Ian Chappell, writing in Mid-Day, says as India's tour of Australia wore on, Tendulkar's form deteriorated; the Australian bowlers eventually got inside his mind and along with thoughts of his century this was too much for him to process.

What could've been a glorious farewell tour of Australia for Sachin Tendulkar has turned into an ongoing tale of missed opportunities leading to frustration all round. With each failure to score his coveted one-hundredth international century Tendulkar's become more desperate to the point where, when he was run out at the Sydney Cricket Ground, he gestured in Brett Lee's direction as if to say: "It was his fault I was caught short of my crease." When a player of Tendulkar's renowned ability starts blaming other people for his failure to deliver, it's time he took a look in the mirror and asked himself: "Am I playing this game for the right reason?"

Boria Majumdar, writing in the Times of India, says the time has come for the BCCI to have a proper media policy and appoint a professional media manager following differences emerging between the press and the players during the Australian tour.

That the media isn't all negative was evident in the way the Kohli innings was reported, both on television and in print. The media was unanimous in hailing the innings as one of the best ever played in the 50-over format, an incredible feat which has given India a chance of making the final. Yet, at the slightest sign of a crisis, the first blame always goes to the media, the cricket establishment's favourite whipping boy.

There are reports of a rift between him and Virender Sehwag, he has to deal with senior players coming in and out of the side, and young players under-performing, his captaincy is attracting criticism; yet the BCCI says it does not take MS Dhoni's statement that he may retire from one format of the game in 2013 seriously. When will the administrators take the pressure on Dhoni seriously? Rohit Mahajan asks in Outlook.

Dhoni’s ODI runs have led to his partial rehabilitation in the affections of fans—confirming the irrationality, and brevity, of public memory. But spare a thought for Dhoni—he’s not been given the team he wanted, he’s mentally and physically fatigued. He has spoken often about a tiring excess of cricket, that he might give up Test cricket. It’s a cry for help that the BCCI has refused to heed

MS Dhoni recently said India's three senior batsmen could not play in the same XI because they concede an extra 20 runs in the field. The Indian Express' Sandeep Dwivedi says Dhoni is justified in saying that because runs have become easier to score in ODI cricket than stop. Indian batsmen have had a lethargic attitude since the days of Dilip Vengsarkar, he says, and just scoring centuries without contributing in the field may not be enough anymore.

The modest coach tried his best to dissuade the young cricketers from aping Vengsarkar’s non-existent pre-batting workout but it was futile. The impressionable boys had cracked the secret of “effortless” batting by watching their hero in action. Endless laps of cricket field, frog jumps or sprint sessions that their coach advocated were a waste of time, they concluded. Rolling wrists followed by a draining net session was the recipe for success at the top level. Actually that was the template Indian batsmen have followed for years.

In the Mumbai Mirror, Sriram Veera talks to former Australia fast bowler Michael Kasprowicz, who reveals the tips former India fast bowler Javagal Srinath gave him on the 1998 tour to India.

Srinath told him two simple things that changed Kaspa’s tour around. “I notice that you are drinking too much water. You are gulping it. Just sip some and spit out,” Srinath told Kaspa. “I was amazed by it. Because it was so hot I was drinking water at every opportunity at the end of an over at the outfield. And now Srinath tells me I am drinking too much. Don’t gulp, just sip. And it worked,” Kaspa told Mumbai Mirror yesterday.

Then came the second advice. Kaspa recalled asking Srinath for tips on reverse swing. “He told me just keep the ball dry. Both advices fitted and worked for me.” In the second innings, he took 5-28 from 18 overs and bowled Australia to a Test win. “Because you were so sweaty and the ball would get wet. I said ‘Thank you’ to Srinath. That was the key. After that spell I started to feel more comfortable and confident in Indian conditions.”

Why is Brett Lee working at a clothing store? Aditya Iyer has more in the Indian Express.

Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman may have failed in Australia, but that's no reason to scoff at the legends, writes Suresh Menon in the weekly magazine Outlook.

Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman have an influence well beyond runs made and victories achieved.

