of all Indians.

Far from being the new-era Indian from a town once famous for its British-era mental home, Dhoni has been shown up to be the clerk he is. I was struck by this thought when, just before the England series, he chose to launch his charitable foundation, Winning Ways—Today for Tomorrow, at a Park Lane London hotel. Why had he not launched it in Ranchi or Mumbai? It showed he was that old Indian type who’s in awe of the capital of the country that once ruled India.

In the same magazine, Rohit Mahajan places the blame for India's dismal performances in Tests squarely on the IPL. Mahajan speaks to former India coach Anshuman Gaekwad and a current Delhi player, and both agree that the IPL has become more important to Indian cricketers than first-class cricket, and it is the BCCI's attitude that has led to that.

From his vantage position beyond mid-on, outside the boundary rope, former Indian batsman and coach Anshuman Gaekwad heard some words that caused some dismay. It was a Deodhar Trophy match, a ball was hit towards him, and the man at midwicket chased it and finally dived. His captain at mid-on could have done this too, but he didn’t. The reason became clear when he admonished his teammate thus: “Are you mad, why are you diving? The IPL is coming, do you want to hurt yourself and miss it?” Gaekwad says, “I said, what the hell man, is this what cricket has come to? I was shocked, all the more so because the two players are in the Indian team now.”

"I was surprised with India's decision to field four quicks and I honestly felt Pragyan Ojha would have been a good choice. The Australians have not played left-arm spin well over the years and India should have had the variation in their attack," writes Sourav Ganguly in the Sydney Morning Herald. "On the other hand, for Australia it was a good choice. Nathan Lyon has not been effective in the series and, if I were Michael Clarke, I would play four quicks in Adelaide as well."

In the same paper, Malcolm Knox says: "Sydney Thunder must be ruing the day they signed David Warner. First he goes off and gets himself picked in the Test team. Then he plays an innings for Australia so thrilling that anything coming out of the Big Bash League will seem, by comparison, humdrum."

Warner showed he can keep all his short-form habits and still prosper in five-day cricket. His century, off 69 balls, was pure entertainment in its own right. But everyone has seen him put bowlers in the blast furnace with those blacksmith forearms. What made this innings unforgettable was its strategic impact. In less than a session he made the bowlers's earlier work really count, and put the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, barring a miracle, beyond India's reach. And he did it not in lime but myrtle green.

Mervyn Westfield's conviction is an important breakthrough in the fight against cricket corruption, writes Nick Hoult in the Telegraph. He also notes how easily the wrong-doings could have slipped through unnoticed.

Westfield’s crimes would probably have remained undetected if it had not been for his inability to keep his secret quiet. There was no fake Sheikh or £150,000 tabloid sting in this case. Westfield confided in a team-mate, who followed anti-corruption guidelines issued to all cricketers in England and reported the matter to the management at Essex.

India have a lot to ponder after the Test losses in Melbourne and Sydney - most pertinently whether the team has once again gone soft when playing overseas, writes Sourav Ganguly in the Sydney Morning Herald.

One problem for India is that their hosts have become smarter at preparing pitches to suit their bowlers more than the Indians. Just as they expect turning pitches in India, there is a conscious effort from opponents to leave grass on wickets. They know it's an ageing batting line-up and that new players are finding their feet in the international arena and hence will find it hard in the conditions. This has been a clever ploy and the Indians will have to find a way to tackle that.

In his column for the Courier Mail, Michael Clarke says: “There is intense speculation about whether we will play four fast bowlers in Perth on what is expected to be a pace-friendly pitch. The answer is, I don't know. Until we look at the pitch today it's impossible to get an accurate gauge of how it might play. Certainly there would need to be exceptional circumstances for me not to play our spinner Nathan Lyon.”

You don't want to take in four fast bowlers and find out late in the Test your attack is crying out for variation, particularly if you're bowling last. Pitches don't need to turn for spinners to make an impact. Offspinners have been successful in Perth before, drifting the ball away from the right hander into the breeze. The Fremantle Doctor can blow quite strongly coming up from the south-west and you need bowlers who can use it rather than fight it.

