Bangladesh had a tough time even against a depleted Australia © AFP

Are you ready for the historic series which starts on Thursday? No, not that one, the other one. The ODI series between Bangladesh and New Zealand will be the first in which the batsmen can disrupt the fielding captain’s plans by demanding a Powerplay.

This rule change opens up tactical challenges for both sides. Fielding captains will have to at least consider holding certain bowlers in reserve until the batsmen’s Powerplay is taken, and the batsmen will be seeking to take the Powerplay at the most advantageous point. It remains to be seen whether it will make much difference.

	Australia will no longer have the luxury of attack, attack, attack. Ricky Ponting will be forced to employ defensive fields with sweepers in place from the outset © AFP

Finally, a look at what Australia’s world will look like after Warne, McGrath and Gilchrist. All three men were ‘once-in-a-generation’ players. Australia were indeed blessed to have them all playing together. Especially when you add the other great names of that period.

That golden era is about to end I’m afraid. The two alpha predators of the jungle are about to face off and that aura of invincibility is no longer the birthright of the next generation of players to don the famous baggy green. Don’t get me wrong – they will be competitive of course and they will probably win more matches than they lose. But they will need to change their hunting style to suit their strengths. There will be change.

	A dejected Michael Vaughan stands down as captain © Getty Images

In the early 90s, rumours circulated among the Yorkshire faithful of a schoolboy in Sheffield, said to be the best batting prospect seen in the Broad Acres since the young Len Hutton sixty years earlier. In 1995, soon after he made his Yorkshire debut, I saw him play against Gloucestershire. He made 74 runs with an elegance and class which bore out the rumours, so I became a devoted fan of Michael Vaughan.

After establishing himself as a Test player, in 2002 he embarked on a year playing as regally as anyone I have ever seen. He was my idea of batting perfection apart from a tendency to throw things away in the nervous 190s, and at the start of 2003 the ICC rankings briefly agreed that he was the best batsman in the world. Had he carried on like that, the phrase “the great Michael …” would not today inevitably end in “Phelps”.

But he took on the England captaincy and the spell was broken. His batting descended to the mortal plane, then he got. Following physical rehab and his resumption of the captaincy - a mistake about which I have written before - his batting continued to deteriorate until his resignation this summer.

	The India-Australia rivalry matches the hype surrounding it © AFP

Much is made of the India-Australia rivalry these days: that it rivals the Ashes, that it supersedes the India-Pakistan series, and so on. But I live in a city where one sporting rivalry - the New York Yankees versus the Red Sox - sets the standards, and so I must evaluate this hype accordingly.

I’ve done the needful examination and I’m glad to report that this rivalry matches the hype. For what mattes in a true blue sporting rivalry is squabbling and nastiness, completely divorced from reality, and plenty of it. And that’s something this particular match-up has in plenty.

The Ashes hype is a bit silly. The English love the Aussies and vice-versa. I'm not taken in by all the "Pommie bastard" and "convict thug" lines. The Australians let in approximately two million English backpackers into Bondi Beach every year, and the London police has to be called out periodically to quell stampeding Aussie expatriates at Heathrow. They happily drink each others beer, eat each others food, and praise each other. Heck, some of them - Warne and Pietersen for instance - would marry if the laws allowed it.

	It is rare enough for a centrally-contracted player to make a significant contribution to his county, let alone insist on it © Getty Images

Before getting down to the serious business of congratulating them, a word of thanks to Durham for their efficient demolition of Kent in the final match, which quelled the nervous palpitations of this Yorkshire fan during the last round of matches. At the beginning of day two, with Yorkshire starting on 84-6 and looking destined for zero points, relegation had looked certain but the heroics of David Wainwright and Adil Rashid down at Hove and the lack of same from Kent at Canterbury allowed me to follow the last couple of days with equanimity.

So, all hail Durham!

If any single number other than the points total can sum up why a team won the championship, Durham’s collective bowling average for the season was 23 compared to 28 for Nottinghamshire, their nearest rivals, and about 30 or more for everyone else. (I am indebted to Paul Hyett, a statistician of my electronic acquaintance, for that observation.) Batsmen can win one-day trophies but winning in two-innings cricket requires bowlers - and Durham have certainly had bowlers.

	Matthew Hayden uses the sweep shot as a weapon © AFP

The subcontinent used to be a graveyard for so many visiting teams but ever since the sweep shot was seen as the answer to local conditions, the game has changed significantly. Watch these next two series in India (vs Australia and England) and see how regularly the shot is used as an offensive and defensive ploy against the Indian spinners.

Australia’s recent successes against the Asian teams, especially in the subcontinent, rely heavily on their mastery of the sweep shot. Against good spinners on tracks that don’t bounce as much, their use of the sweep has probably been the biggest tactical change in the last decade.

Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist use it as weapon – not just a gentle paddle for one, they employ the shot as a boundary-seeking missile. Because they sweep on length, rather than line, their powerful physiques enable them to hit the ball well in front of square, often finding the boundary at ‘cow corner’. Phil Jacques too sweeps in front of square, almost a slog sweep. Steve Waugh’s legacy lives on.

	Graeme Hick bids adieu to Worcestershire © PA Photos

Another Indian season gets underway, so Samir and Fox start to quiver with anticipation while I get wistful as another English season comes to its close. As they look forward to new arrivals, I reflect on departures.

