The reading room

It's only the second week and I am already running a day late. Apologies, and here's the recommended reading list from the last week or so.

Australia surprised most cricket followers, and perhaps themselves, by swiftly demolishing South Africa to keep the Test mace. After a series of pieces on depressing subjects, Gideon Haigh was delighted to be able to write one on the new boys who made the feat possible.

And Christian Ryan, recently the author of a biography of Kim Hughes, the golden boy who presided over one of the lowest periods in Australian cricket, found the Australian win all the more rewarding because it involved struggle.

As South Africa lay in disarray, Brydon Coverdale, Cricinfo's man on the tour, reported on the tension and confusion in their camp with such clarity that one of the members of the home side's management team remarked on how accurately it captured the mood and the goings-on in the dressing room.

Of course there was no getting away from cricket's troubles. Peter Roebuck captured the feeling in this evocative piece that posed this question: what now for cricket?

Just to remind ourselves how beautiful it all once was and how beautiful it can be, I leave you with this one, an extract from Rahul Bhattacharya's Pundits from Pakistan.