In the Hindu, S Ram Mahesh writes: "While there is merit in the argument that India needs a batting transition, this isn't the time. Transitions are planned activities, not patch-up jobs in reaction. With a series and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy to be saved, Laxman must be allowed to be himself. As he showed here at the WACA in 2008 and several times before and since, Laxman does what very few in the history of cricket have — win matches off his own bat. He has earned the right to control his future; knowing the man, it's a privilege he won't abuse."

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what role the coach Duncan Fletcher has played in India’s horror run, writes Karthik Krishnaswamy in the Indian Express.

With the results hurtling downhill, the long-term question, of who, who and who after Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman, has assumed an even more feverish tone. Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina have regressed, Virat Kohli sits on a precipice. If Fletcher, hired for his razor-sharp technical eye, made any positive difference in their Test match techniques and temperaments, it hasn’t made an impact on the scoreboard. This perhaps is one failure Fletcher can be judged on.

Ishant Sharma announced his arrival with a testing spell to Ricky Ponting in Perth in 2008. Four years on, his career has resembled a drunk's hesitant gait: a step forward, a step back, a step to the side, writes S Ram Mahesh in the Hindu. He says that if cricket's gods distributed wickets according to the size of a bowler's heart and the earnestness of his efforts, Ishant would have 250 wickets from his 43 Tests, not 131.

Two things have held Ishant back — inconsistency and misfortune. His style has contributed slightly to his lack of luck: his natural length, not as full as most seamers, causes more plays-and-misses than edges; the angle of his stock delivery suggests it's going down leg, even if it isn't, and umpires are wary of giving ‘lbw' decisions. But Ishant isn't wicket-lucky; he has to do more for returns others get easier.

Les Murray, on the SBS Sports website, writes of the threat posed by the Big Bash League to the popularity of the football A-league in Australia.

Now part of that summer has been populated by the Big Bash with 32 well publicised, fabulously hyped matches over six weeks. Okay, that’s nowhere near all of the summer and it’s only a short slice of what the entire duration if the A-League entails. But it is, nonetheless, a new highly appealing product smack in the middle of the football season and one with the potential to eat into the A-League’s capacity to draw fans.

Aizaz Cheema, the Pakistan seamer, speaks to Shahid Hashmi in the Dawn about the struggles he faced while trying to make it to international cricket and the mentors who helped him get there.

Born in a small village called 75-FB near Sargodha, he was brought up and educated in Lahore. He was lucky that a proper mentor was at hand at home as his mother, a teacher by profession, guided him in his studies. He studied hard and since most of his family members were in the education sector, he got little support when he picked up a bat and a ball.

Be it Vernon Philander, Pat Cummins or James Pattinson, Doug Bracewell or Umesh Yadav, pace has dominated in the most recent Test series, says Andrew Alderson, writing in the New Zealand Herald. Subsequently, in the age of Twenty20, batting techniques look brittle.

Observations indicate pace bowling's resurgence could be a trend; at least in places where grass grows willingly. Evidence of pace bowling dominance has come with the wickets taken in the last five series. In the first test of the Australia-India series, quick bowlers took 88 per cent of the wickets; in the South Africa-Sri Lanka series up until the end of 2011, it was 76 per cent. The Australia-New Zealand series saw 80 per cent of the wickets fall to pace, whereas it was 83 per cent between South Africa and Australia.

... Perhaps the most telling example of the demise has been Rahul Dravid's recent lean trot. The batsman known as "The Wall" has looked more post-1989 Berlin than China against Australia, getting bowled three times in two tests, including between bat and pad twice ... Dravid is not alone among the world's batsmen. Blades of willow looked redundant at times in 2011 when you consider teams passed 400 runs in a test 24 times out of 141 innings (17 per cent). Added to that is the fact seven of those 24 innings came from the world's No1 team, England. Compare that to 2010 when teams scored 400-plus totals 45 times in 164 innings (27 per cent).

In The Hindu, S Ram Mahesh writes of how Craig McDermott has silently transformed the fortunes of Australia's pace attack by getting them to bowl fuller.

All around the world, bowlers of fast-medium pace and greater are starting to reclaim lost ground from batsmen, cricket's glory boys. The conditions have conspired, at least in England, South Africa, and Australia, and the seamers, like spotting that old pair of jeans in their closet that has returned to fashion, have found, to their delight, the fuller length.