For one, it is entirely possible that Indian cricket itself might have taken a long time to recover from the match-fixing allegations a decade ago. Skipper Mohammed Azharuddin confessed to having manipulated results and without the obvious integrity of men like Dravid and Laxman, and those who have retired like Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad, the game might have been destroyed.

Significantly, these batsmen brought to the game an Indianness, the inherited technique and uniqueness of a nation that is sometimes reduced to the cliche, ‘oriental magic’.

After India's twin debacles in England and Australia, Makarand Waingankar in The Hindu asks if there are any solutions in sight to improve Indian cricket. The Talent Resource Development Wing (TRDW) which was successful at one time in fast-tracking Indian players, was inexplicably scrapped.

The BCCI must appoint a fact finding committee under Ganguly. As he is still playing, he will know the ground realities and can decide better. He should be allowed to choose his committee members and present his report of solutions in two months. Asking seniors to retire is no solution. We need to find replacements and start India ‘A' tours immediately.

In the same newspaper, former Australia captain Greg Chappell writes that until fielding and fitness are given more importance, India cannot be successful.

Before the series there appeared to be very little between the two teams but, once they walked out onto the MCG, it was obvious that Australia was the team prepared to do the hard work necessary to win.

Successful teams are just that, a team. They bat and bowl in partnerships and they support their bowlers with a committed fielding effort that leverages the bowling performance

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?

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

"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.

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.

"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.

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?''

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.

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.

While Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman still earn their places in the team on merit, at some stage India needs to look to the future, Gaurav Kalra says on cricketnext.com. If their spots are considered permanently occupied, anyone who comes in to the No. 6 position is always going to bat like it his last Test, he says.

At the heart of Indian cricket's predicament lies an emotional response to a practical problem. Succession plans are ruthless in their design and do not rest on the current ability of the men who are sought to be replaced. Of-course Tendulkar is still the best man for number four. Undoubtedly there aren't any batsmen more suited to bat at three and five than Dravid and Laxman. But must the immediacy of a task be the over-riding concern at all times? Must the desire to let them choose a "grand exit" over-ride the shape and form this cricket team takes in the future?

After Australia's compelling 122-run win against India at the MCG, Greg Baum, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, says the Test team has seemingly got their killer instinct back.

In the first week of this year, Australian cricket was a humiliated entity. Since then, it has submitted to three reviews and spilled every position and structure. It has played nine Tests in three countries, beaten Sri Lanka, South Africa and now India, but also lost to New Zealand. It has made as few as 47 and as many as 488 in an innings. It mounted a record run chase against South Africa, but failed in a modest one against the Kiwis. It has tried 18 players, some of whom were uncertain that the cap fitted, others unsure that it still did. But, oddly enough, the spinner was a constant. Yesterday, it finished this most tumultuous of calendar years with a thumping victory over cricket's powerhouse, witnessed over four days by the biggest crowd for an India Test in this country. Teams being rebuilt are mercurial, but this one at least can believe that its best is good enough.

Sourav Ganguly, writing in the same paper, says Michael Clark deserves a lot of credit for the win.

One can see a good camaraderie between Ponting and Clarke, and that's a big thumbs-up to the skipper. A lot of teams have leaders who look to keep the past captain away as they want their own boys and own group, but Clarke has showed enormous maturity in that department. That will really stand him in good stead with his tenure as captain. You can see that in the way Ponting and Hussey bailed him out of trouble at the crucial juncture.

Peter Siddle and James Pattinson, who played important roles in Australia's victory, started out at a small cricket club in the suburb of Dandenong in Melbourne. Rohit Bhaskar of the Hindustan Times finds out about their younger days from the people a the club who watched over their growth.

It is not just India's performance which was amiss at Melbourne, but tactics and motivation too, says Ayaz Memon, writing in India Today.

The abject surrender in the first Test - and especially the second innings - not only belies expectations of a first-ever series win Down Under, but throws up several new stringent queries, the most pertinent being whether MS Dhoni's team has not been hyped way beyond its abilities.

