He skips the light fandango ... injury permitting

Seriously, Darren ... no-one in the Essex changing-room will even mention it © BBC

Dancing Queen More than a few heads were scratched when Darren Gough withdrew at the last minute from contention to be part of England's squad for the one-day series in Pakistan. On Monday, the reason became clear. Old twinkle toes had signed up to take part in the immensely popular BBC show Celebrity Come Dancing, the refuge of has-beens and D-list celebs. Given his injury record, expect Gough to be sidelined with knee trouble after his first Anchor Triple Step.

Cover-up of the Week Bewildering though the whole spat between Sourav Ganguly and Greg Chappell was to most outside India, the shameless attempts by the Indian board to dismiss Chappell's damning email as no more than a "misunderstanding" made it a global laughing stock. But insiders were anything but surprised. The BCCI, with a reputation for shamelessly brushing over anything tricky, somehow managed to ignore their coach's criticisms about Ganguly's attitude, mental state, fitness, approach and, heaven forbid, form with the bat. Those things aside, he seems the ideal man to captain one of the world's leading teams.

Kick A Man While He's Down Andrew Flintoff revealed that Ganguly, aka Lord Snooty, was far from popular during his time as Lancashire's overseas pro. "He turned up as if he was royalty. It was like having Prince Charles on your side. There were rumours he was asking people to carry his coffin for him, although he never asked me." Perhaps even the thick-skinned Ganguly realised that taking on Freddie might not be a sensible option.

Talk to the hand ... a bad week for Ganguly © Getty Images

Another Forest Bites The Dust Flintoff's comments were made in his new book, Being Freddie, released this week. Not accusing anyone of cashing in, but no fewer than nine Ashes-related publications are set to hit the shops in the next month, as well as three DVDs. Spare a thought for Mark Ramprakash, England's forgotten man. Back in April he agreed to write a diary of the season. His publisher probably thought with England sure to lose the Ashes and Surrey possible championship contenders, it would be a sure-fire stocking filler. Oops. Four More Weeks is out in November.

Stating The Bleeding Obvious Part 1 You have to admire Tatenda Taibu's blunt talking. Zimbabwe's long-suffering captain admitted that he was "disappointed" with recent results (akin to Jacques Chirac being "disappointed" that the 2012 Olympics went to London and not Paris) but identified the way ahead when they visit India. "I hope that the guys who will be going will learn how to deal with left-arm seamers, left-arm spinners and swing bowling in general." So, all Zimbabwe need to turn the corner is find a team whose entire attack consists of right-arm spinners ...

Stating The Bleeding Obvious Part 2 At a time when Bangladesh, like Zimbabwe, are fighting against mounting criticism of their right to play Test cricket, they need all the friends and positive spin they can muster. Step up Habibul Bashar, their captain, who said that the recent jaunt in Sri Lanka was "the worst tour since I took over captaincy." As well as the losses, Bangladesh suffered from injury and disciplinary problems through the series, but Bashar did flag one small reason to be happy, telling reporters that "it's nice there are no international fixtures for the next five months."

Yeah, But No, But Yeah Hard to tell who made the most U-turns in the Inzamam-ul-Haq/ICC Super Series spat. First the ICC left Inzi out of their World XI, then, in a tit-for-tat move, Inzi decided to snub their annual awards. When Sachin Tendulkar withdrew from the side though injury, a relieved ICC eyed a way to stop effigies of Malcolm Speed being burned throughout Pakistan and summoned the Pakistan captain. But a defiant Inzi, like the wedding guest who knows his last-minute invitation is only because someone better cannot make it, stomped his foot and stuck to his guns. Behind-the-scenes machinations followed; Inzi was summoned to the Pakistan Cricket Board offices, and - surprise, surprise - changed his mind "for the good of Pakistan cricket". Whether the ICC possesses a sense of humour will be evident if, after all that, they ask Inzi to carry the drinks at the SCG.

Men behaving badly © Getty Images

Cricket Is Still The New Football Four months ago an England cricketer could have streaked through Buckingham Palace and it wouldn't have warranted media attention. How things have changed. This week Kevin Pietersen has been photographed chatting up up-market Essex girl Paris Hilton and Simon Jones snapped staggering out of a party in Hollywood (Los Angeles not Ireland). The Post Office has also announced that England's players will feature of a new issue of stamps (the first living people ever portrayed apart from royalty). More worrying, the new royal couple (Andrew and Rachel Flintoff) adopted a positively David and Victoria Beckham pose for photographers outside the PCA Annual Awards. The only way is down.

The Truth Will Out The media men, however, have put Flintoff back in his place. The day after England's Ashes win, a tired and emotional Flintoff, when asked about the Super Series, said; "I couldn't think of anything worse to be honest ... I'd like a few weeks off." A quick slap from the kings of spin and he was back on-message. "It is a great honour for me to be involved in this series and I'll be going hard at it. It will be good, hard-fought cricket." The ICC Super Series, a competition with more official sponsors than the combined haul of wickets taken against England by Jason Gillespie and Michael Kasprowicz, kicks off on Wednesday.