In the Indian Express, Karthik Krishnaswamy looks back at the success fast bowlers have had at the WACA in Perth, and how certain batsmen have had their moments too. But with the pitch reportedlyt returning to its old menacing ways, he asks how Rohit Sharma, a debutant, will rise to the challenge.

The acronym, WACA, sounds like whacker. You almost expect to see it in the dictionary. Whacker: Noun; a bowler, made ten times as potent by the bounciest pitch in the world, liable to cause batsmen bodily harm with whacks to the chest, side, arms and head.

"Six successive defeats abroad, the imminent departure of three giants, the crumbling of the Test team: Indian cricket faces its most existential interrogation since the match-fixing scandal. But all it seems to bother with is Sachin Tendulkar’s 100th international century. Strange priority," writes Ashok Malik in the Pioneer.

Ever in denial, there are those in India who say MS Dhoni’s team is paying for the pressure of awaiting Tendulkar’s 100th. The pressure, if any, should be on him. Why should it bother the rest of the team, all 10 of them? Funnily, it doesn’t seem to have affected Tendulkar’s form. In four Test innings in Australia, he has two 50s, one 40 and a lowest score of 32. He’s batted with appeal and authority.

The problem has been elsewhere. Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid make up — along with Tendulkar — perhaps India’s greatest batting order. The other four have hit one 50 each in the past two Test matches. Failing in three innings out of four on a tour as tough as Australia isn’t going to help you take your team too far. The trouble is there — it’s not in whether or not or when Tendulkar hits his next century. Why has the rest of India decided to feel the pressure and nervousness on Tendulkar’s behalf?

"I know the time for the seniors is all but over and if one knows the likes of Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman well, they are not going to leave it to the selectors to decide their fate," writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times. "Don't be surprised if the end of the tour also sees them announcing their retirement. They are a proud duo and have done more than enough to deserve a dignified and respectful exit."

The discomforting thought is not that we may be seeing the last of this great generation of cricketers, because of whom we started winning abroad and became the number one Test team in the world. The feeling of disquiet comes from the thought that we may not have enough players who are even half as good, to replace them. In an era where private enterprise is hell-bent on promoting products like the IPL, are there enough players left who value Test skills over the shorter version's requirements?

"What if we were to replace the three aging stars of the Indian middle order with fresh talent?" asks Sumit Chakraberty in DNA. "This is not as outrageous or drastic a step as it might first appear."

What good is all the experience at India’s disposal if it can’t cope with challenging conditions abroad? After all, it’s when the ball starts doing a bit that you need a well-developed batting technique. If it’s just a matter of piling up runs on flat tracks back home, hitting through the line of the ball without bothering about getting forward or back, the Rohit Sharmas can manage that well enough, thank you. Surely a talented player like Rohit merited a place in the middle order along with Virat Kohli after the fiasco in England. We have just not groomed new batting talent over the last decade and that’s why the team is now getting moribund.

In the Indian Express, Karthik Krishnaswamy says MS Dhoni has been defensive in his captaincy in away Tests, and India are suffering because of it in Australia.

How much longer can India retain their faith in their abilities and convince their minds that a breakthrough is imminent? asks S Ram Mahesh in the Hindu.

VVS. Laxman played himself out of touch in England, the pull stroke costing him his wicket when magic balls weren't. He was manacled by Australia's bowlers in the three decisive innings in Australia thus far. The three — and the openers, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir — haven't fired together for the length of time they did when India was changing perceptions of its touring capabilities. The fast, moving, bouncing ball has constantly threatened their survival; they haven't found a way collectively to extend the opposition bowlers into their fourth and fifth spells when the bodies are tired and the ball does less.

Writing in the Dominion Post, Simon Doull says New Zealand must use the home series against Zimbabwe to test new talent. He believes Auckland spinner Roneel Hira, Wellington batsman Michael Pollard and Northern Districts opener Brad Wilson deserve a go.

Of course, to suggest that the selectors use this Zimbabwean series as the chance to pick a handful of untested players and see whether they're up to the task would be foolish. The Black Caps can't afford to be chopping and changing their line-up all the time. What I'm suggesting, however, is that they identify a number of "up-and-comers", pick them for the Zimbabwe series and then, regardless of how they perform, persist with them through the South African series that follows.

