Will someone spare a thought for the poor, wee, enraged cricketers?
Also: are Sri Lanka brilliant or dreadful? Answers on a postcard
Sure, cricket has come a long way in the area of player safety. But if you think it can rest on its laurels, you've got another think coming. Even now, there are players out there unaware of the danger they are in. Did poor Mitchell Marsh know, for example, that when he was out for 53 in a Sheffield Shield game last month, he was only moments away from having his unsuspecting hand fractured by the dressing-room wall? Did he understand that he could hurt himself so badly, he is at risk of missing the first Test against Pakistan?
It was a tumultuous month for Bangladesh star Shakib Al Hasan. Just last week he was the leading figure in Bangladesh's player strike, threatening to pull out of matches against India, in order to get better pay from the cricket board. Later, he also failed to show up to team training sessions. Then he was suspended for at least a year, for not informing the ICC about phone contact with a bookie.
Are Sri Lanka a decent team? Or are they terrible? Early in October, they went to Pakistan with a team missing several first-choice T20 players (including captain Lasith Malinga), and thrashed the No. 1 ranked team in the world. In the third match, they even made five changes to an already depleted XI, and still won comfortably. Then they went to Australia (where they have never lost a T20 series before) with a full-strength side, and have been steamrolled in profound and embarrasing ways.
Congratulations to the ECB, who in retrospect produced a masterstroke in announcing the Hundred more than three years ahead of its scheduled start, ensuring that all criticism had time to wear itself out and become replaced by resignation by the time this revolutionary competition begins.
Cricketers generally benefit from some of the best hospitality of any city they visit, but for Dean Elgar the hotels and food in "some of the smaller places" in India were not entirely satisfactory. "[India] is the one place I find where they are very streetwise and clever with the touring teams," he went on to say. "They definitely push your boundaries and test you." Which is fascinating because last year he had suggested that Sri Lanka had been "pretty streetsmart" for supposedly giving South Africa a flat surface for their practice match, before decking them on turning surfaces in the actual Tests.
Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo's Sri Lanka correspondent. @afidelf