The Surfer

With no international cricket to be played in Pakistan in the forseeable future following on from the attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore, the Gulf would be the closest thing the team would soon have to a ‘home ground’. Kamila Shamsie, writing in the Indian Express, feels a great sadness as she recalls the particular history of her hometown, Karachi, and international cricket.

South Africa may have developed into a good team, but not a good international squad. Now that certain players have retired, been injured or lost form, there are no experienced players to replace them. Arthur Turner in Sport24.com believes their reserve strength has been badly exposed.

India's three-Test contest in New Zealand will determine just how far this Indian team has progressed over the past two years, writes Dileep Premachandran in his Guardian blog. Over the last decade, India have always lifted their game against the best in the business, winning seven and losing nine of their Test matches against Australia. But when it comes to touring New Zealand, they have have often been suspicious victims of the Hollywood syndrome.

The Test series that commences in a few hours is perhaps the biggest test of the resolve that has been the most eye-catching aspect of India's cricket on the road to redemption. It started in England a few months after the World Cup debacle. Talk of that series win usually centres around Zaheer Khan's superb spells at Trent Bridge, but the spadework had been done at Lord's, with a combination of rain and obduracy keeping a rampant England at bay. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, derided as a show pony by some in the media, was the unlikeliest of heroes on that final day, stonewalling with a strength of purpose that had seemed beyond his Russian roulette style of batting.

Going into the Test series against New Zealand, India's composed, technically-proficient No. 3 batsman looms as a massive figure. In a line-up replete with glittering stroke-makers, Rahul Dravid is the adhesive that binds the batting together, the rock which gives others the liberty and licence to indulge themselves, writes R Kaushik in the Deccan Herald.

Darren Pattinson’s journey over the past year has gone from England Test bowler to Victorian club player. The roof tiler by trade, who was sensationally plucked from obscurity to make his Test debut for the land of his birth, England, against South Africa at Headingley, tells the Wisden Cricketer that returning to England for another season, this time as an established county player and main character of a remarkable chapter in English Test history, will not be different.

Mihir Bose, the BBC's sports editor, writes in his blog that the ICC never has, and never will, have the powers to come up with a solution, let alone impose it. While the world waited to hear how the cricket's governing body would deal with the security threat posed by sport being targeted for the first time since the Munich Olympics in 1972, the ICC told us where the next Champions Trophy, a 50-over tournament that many feel has outlived its usefulness, will be held. The trio that effectively run cricket, says Bose, is India, Australia and South Africa. But India, the economic powerhouse, needs to show it can live up to universally accepted international standards in terms of timing, location and security arrangements.

It may seem an outlandish notion to make a greenhorn in international cricket like Dimitri Mascarenhas captain, but Paul Newman makes a plausible case for him in the Daily Mail.

There are three former England captains(Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff and Paul Collingwood) in the current squad who are all guaranteed a place in the Twenty20 team as long as they are fit, but none would relish a return to the helm.

England will begin the hunt for a new coach at the end of the West Indies tour and Mike Atherton feels assistant coach Andy Flower would be the ideal man in charge. He writes in the Times:

There have been signs in the Caribbean that Flower's no-nonsense approach to cricket is beginning to hold sway, which will pay dividends in the medium term. The sense of cosiness that pervaded the team in the years since the Ashes win of 2005 is gradually being stripped away ... He is incredibly loyal and discreet, knows cricket inside out, having been a player of the highest class, and, having travelled around the world, he knows intimately the various playing conditions.

Peter Roebuck feels Brett Lee will be hard pressed to regain his place in the Australian Test team. Why? Because Lee is 32, he does not scare batsmen, he has less room for manoeuvre than peers with similar track records, he has not bowled a ball at full pelt for arguably an entire year, and in the meantime another generation has risen. So, says Roebuck, the desperation to restore Australia's only experienced pace bowler has diminished. He writes in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Now Lee is trying with might and main to secure a place in the Ashes touring party. It is something he needs in his life, to retain the ready smile. However, recent results confirm he can no longer command a place in the starting XI. It's not easy for a 32-year-old pace bowler to break back into a Test team.

Robert Craddock says in the Courier-Mail that Australia’s victory in South Africa should have solved all of their problems.