In the New Zealand Herald, Andrew Alderson examines the growing presence of African-born players in New Zealand cricket.

A generation ago, the subject was more the nature of a trivia question: which New Zealand cricketer was born in Nairobi? Dipak Patel. Now there has been something of a surge, with six of the 72 provincially-contracted players born in Zimbabwe or South Africa, and Durban-born BJ Watling one of 20 nationally-contracted players. Others such as Roald Badenhorst and Carl Cachopa (Central Districts) and Craig Cachopa (Wellington) are also playing matches in various formats. The quantity of African players is apparent but their quality is also worth noting.

Michael Clarke batted for more than 10 hours to score 329 against India at the SCG. What kept him going for that long without cramping and being stricken by fatigue? David Sygall tells us in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Australian team strength and conditioning coach Stuart Karppinen gave an insight into some of the scientific strategy the Australian captain went through to maintain peak performance across his innings, which stretched over three days of play, posing a unique physical and mental challenge. At the end of day one, when he was on 47 not out, Clarke had a standard massage, which included usual special attention to his chronic back injury. ''The next morning he did his hydration testing, which involves a urine test from which we can measure how much fluid he needs to take in to reach the right level,'' Karppinen said.

"Michael Clarke's choice to forgo personal achievement last Thursday, like Mark Taylor's in similar circumstances in 1998, was a moment of sporting chivalry with the potential to reverberate beyond the boundary," writes Time Lane in the Age. "If the national cricket captaincy really does mean something in Australian life, these are deeds to impact - in some small way at least - on the national psyche."

Also, if Clarke thought about it during his long innings, he might have recognised that the opportunity before him was almost certainly a one-off. The chance for such immortality comes occasionally. Only a handful in Test history have made more than one triple-century. This was his moment. He was in total command, the Indian attack at his mercy. Clarke could conceivably have reached Brian Lara's record by batting for just an hour-and-a-half longer. The match was scarcely more than halfway to its five-day allowance. He would still have had two days to bowl India out a second time and, as it turned out, the tourists' second innings didn't last much beyond a day.

Remember Gavin Robertson, the Australia offspinner who made his Test debut against India in Chennai in 1998, and then fell off the international circuit after a few months? In the Sydney Morning Herald, Daniel Lane narrates what happened to Robertson after his Australia and New South Wales career. Not all of it is pretty, but Robertson's story turns out okay.

Dropped from the national team and axed by NSW, off-spinner Gavin Robertson fell from being a respected athlete to a 31-year-old father who depended on social welfare payments to feed his family because he couldn't get a job - and it was humiliating.

He'd kill time by sitting alone on a park bench tormented by the void that appeared to be life after cricket. Robertson was frustrated to realise he'd invested so much energy into representing Australia in four Tests and 13 one-day internationals that he hadn't prepared for the day when his sporting career ended.

Job done against Sri Lanka in the Test series, South Africa now need to work on their consistency, says Kepler Wessels, writing in Supersport.com.

As a collective unit during the Cape Town test match the South African players displayed the ruthless approach that they are searching for on a regular basis. They executed their disciplines well and, apart from a few blemishes in the field, the coaching staff will be happy with the way that the test unit finished off the domestic summer.

Dilip D'Souza, in Firstpost.com, on the rise of the IPL and the parallel fading away of the Ranji Trophy. He recounts his experience during Mumbai's Ranji quarter-final against Punjab, which pointed decidedly in this direction.

So Bombay wins easily — with an enormous six smashed just in front of where I sit, no less — and the players shake hands and they all retire slowly to the pavilion. What’s the happy audience at the Wankhede chanting? “Jeetega bhai jeetega, Mumbai jeetega (Mumbai will win)“, to push the team on to greater Ranji glory? “Jaffer, Jaffer”, paying tribute to the captain, now the most prolific run-scorer in Ranji Trophy history? No, it’s “Rahul, Rahul”. Which manages to leave me simultaneously encouraged and sad. Somewhere in that conundrum is a story about a once-proud tournament.

