Hello all and welcome to this weeks edition of Paul Seaborne on Cricket.

First up this week is the major talking point of the postponement of the ICC Champions Trophy. Regular readers of this column will know the tense atmosphere surrounding this event ever since the security situation arose in Pakistan.

First South Africa announced they would not be sending a team to the event, then New Zealand and Australia followed suit. England weren‘t going to be far behind them so the ICC decided the best thing to do was to completely postpone it until 2009, and hope the situation has eased .

It’s been a rough time for the ICC recently, still reeling from the farcical events in the West Indies that saw the World Cup turn into a laughing stock. That was followed by the drug implications that hovered around Mohammed Asif and Shoaib Akhtar, then we had the race row involving Australia and India over Christmas and the New Year, and now this. What the ICC could have done with, more than anything, was a smoothly run and successful tournament featuring the worlds best teams and players.
What they ended up with is a very expensive gap in the cricketing calendar, a gap they will struggle to fill. Not only that, Pakistan are out of pocket, and will look to the ICC’s coffers to replenish the lost funds. That’s not to mention the amount they will have to fork out to sponsors and advertisers through lost revenue. Although seeing as how the tournament has been postponed and not cancelled, they can at least deflect the issues for the time being.

The list goes on, another consequence is that there is now a major rift developing between the Asian countries and the rest of the world. As the storm clouds gathered pace, India backed Pakistan to host the event, whilst Sri Lanka appeared to have no problem with playing in Pakistan, after all, all three nations recently contested the Asia Cup held in Pakistan. Meanwhile, those countries outside Asia appeared to have absolutely no intention of travelling, despite placating the hosts with comments such as “We will wait and see what the security team say” as time passed, the clocked ticked away, it appeared they were less and less interested in going. Personally I can’t say I blame them. There may have been an incident, there may not have been, but how many of us would take that gamble with our lives?

The ICC already have problems with the introduction of all the 20/20 cricket taking the world by storm, and many of it is outside their jurisdiction, they feel they are losing their grip on the game. The need a showpiece event, and this was a chance for them to show the world they could still do it. Now is has been postponed, one gets the feeling the ICC will be quite glad to see the back of 2008.

Away from the Champions Trophy, India have secured their fist ever series win in Sri Lanka, after overcoming the hosts 3-2, a score line that flatters Sri Lanka to be honest, with them winning the dead rubber game at the end of the series, and that a game that was reduced in overs, and messrs Duckworth and Lewis didn’t do the visitors any favours.

Much credit has to be given to India here. Many had written off their chances before the series began, with many experts wondering how they would cope with the double threat of Mendis and Murali. Pretty bloody well is the answer! Although to be fair, it was only really when they got to the flatter pitches away from Dambulla did they really come to terms with them. For at Dambulla, Sri Lanka had the edge, and had all five games been held there, I feel they would have emerged victorious. For it was there that Sri Lanka won the first game, and narrowly lost the second after setting India just 142, they took seven wickets before India managed to scrape home. If they had set them 180, the I feel Sri Lanka would have gone 2-0 up and with it, gone onto take the series.

As it was they moved onto Colombo, where the pitches were more conducive to batting, and more importantly, they were day/night games, with the team batting first holding a significant advantage. So it was that in the vital third fixture, India won the crucial toss and set the hosts 238 to win. Under the lights Sri Lanka failed to get close and India took a vital lead going into the penultimate fixture. Again, Dhoni won the toss, and again India batted and set Sri Lanka a more imposing 258. Again they couldn’t cope chasing under lights and India emerged victorious, taking an unassailable 3-1 lead with one match to play.

So India are ever improving under Dhoni. Since winning the Commonwealth Bank series in Australia at the turn of the year, Dhoni’s men have gone from strength to strength. I felt this was a big test for them, and having come through it with flying colours, I can see them being No 1 before long.

Much of this is, as I have said before, down to the skipper Dhoni, who incidentally has risen to the top of the tree in the ICC One Day rankings. Since taking over, he has taken the brave decision of dropping acclaimed stars Tendulker, Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman from the ODI side, and replaced them with rising stars such as Rohit Sharma, Gambhir, Raina and Kohli. This shows incredible faith and that faith is being restored as his new look side continue to overcome all obstacles that are put in their way. It also paves the way for the future, as much of this side are under 25, it certainly seems the future is bright for India, especially in the One Day arena.

Talking of vastly improving sides, I must mention the dramatic improvement in England since Kevin Pieterson took over from both Michael Vaughan and Paul Collingwood in both the Test Match and One Day sides respectively.

Astonishingly, were England to whitewash South Africa 5-0, then England would propel themselves to No 2 in the World Rankings, a high that seemed a million miles away some 8 months ago when they crashed out of the World Cup quite embarrassingly.

England have quite simply brushed away the current World No 2 with significant ease. That’s not to say the visitors haven’t had their problems because they have, firstly missing both the Morkel brothers, through injury, and also skipper Graeme Smith with tennis elbow. They have also had to contend with the inexplicable poor form of Jacques Kallis, who is struggling to figure out which end of the bat to hold at the moment.

But lets not take anything away from England, they have been consistently destructive with both at and ball, with Harmison, Anderson, Broad and Flintoff providing a more-than-useful pace quartet throughout the innings, backed up by the relatively unknown, but excellent spin of Samit Patel and the skipper himself.