As players get older, they understand the game more but they also know more about what can go wrong, Greg Chappell explains in the Hindu. He writes about how he he spoke to Sachin Tendulkar during his time as India coach about trying to think like a young player, who is only enthusiastic about scoring runs and is not worried about making a mistake.

As a young player all that matters is cricket and batting. One hundred per cent of one's mental capacity is devoted to training and playing. Doubts are pushed to the back of one's mind by the excitement and expectation of a big score. As one gets older other things start to impinge on that mental space. The doubts find a way to slip to the front of the mind; being careful takes over from looking out for scoring opportunities.

The Sydney Morning Herald's Andrew Wu looks back on some memorable debuts at the venue that will host its 100th Test in the new year.

Born Reginald Erskine Foster, but better known as Tip, Foster was the only man to captain England at football and cricket. His 287 on debut in 1903 has stood for more than a century as the highest score made in an SCG Test ... Foster's debut effort remains the highest score by a Test debutant, well clear of the unbeaten 222 by South Africa's Jacques Rudolph in 2003.

Who would have thought, after taking 1-150 on debut at the SCG, that the chunky 22-year-old with a blond mullet would retire with more than 700 Test wickets and be regarded as one of the best players ever? Shane Warne was punished by opener Ravi Shastri and a softly spoken teenager called Sachin Tendulkar in the 1992 Test against India. Shastri hit a career-best 206 and shared in a 196-run stand for the sixth wicket with Tendulkar before entering the record books as Warne's first Test victim.

Greg Baum, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, says on Wednesday at the MCG, the pitch did a bit and so - subtly - did the bowlers, but the batsmen flattered them.

Once, most good batsmen played late, with soft hands, delaying contact until all the movement of the ball was spent. Rubber-wristed Indians were past masters. Now, nearly everyone commits forward, bodily expressing the all-sports mantra about the necessity of getting on to the front foot. But in many, the display of strength becomes an exploration of limitations. Only Ponting, among the contemporary Australians, is catlike enough to press forward, then retreat without unbalancing himself.

Sourav Ganguly, the former India captain, writing in the Age, says Australia should allow the likes of Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey to breathe easy so that they could create an atmosphere that will help young players develop.

On a wicket which helped the bowlers, two senior guys [Ponting and Hussey] stood up when it was required. Their stand could be the deciding factor in this Test match. Watching them play, I felt it was not just the runs they made, but the manner in which they played that told its own story ... We all know Australian cricket has a history of slowly leaving ageing players out and bringing in young players. [But] the likes of Ponting and Hussey need to be handled carefully. One shouldn't have young players coming into a losing culture. It takes away the faith and belief and could hurt them mentally.

On First Post Abhilasha Khaitan says she prefers to enjoy the spectacle of Sachin Tendulkar scoring a fluent 70 than worry about a meaningless landmark.

From where I was sitting, Tendulkar’s 70 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground was worth its weight in tons – yes, even a hundred tons. It was wrapped in confidence, flair and consummate ease as he lived up to his larger-than-life legend in front of a largely knowledgeable, intense crowd that could not stop talking about him. It was all Tendulkar after tea on Tuesday, both on and around the field, with stories from as far back as his growing years being recounted by Australians in the Members’ Reserve where I was sitting, even while the protagonist, unconcerned with the drama around him, played his part with the bat.

Following the drubbing in England, the good news for the Indian batsmen in Australia is that the ball will not do as much, laterally, for as long as it did in England, writes S Ram Mahesh in the Hindu. The bowlers will have bounce to work with.

Unlike the Duke, with its prominent, hand-stitched seam, the Kookaburra ball, with its flatter, machine-stitched seam, allows a batsman to settle after the newness has worn off. Also, an Australian summer is drier than its English equivalent. The less water-charged the atmosphere, the less the ball is observed to swing. On Australia's firmer wickets, moreover, the ball doesn't deviate off the surface to the same degree it does in England.

"Sixty-four years ago, in a preliminary to India's first tour of Australia, Don Bradman made his 100th 100. In Farewell to Cricket, he said that it was the ''most exhilarating moment'' of his career," writes Greg Baum in the Sydney Morning Herald. " ... At the start of another Indian tour, this phenomenon is again manifest. This time, cricket aficionados are holding their breath in anticipation of Sachin Tendulkar's 100th century."