"Indian cricket is in hot water, but it has become hot so slowly that no one has noticed. But after six away defeats in a row, it is time to shed sentiment and wield the axe," writes Suresh Menon in DNA. "Some veterans will have to be politely asked to hand in their resignations, others will have to be told to perform or perish and youngsters will have to be given the confidence to fill in the rather large shoes."

It is never easy to tell a long-serving employee that his time is up. But it is a job that has to be done, and done with as much dignity as possible. VVS Laxman certainly looks out of it - making big hundreds needs fitness and he doesn’t look the part at the moment. Dravid is not the same player who stood alone on the burning deck in England ... Despite being the oldest player in the world, Dravid is probably the fittest in the Indian team, which is both a tribute to his application and a commentary on the lack of it among the rest.

The hoo-ha over Tendulkar’s 100th century is taking the focus away from the real issue - the batsman’s inability to convert good starts into match-saving, if not match-winning efforts. He continues to look the best batsman in the side 22 years after his debut, and had he completed a century in Sydney, the country would have forgiven India’s first innings batting which cost them the match. Michael Clarke showed India how team victory is more important than individual statistical achievement, but India’s obsession with the individual has always been compensation for collective failure.

Fredun De Vitre,writing in DNA India, asks If Jack Hobbs could defy age, why can’t Tendulkar?

Whilst 38 has conventionally been deemed as the appropriate outer retirement age for even the most gifted cricketers, why should one apply the same yardstick to a genius like Sachin Tendulkar? ... Given his passion for the game, his disciplined life-style, his innate modesty, his level of fitness, why should Tendulkar not break another barrier by playing on at the highest level till he’s say, 45 or even beyond? ... Ultimately, age is only a mental number. One can safely trust Tendulkar to continue to maintain his level of fitness as long as he walks on to a cricket field.

If you are not invested in Sachin Tendulkar’s 100th century — emotionally, financially or otherwise — there’s quite a lot of fun to be had from the drama that surrounds it, says Sumit Chakraberty, writing in the same paper.

There’s the hype that precedes every game, and the sycophancy that follows each failed attempt, as our commentators fall all over themselves in trying to explain away another failed attempt. ‘It’s just a matter of time,’ they proclaim, which is obviously something nobody can dispute; given unlimited time and opportunity, he will get it.

Glenn Turner, writing for Fairfax NZ News, says, given World Cups' all-important status, if New Zealand decide they want to finally progress past the semi-finals in 2015, planning needs to begin with the imminent Zimbabwe series.

My advice to players is, choose your counsel carefully, open your mind to learning, and be personally responsible for your own development and performance. There's a need to choose emerging players to find out who has the required talent to be persevered with. This work should start immediately. At the same time it would be prudent to look at the current crop of players with a view to assessing which of them are most likely to be good enough to retain their places in the team through to and including the World Cup in 2015.

In the past two World Cups, the reality has been that selections, player preparation and their approach tactically to games have been more about saving face (putting in a respectable performance) than aggressively going out to win games. The fear of losing badly has tended to dominate thinking and consequently winning has too often relied on opponents having a bad day.

Malcolm Knox, in the Sydney Morning Herald, says having ridden in on a bat with no name, Michael Clarke can claim naming rights to the 100th Test at the SCG.

Success for Clarke seems to spark the same public reaction as failure: a national referendum on the crucial question of whether he is a good bloke. With recent captains such as Ponting, Steve Waugh, Mark Taylor and Allan Border, people thought they knew already. With some, they didn't care one way or the other. Perhaps Michael Clarke: Saintly Hero or Axe Murderer? is for Channel Nine to ask its viewers. This rather bizarre fretfulness over his immortal soul is something he shares in common with Don Bradman, as well as now being Test triple-century-makers.

The wicket of Sachin Tendulkar was the game's last staging post. In the karmic way of these things, it fell to Clarke, writes Greg Baum in the same paper.

It was a Test match played on an epic scale, but won in the end by shifts - hunches, quirks, ricochets and deviations - so small as to be almost imperceptible ... Clarke in this match demonstrated touches both exquisite and Midas. He spent all but 40 minutes of it on the ground. He is making a new name for himself, and it was written all over this Test.

