Sunil Gavaskar
The Indian Premier League has started and that will overwhelm just about everything else that's being played in the cricketing world.
There is still the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy between Australia and New Zealand to be completed though Australia have already retained it by virtue of their win in the fourth one-dayer. There are also two Tests to be played between the trans-Tasman rivals and that should be interesting too.
Coverage: Indian Premier League
While the England-Australia and India-Pakistan series get plenty of publicity and mileage, there are some series which are even more fiercely contested than these two icon series. The Australia-New Zealand series is one such and the games between these two neighbours are not always confined to bat and ball.
As we saw in one of the one-day internationals it was also butt and bowl when Mitchell Johnson head-butted Scott Styris even though Styris was wearing a helmet. That nothing happened to Johnson tells us a lot about the thickness of his head and maybe he doesn't need to wear a hemet when he squares up with the bat next time.
More crucially he was fined 60 percent of his match fees. This is where those in the sub-continent wonder if the rules are the same for everybody or are they different for those outside the sub-continent.
Remember Gautam Gambhir being banned for a Test match for bumping into the powerfully built Shane Watson? But then guess a shoulder bump is far more serious than a head-butt though Zinadine Zidane may not agree, and so the difference in the quantum of punishment.
Be that as it may, the Australia-New Zealand ODI series has turned out to be a real thrill a minute series and if the Tests are half as exciting it will be a watchable series too.
In the meanwhile, Pakistan cricket has thrown up another of its hard to understand episodes with the banning of two senior players, Mohammad Yusuf and Younis Khan and some others with heavy financial penalties and with all that seems to be happening there, the IPL franchises must be having a quiet chuckle and saying a silent thank you for not signing up any of the
How do you deal with players who are banned by their parent association and who are under probation for some months? What sort of pressures will they be under are the imponderables that can make or break a team.
Adam Gilchrist is irreplaceable alright but in Brad Haddin Australia have found a wicket-keeper who can wield the willow effectively and with his century in the second ODI in New Zealand, he is the CEAT International Cricketer of the Week.
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