Some context: Bradman's eventual tally of 117 centuries comprised 29 in 52 Test matches and the balance in other first-class cricket. Tendulkar's 99 hundreds consist of 51 in 184 Tests and 48 in one-day internationals (but ignores 27 other first-class centuries). This merely reflects the way the game's infrastructure has changed.

Bradman made his 100th hundred in his 295th innings. Tendulkar will have played at least 746. This reflects the way Bradman's standing has remained unassailable. But there is no doubt that the vibe about the imminence of the achievement is almost identical.

Also in the Sydney Morning Herald, Chris Barrett speaks to former Australia fast bowler Mike Whitney, who played against Tendulkar on his first tour to Australia in 1991-92.

Whitney remembers clearly the three-day match in the northern rivers, particularly Tendulkar's 82 in an Indian first-innings total of 209. ''Lismore was a very sporting wicket. If you have a look at the figures, Wayne Holdsworth and I did most of the damage,'' Whitney says. ''It was pretty much a greentop. I think I took six-for in the second innings. The ball was seaming and swinging everywhere, and [Tendulkar] looked unbelievable that day amongst a collapsing batting line-up.''

As we wonder whether Ricky Ponting will ever get his run-scoring mojo back, it's easy to forget where Sachin Tendulkar was exactly five years ago, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Daily Telegraph. "He may have only been 32 at the time but, like Ponting, he was into his 17th season of international cricket. And, to borrow from Dickens, it was the worst of times."

That was then. In the half-decade since, Tendulkar has piled up 4593 runs and 16 centuries at 58.9.He has been an integral part of a side that was ranked No.1 in the Test arena for 18 months and which won the World Cup earlier this year. Along the way, he also became the first man to score a double-hundred in one-day internationals, pillaging an attack led by Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel. Now, months short of his 39th birthday, Tendulkar returns to Australia, the stage for some of his greatest innings.

Sriram Veera turns the attention to Ricky Ponting in the Mumbai Mirror, writing that it is hard not to feel empathy for Ponting as he prepares for the Boxing Day Test; it was not so a few years ago.

Remember Sydney 2008? Remember when he got socked in the eye at a nightclub? Remember him telling Javagal Srinath to get lost when he’d gone to ask if he was fine after being hit by a bouncer? Remember him giving AB de Villiers a cold stare when he had run up to him congratulate him on a hundred? Remember his complaints to the umpires?

But times are changing. It’s hard not to feel sympathetic towards Ricky Ponting these days, even if you’re Indian. A modern-day great is stumbling, the local press has been gunning for him, and Ponting-must-go have been headlines screaming from newspapers lying around in street cafes. It evokes compassion.

Ed Cowan's rise to the Test team has been followed by many and he has found support from strong quarters. He may not be the most deserving opener to receive a Baggygreen – Phil Jaques and Chris Rogers had more to show when they were called up as openers – but considering his form and the problems Australia face, his call-up is deserved, writes Jamie Alter in Cricketnext.

There's something about the expectancy of an in-form opener entering the Test scene. It can be fuelled by the individual's run-scoring ability, his hunger for big scores in pressure situations. It can be because of an aging veteran's impending retirement, and the interest around whether the selectors will give him the chop. It can be the promise of fresh talent, of watching a batsman with much potential being given the biggest opportunity of his career.

VVS Laxman makes another entry to the country in which he has scored a truckload of runs. Another four Tests is a mouthwatering prospect. Jamie Alter looks back at his best knocks in Australia since 2000 in Cricketnext.

What is it with Laxman? Show him a baggy green cap, and he comes alive. From cumbersome, he becomes commanding. Not since Ian Botham has there been a tormentor of Australians. In 25 Tests against Australia, Laxman has scored 2279 runs at an average of 55.58, with six centuries. In Australia, he has 1080 runs at 54.05 with four centuries. Those are staggering numbers, considering the chunk of those runs came against what was the best team in Test cricket.