Michael Clarke batted in a baggy green for a while during his epic 329, and Barney Ronay, writing in the Guardian, says "batting in a cap makes all cricketers look more dashing, more complete and more poignant."

For Clarke the cap resembled a set of laurels this week. The new captain has been coddled by his countrymen and celebrated by the English and Australian media after four hundreds in his last seven Tests. Once dismissed by some as insufficiently flinty, he has begun to look instead manly and classical. There is an unencumbered quality about this sandy-haired creature who speaks to something gay and celebratory in the way Australia would like to see itself. For all its newness Australia can still be an oddly nostalgic country, in love with its own romantic near-past. To this end the delicious mawkishness of Clarke's declaration in Sydney with his own score just shy of Don Bradman's sacred 334 may have an element of PR about it, but as a register of manly sporting romance it hits all the right big fat happy notes. A triple hundred. A series win. A cap. It looks like an era under way.

In the Independent, Chris McGrath writes: "If he discovered a cure for cancer in the morning, sorted out global warming in the afternoon, and paid off the national deficit before going to bed, someone would still mutter something about Michael Clarke just showing off."

It's all very odd. With an average of 62 in 17 Test innings as captain, you would think Australian pragmatists might pardon Clarke his perceived heterodoxies. Instead they agonise pathetically about his image. They were appalled by his admission that he sobbed on the sofa with his father after losing his Test place in 2005. Some may even have been mischievously gratified that his Herculean deeds this week were played out against swathes of pink, from the stands to the stumps (in support of the Jane McGrath cancer foundation). Yet here is a man who sacrificed the joyous freedom of his game in the cause of a team in decline; who is proving a most adept captain, not least in respectful rehabilitation of Ponting.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Greg Baum leads the tributes to Michael Clarke, who declared Australia's innings when he was batting on 329.

An innings such as this is by definition larger than life, yet consists of a repetition of life-sized acts: those glorious covers drives, that effortless easing to leg, the feather-light footwork against the off-spinner. One ball might have halted it. Ask Shaun Marsh, who faced only one, or Rahul Dravid, who last night was bowled an exceptional one by Ben Hilfenhaus. Yet Clarke outlived all of the game's happenstance, leaving for the record an innings that will outlive him.

"Unless ransacked by the likes of Bradman, Lara or Sehwag, triple-centuries are not usually remembered for much other than their scale: by their nature, they imply one-sided contests and one-way traffic, which are not the stuff of legend. The records overlap, the strokes blur, the contexts are forgotten," writes Gideon Haigh in the Australian. "Michael Clarke's might be an exception."

To go with the usual array of drives, flicks and glances, there were yesterday some pectoral-flexing pull shots, a sweep he absolutely nailed off Ravichandran Ashwin, and a pick-up off the pads to a Umesh Yadav inswinger that flew like an artillery shell. It used to be that Clarke could be constrained by the old ball and defensive fields; here he showed an instinct to take on rather than merely to tick over.

Sourav Ganguly, in the Sydney Morning Herald, says, "What stood out even more for me than Michael Clarke's magnificent innings was the declaration."

It is not often a batsman gets into that position. There was so much time left in the Test, his team was leading by more than 450, the opposition was struggling and the pitch was flat. This was a rare opportunity for Clarke to carry on and break the world record set by Brian Lara.

It was all set for him against a tired bowling and fielding unit. But he did what lot of captains trying to win cricket matches would have done. He put the perspective of the game and interests of his team before personal landmarks. And he put a tired team, both physically and mentally, into bat.

The editorial in the Australian called Clarke's 329 the innings of the 21st century: "The Bradman/Taylor mark stands, but Clarke can claim the innings of the 21st century, a remarkable, old-fashioned performance by a captain who lived up to the finest traditions of the game. In an impatient age, blighted by a deficit of concentration and courage, Clarke and Ponting provided tonic for the soul."

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Chris Barrett has more on why Michael Clarke was batting with a cleanskin bat, without a sponsor's sticker.

MICHAEL CLARKE walked into Harry Solomons's sports store at Kingsgrove a week ago carrying a handful of bats. He asked his old friend and former employer if he could remove the stickers from them ahead of the second Test against India beginning three days later. It was New Year's Eve, the day Clarke's three-year bat and equipment contract with Slazenger expired.

