Time for best teams to fight it out

Australia have slipped to No. 4 in the Test rankings and that may be good for the game which is struggling to sustain spectator interest in many parts of the world, writes Gideon Haigh in the Australian.

This summer in England has been a cricket crossroads. The Ashes of 2009 followed closely two of cricket's hottest versions of its new variant: the Indian Premier League in South Africa, and the Twenty20 World Championship in England. In fact, to so soon after be plunged into a five-Test series, cricket's most traditional and now almost obsolete format, felt a little like dressing in period costume for an activity of the society for creative anachronism. What ensued was not a vintage Ashes series. The teams were too weak, and the Tests generally too one-sided. The advantage did not fluctuate; it swung back and forth like a wrecking ball, indicative of two teams at war with their frailties as much as each other.

Yet they were genuine tests, of ability, adaptability, character, endurance. One saw cricketers in extremis: indulging in mass man-love one week, fit for trauma counselling the next, performing tasks requiring extraordinary patience and self-denial, such as Ricky Ponting's superfine 150 at Cardiff and Michael Clarke's sublime 136 at Lord's, then exhibiting blink-of-an-eye brilliance like the run-outs executed from close to the bat by Andrew Strauss and Simon Katich at the Oval. Some games have one or the other: no game apart from Test cricket has both to such extent.

In the same paper Peter Lalor talks to some former Australian players and coaches who believe Ponting should remain captain despite having twice lost the Ashes in England.

In the Age Greg Baum calls for some calm and perspective following the defeat.

For two decades, Australia's winning needed little explanation. Now, seemingly, its defeat has no alibi. The fact is that this was a contest between two pretty plain old cricket teams, neither of which was able to sustain its efforts.

Reporters at the Sydney Morning Herald try to find out why the Australian team, unlike English and South African ones, is still predominantly white.