The Surfer

Writing in the Sunday Observer, Rohan Wijesinghe salutes Dr Churchill Hector Gunasekere who paved the way for Sri Lanka as a cricketing nation. In 1920, a solitary cable to Dr CH from Dr John Rockwood which read "contact the Marleybone Cricket Club and request a game in Colombo" may well have paved Sri Lanka to eventual stardom in Lahore eight decades later.

Our cricketers could shed their insecurities and uncertainties riding on the doctors accomplishments at Cambridge University and Middlesex, he being the first Ceylonese to play county cricket, the first Ceylonese to date to have played in a championship winning county side, first Ceylonese to be honoured with a membership of the utterly prestigious MCC and the first Ceylonese to add a hard to grab county to his cricket coffin. In addition to his ability with bat and scalpel he was perpetually hobnobbing with the English nobility and gentry, all within the easy ambit of his aristocratic stride, haughtily stubborn jawline and dark brooding eyes, besides his great sense of style and ceremony.

Bangladesh have been the entree before the main. Writing in the Herald on Sunday, Alex Malcolm gives an Australian perspective of their upcoming tour of New Zealand.

While the Australian public are largely ignorant of recent battles, and are wrestling with their own interest levels in the current one-sided summer against a hapless Pakistan and helpless West Indies, the Australian cricket team would be far less naive when it comes to the upcoming tour of New Zealand. The Black Caps always lift a cog for their trans-Tasman rivals, particularly in the limited overs format. Aside from the recent Champions Trophy final, the last three Chappell-Hadlee one-day series have been extremely competitive.

Several members of the Afghanistan Under-19 team wanted to stay in New Zealand after the recent World Cup to become professional cricketers in the hope they could support their families in their war-torn homeland. Former New Zealand player Mike Shrimpton, who took on a temporary coaching role with the Afghans, tells the Herald on Sunday that most days they rang home to check on their families and it often made for an uncomfortable environment.

"Three or four players lived in the same district where the Taleban gunmen and suicide bombers entered [while the World Cup was on]. It didn't help it was in the news here with our SAS officers involved in the heart of the capital Kabul. A number of the boys were affected. It became clear one night from talking to the captain [Noor-ul-Haq] that his family was in the basement of their house and there was a gunfight outside. It was a difficult time not knowing what was happening."

Mark Richardson is worried by the lack of experience in the New Zealand Test top-order. Writing in the New Zealand Herald, he says that the unproven line-up, with the exception of Ross Taylor, would do well to get some runs and confidence against Bangladesh, ahead of sterner tests against Australia.

Sachin Tendulkar's hundred - his 46th overall - in the second innings of the Nagpur Test, says Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times, could have been remembered as one of his most meaningful knocks ever but this would also hurt him the most.

Paul Collingwood's not-so-kind remark that it would be difficult to find a decent golf course in Bangladesh is exactly the sort of prat-line, with that unmistakable whiff of the old colonial days, which gets right up subcontinental noses, writes David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald. Bangladesh should keep that remark in mind to spur them on to drive England up the wall during the home series.

When Bangladesh head home to prepare for the arrival of England, we should all wish them well and hope they give the Old Dart a serious touch up. Why? Well apart from wanting to see a likeable bunch do well in front of their own people as they look to advance in the international game, there's what might be called the Paul Collingwood factor.

The long list of injuries to the current West Indies players is enough to form a separate XI and it's not funny. Could the injuries be also sourced to the modern training regime, or the packed international calendar? Haydn Gill wonders in the Nation.

In the New Zealand Herald, David Leggat speaks to the new national coach Mark Greatbatch and finds a man who isn't exactly comfortable with the notion of being "head coach".

John Stern writes in the Wisden Cricketer that there seems to be a 'certain generic, faceless, smugness about the current lot' of Australians.

It frustrates me how easily I can feel sorry for opponents of my team. It happens less in football because of the shorter time-span (and, er, because I support West Ham) but whenever England enjoy sustained periods of cricket dominance I find that I start to sympathise with the opposition. I don’t want them to win, I just start feeling sorry for them which, I know, is both patronising and disloyal.

Not playing in the Champions League this year will be a hammer blow for county cricketers, writes Michael Vaughan in the Daily Telegraph. It's time the ECB stops continually fighting with the BCCI and to start building relationships, he believes, and they must realise they are never going to beat them.

I hate the fact that in this country we are arrogant and stubborn. We say "we are not letting India rule the world". Yet everyone else manages to build a relationship with India and makes a nice living off the back of it. Just like every other country, we should be making money from the Champions League. It is here to stay. It has a 10-year television deal worth $1 billion (£637 million) and is not going to disappear. We should embrace it.