The 100th SCG Test has been Clarke's crowning glory, but for the sporting goods brand that has been behind him since he was 12 it has been like quitting the Beatles in 1962.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Greg Baum retells the moment when Ricky Ponting finally ended his century drought.

Resuming, Ponting re-marked his guard, recomposing himself. But impatience overwhelmed judgment when he drove Ishant Sharma to mid-on and called intemperately. Sensing disaster as Zaheer Khan swooped at mid-on, Ponting dived headlong. It would not have saved him if Zaheer's throw had hit, but it did not. When he dared to look up, Ponting saw the bails intact.

The acclaim came in four parts: a roar, a gasp, a muting and a redoubled roar as Ponting at last hoisted himself off the ground and raised his arms. His shirt, smeared in dirt, looked like a little boy's. So did his face. He and Clarke looked at one another and laughed at the mischief of it all. This was Ponting's 40th Test century, but his first for two years, almost to the week. At 37, he goes on with lighter tread.

"Ponting's century overshadowed the far greater contribution of Michael Clarke," writes Richard Hinds in the Sydney Morning Herald. "However the skipper's innings was significant for more than just its magnitude and the records it eclipsed. Some still seem hesitant to forgive Clarke the follies of his youth - fast cars, faster girlfriends. But if money could not buy him love, Clarke's new substance-over-style approach both with bat, and as an intuitive captain, commands respect."

In the Guardian, Mike Selvey focuses on the role Craig McDermott has played as bowling coach of the Australia team, and his mantra of keeping the ball full on pitches that offer some assistance.

The thing is this, though: which school of thought is he coming from here? Is he the expert arriving and revealing a secret known only to an enlightened few? Or is he just stating the bleedin' obvious, that if there is lateral movement available of any description, then it pays to pitch the ball up (a few feet we are talking here) so that batsmen are in what Kenny Barrington used to call two-man's land, where they know they need to come forward but cannot do so with complete comfort, but neither can they play back with safety. In other words, the length that is drilled into the England team, where the ball will hit the top of off‑stump.

Of course the answer is obvious. This is no secret recipe passed down from one bowling generation to another. It is a fundamental of the game and I dare say that McDermott must be wondering what on earth it is that his predecessors have been doing instead. There is a reason for this, though, and it is that, while there are many extremely intelligent bowlers out there (in a cricketing sense), the modern bowler is spoon-fed information.

In a pithy description in the Sydney Morning Herald, Richard Hinds says India were upset that they had to wait for 15 minutes to meet prime minister Julia Gillard because their batsmen are not used to spending that much time on their feet. Australia is proving to be "no country for old men" he says, and India's ageing middle order is crumbling fast.

If you want to see fancy Indian footwork, bypass the SCG and take in a Bollywood musical. Virender Sehwag has never bothered with the soft shoe shuffle, preferring to stand to attention and play his shots - even when he might be better served playing someone elses. But V.V.S. Laxman is either posing for a statue or nursing a bad case of gout.

In 2011, only two batsmen scored more than 1000 runs in Tests, and there were several batting collapses. Ben Dorries, writing in the Courier Mail, says there is no excuse as things are still in favour of batsmen in modern cricket.

They have more powerful bats, smaller boundaries and are favoured by bad light calls often when fans still have their sunglasses on in the stands. Batsmen get every advantage. Surely it is not too much to ask for them for put their head down and bat with the same passion we are now seeing from many of the world's bowlers, including superb Australian young gun James Pattinson.

In the Indian Express, Karthik Krishnaswamy says Ishant Sharma needs to find consistency. He says with Umesh Yadav now the young bowler in the side, Ishant needs to play the role of a senior and cannot afford wayward performances like he produced on the first day at the SCG.

With Australia under that much pressure, the least Ishant and Umesh could have done was to bowl tightly in support of Zaheer. Instead, they made it easy for two experienced batsmen to play their way out of trouble. Umesh is 24, and in only his fourth Test. Ishant, a year younger, is in his 43rd. Ishant, a year younger, is in his 43rd. Only one of them can still expect leniency for being young and inexperienced.

From the unruly Hill stand to Warne's first spell, the SCG, which hosts it's 100th Test today, stirs a legion of memories says Malcolm Knox, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald.

