And meanwhile, across the border

In the midst of all this talk about sledging in the India-Australia series, a very interesting test series has been taking place in Pakistan. South Africa seem poised to win the series 1-0 or 2-0. They've done it through attritional batting, and their usual high-quality outcricket. Pakistan have suffered from not having Yousuf (I still don't understand his excuses for not playing in the first test), the Inzi return, the strange selection of two spinners (does anyone else think that a bowling line-up of Gul, Asif and Tanvir would have been a real handful?), and some shaky captaincy. Fortunately for the quality of the test series in India, I expect all these problems to have been sorted out by the time Pakistan arrive in India. The timings of the tests will play havoc on my body but its hard to miss tests against Pakistan. India will need some battle-hardening in test matches before they head off to Australia, and they couldn't have asked for a better match-up than against Pakistan. The conditions will be very difficult but hopefully, the new captain will get some experience under his belt in the often cauldron-like conditions of home games.