England seem to have found a winning formula under KP. He skippers the side with a smile on his face and has installed the same confidence and arrogance that prior to taking over, only he had the fortune to enjoy. At the top of the batting order, Matt Prior and Ian Bell have been giving England fast starts. It’s still not the same powerful first ten overs enjoyed by Gilchrist and Hayden, Jayasuria and Sangakarra or Gambhir and Sehwag, but nonetheless, it is a start England have been crying out for for some time now.

Then they have the return to form of Andrew Flintoff. In this series he has cracked his way to two scores of 78 on the two occasions he has batted. It just goes to show how important Flintoff is the the success of the England side. Then we have captain marvel himself, Kevin Pieterson, who has led from the front with some excellent innings throughout the series. His partnership of 144 with Flintoff at Headingley provided the innings with momentum that enabled England to produce a match winning score.

In addition to the excellent batting we have witnessed, we must pay testament to the bowlers. Stephen Harmison, Andrew Flintoff and Stuart Broad have all been excellent for KP, and Broad returned his best ever ODI figures of 5-23 off ten overs as England dismissed South Africa for just 86 runs!

The are bowling as a unit, and the wayward days of being unable to control the white ball seem far behind them.

I must pay testament to Steve Harmison, back after a three year exile from One Day cricket, and back in the test team since he was dropped in 2007.
Watching him run in and bowl at 90mph plus, and getting the ball to move off the seam and in the air has been a sight England fans have been crying out for for years. He makes things happen in the midle overs, and now he seems to have his confidence and rhythm back, he is proving to be a more than useful asset to Pieterson, who knows that a relaxed Harmison is a lethal weapon to have.

Many of his critics are saying that Harmison is only back for the money provided by Alan Stanford’s 20/20 game in the West Indies. It does appear to many that his comeback has been timed relatively well, but we must remember that it was England who came calling for Steve Harmison, and not the other way round. Besides, if all it took was £500,000 to get Harmison firing on all cylinders, they should have had a whip round about 18 months ago!

The South African coach, Micky Arthur has been trying his best to put a positive spin on his sides defeat, insisting that this gives his younger players the chance to shine as they look towards starting to build for 2011 World Cup. This is a line often spouted by managers or coaches when a team is not doing well, and he has commented “This really is a time for us to start moving out of an era - when we were very, very good - forward to the World Cup in 2011. Our attack is very inexperienced in terms of one-day cricket, and in some key batting areas we've got a lot of younger players. We need to get them out there and expose them. If I have to take a positive out of this, it's asked us all where we want to go as a one-day unit.
"I really think it is time for us to re-evaluate where we want to go, re-evaluate our personnel and start a new era for South Africa in terms of one-day cricket and getting ready for the World Cup in 2011."

Considering 2011 is three years away, he has plenty of time.

Staying with the one day theme for now, Australia are currently crushing Bangladesh as expected. However more interesting than the cricket is the story that Andrew Symonds has been sent home from the teams camp in Darwin after he missed a team meeting to go fishing. Now whilst this originally resulted in much sniggering in the Seaborne household, I realised this wasn’t the first time that Symonds has been on the wrong end of a disciplinary, and it seems his team mates have had enough.
It has been an eventful year for Symonds, he started it at the centre of a racism row following a tense series with India, and looks like he will finish it struggling to get back into the Australian touring team that travels to India for a vital test series in a couple of months time.

According to reports from the Australian camp, his attitude recently has left a lot to be desired, and as we all know, pulling on the baggy green cap is the pinnacle for all Australian cricketers, and to have one of their own showing such disregard for it is not good for team morale.

Symonds is known for his laid back attitude and no frills cricket, but it seems he has pushed it one tep too far this time. Missing a team meeting alone would not have been cause for concern, even if he was fishing, so you have to assume that this is simply the culmination of a cluster of events that has led to his downfall.

Lets hope he gets his head right, as it is a massive year for Australia, with a potentially mouth watering trip to India, and then the Ashes next summer, the baggy greens can ill afford to be without one of their premier all rounders.

Also making headlines this week is Marcus Trescothick, who has an autobiography coming out in a few weeks, has admitted to using sugared saliva to aid the reverse swing of a cricket ball. It was his job, he revealed this week, to ensure that it was his spit and nurturing that enabled Jones, Flintoff and Hoggard to destroy the Australians in 2005.

It is common knowledge in cricket that if your saliva is artificially sweetened, then this helps keep the shine on the ball for longer, enabling more emphatic swing, and for longer periods.

Whilst this admission caused a bit of a stir both in England and Australia, I don’t think there is too much to it. Summed up nicely by Ian Chappel, who this week commented "I think it's pretty silly of Marcus Trescothick to come out and say it, but obviously he's trying to sell some books... I'll think you find that bowlers have been doing things to the ball since cocky was an egg."

Who or what is Cocky? Answers on a postcard please.

Finally this week, Surrey County Cricket club have approached Shoaib Akhtar to see if he would be keen to join them for the remainder of the English domestic season. Surrey are languishing at the foot of the first division and need some wins to ensure their survival. This could be the road back for Akhtar, who has missed a serious amount of cricket in recent years, but is still undoubtedly one of the premier fast bowlers in the world. It would be good to see him back in world cricket.
Well that’s it for this week folks. Be sure to keep checking Priceform for all the latest news, results, fixtures and tips, and as usual I’ll be around on the forum to discuss anything that takes your fancy.

Until next week, be lucky

Paul.