When I was eight, my grandfather took us to watch the English from the Bob Stand. I remember the SCG smell - a cocktail of tomato sauce, hot chips, beer, cigarettes, turf, soot, old concrete and metal. Even though they've replaced all but the Members and Ladies stands, the SCG smell lives on. There was a man that day whose beer gut enlarged the strained lettering on his shirt: ''POMMIE B*******''. We giggled at how rude it was to have the B-word on a T-shirt. The Bob Stand was replaced by the Pat Hills Stand, named after the SCG trustee and Labor MP. My grandfather thought this a scandal: ''How many wickets did Pat Hills take?''

Since it was first trialled in 2008, there has been no uniformity in the way the DRS has been implemented. It may never be perfect, but cricket has soldiered on. The sport hasn't died, nor has it been irreparably damaged, writes Osman Samiuddin in The National.

In any case, humans love the idea of perfection rather than perfection itself; we strive for it precisely because it is unobtainable (though you wouldn't know this going by some of the incredibly pedantic debate on the mechanics and accuracy of the technology being used). But if it at least reduces the number of really bad decisions, holds umpires to a greater degree of accountability (and as a bonus is entertaining viewing) then what is so wrong with it?

One of the unfortunate consequences of the Indian defeat in Melbourne has been the unhealthy speculation over Virat Kohli's immediate future. To single out Kohli, the least experienced of the top six, borders on the farcical because he hasn't been given a long-enough run to fill the No.6 position, writes Dileep Premachandran in The National.

In Sydney, India need to reassess their line-up so that Kohli is not the last man standing. If they want more impetus at No 3, Laxman can provide that. But either he or Dravid must bat at No 6, so that the younger man is not burdened by the consequences of possible failure.

With Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma breaking the 150 kmph mark and Zaheer Khan looking like he has regained his best, India's seam attack appears capable of taking 20 Australian wickets. The batsmen have failed to show up though, and could do well to take inspiration from the bowling attack, writes S Ram Mahesh in The Hindu.

Gambhir seemed to feel this burden at the MCG, his anxiety conveyed in his bottom-hand grip. When he's at his best, the hands work in unison, top leading, bottom modulating. In both innings of the first Test, his left hand was taking undue control of most strokes. His footwork, which had so noticeably improved during his return to Test cricket in 2008, was less certain as well.

In DNA, Sumit Chakraberty writes that the Indian fast bowlers may have impressed with speed, but lacked the guidance and support to exploit the conditions at the MCG, unlike their Australian counterparts.

Both bowlers did pitch the ball up more often in the Australian second innings, and therefore had more wickets to show for their efforts. But they were still trying too many things instead of taking the cue from Zaheer Khan and sticking to a line and length to make the percentages work for them. The Australians, from the third day onwards, were pitching four or five balls up every over, whereas it was only two or three balls an over for the Indians. Apart from the inconsistency in length, Umesh and Ishant also kept switching between bowling over the wicket and round the wicket, often letting off the pressure or losing their rhythm in the process.

In the Herald on Sunday, Paul Lewis lists the ten things he'd like to see in international cricket in 2011, from Tendulkar's 100th ton to Tarun Nethula's debut.

2. Jesse Ryder loses weight and gets fit

We could award Ryder the Shane Bond Trophy for Most Injuries (previous holder: Jacob Oram) but what we'd really like to see is the big Wellington bloke shed some more kilos and do a Shane Warne. Ryder's comfortable upholstery does him no good when fans cast jaundiced eyes over it after his latest injury. His poor form with the bat is also no recommendation.

Former Australia bowler Stuart MacGill, writing in the Age, says the DRS isn't 100% accurate and it doesn't have to be, however the call for a referral should be left to the umpire.

First, you can't blame the BCCI for not using the DRS. The ICC decided to allow its members to make a choice and they did. They know decisions will go for and against them. Second, despite the fact that Aleem Dar, one of the best umpires in the world, has called for the DRS to be uniformly adopted in all international series, I have a major problem with it. I have always been told that the umpire's decision is final. If we're going to use the DRS it has to be the umpire's decision to refer it upstairs or we shouldn't use it at all.