Graeme Hick has gone. One day this summer, he was dismissed cheaply and walked calmly back to the pavilion. For it not to hurt when he was out meant that it did not matter, and if it no longer mattered, it was time to step away. It was entirely his own choice to end one of the greatest county careers of all time.

Few, though, have the luxury of real choice.

Mushtaq Ahmed, the legspinning lynchpin of Sussex’s recent championship-winning sides, faced surgery and rehab to have a chance of playing again and decided retirement was less trouble. Sussex already know how badly they will miss the irreplaceable Pakistani and will do well to get an overseas player even half as influential next season.

A couple of days ago on Different Strokes, I wrote that it would be fun to start talking about the playing of cricket again. Today, I'm going to ignore my advice and talk about cricket's political context. The recent bombing in Islamabad has forced my hand.

Folks might remember that Australia's decision to tour India had resulted in extremely loud denunciations of its "hypocrisy" in choosing to go to one country where bombs go off and making excuses to not go to another where bombs go off as well

Australia leaves for a much-anticipated tour of India. Awakening from a rare winter solstice, there’s a real sense of anticipation. Australian cricket fans needed this (relatively) long break from cricket to re-ignite their interest in a game that was becoming all-too-predictable because of their continued dominance for so long.

The series against the West Indies barely registered on the radar, a combination of inconvenient time zones and an almost foregone conclusion. Bangladesh registered no real interest whatsoever, once again a victim of a remote location (Darwin), football finals fever and not even the hint of a genuine contest.

The India series though is an entirely different kettle of fish (with apologies to Symonds for mentioning fish). Almost every club cricket fan I have met recently has been talking about what the make-up of the team will be and who will win. I haven’t heard this sort of excited chatter for a long time. It’s infectious. And fun.

It is commonplace amongst Indian commentators to trace the beginning of a particular kind of cricket mania to June 25th, 1983. I tend to agree, but only partially. My preferred date is March 3rd, 1985, when India played Australia at the MCG in the final Group A match of the Benson & Hedges World Championship of Cricket, held to commemorate the Victorian Cricket Association's Centenary. For that was the day that Indian cricket viewers first watched the live telecast of a cricket game from Australia (and since my memory isn't perfect, the first by Channel 9). And that was the day that cricket presented itself as a perfectly packaged televised spectacle, with plenty of glitter and gloss, 100 overs long, with a definite result at the end of it.

Those of us settling down on that rather chilly morning (Delhi winters sometimes packed a late punch) had little inkling of what was in store. It began innocently enough as Kapil sprinted to bowl the first delivery to Graeme Wood. As he did so, a scraping, knocking sound issued from our television sets, followed by the unmistakable sound of bat on ball. What had happened? It took us a few seconds to figure out that this was the famous "stump microphone" that we had read about. A few minutes later Robbie Kerr was gone, bowled Kapil Dev, and the sound his stumps made as they rattled was a sweet one indeed. Cricket had gone from being a game played far away on the ground to one that had a sudden, dynamic, physical immediacy. We were at the ground, in the midst of the action.

Vulgar, tasteless and divisive. Such are the adjectives attached to the Stanford Twenty20 jamboree.

It is allegedly divisive because if the 'England XI' beat the 'Stanford All-Stars', the players who actually play will get a million bucks each and the four who sit in the dressing room will only get a quarter of a million, and those England players who only feature in the Test squad won’t get anything at all.

What a terrible prospect. There will be big differences in the income levels of the various members of the various England squads, and this will have a hugely damaging effect on team unity, or so we are told.

	A refreshing aspect of Ajantha Mendis' bowling was that it forced cricket conversation back to playing the game © AFP

Back in the days of Limited Media Coverage of Cricket [tm], the world seemed quite simple: there was the time that cricket was played, and there was the time it wasn't. One somehow found the means to get through those gaps as best as one could, and one dealt with the deprivation with a stiff upper lip (or a downcast one, depending on your personal style). Gaps between games were painful, and I dreaded the closing credits of television broadcasts. Cricket analysis only appeared when games were on, and the surrounding discussions were sketchy at best (or so it felt). One's anticipation was sharpened, and the limited diet of games only added to the sense of a scarce and valuable resource.

How much does having a memory hinder us when watching cricket? How hard is it to change your mind?

Or, to put it another way, how accurate is it to describe Jimmy Anderson as inconsistent, as some people did replying to my piece about Matthew Hoggard?

Imagine, if you will, an Andy Jameson. Without a past to live down, Jameson comes into the England team at Wellington and gets a five-fer on debut. Then he has a horrible match at Napier where he goes for plenty. A decent match at Lord’s is followed by a truly dismal performance in the first innings at Old Trafford, and then a devastating 7-43 at Trent Bridge shoots New Zealand out for 123. In the series against South Africa which follows, he has match returns of 3-114, 3-136, 4-132 and 5-127.

	He will be heartbroken that it’s over, but Matthew Hoggard can be proud of a worthy Test career © Getty Images

Somewhere between Hamilton and Wellington, two crew members were thrown overboard from the good ship England and told they’d have to swim for it. Steve Harmison swam strongly enough to catch up and be hauled back on board, but with the announcement that he will not be getting a central contract, Matthew Hoggard’s Test career looks over.

As a Hoggard fan I am saddened; as a Yorkshire fan, hopeful that he will think it worth carrying on to keep taking 40 or 50 championship wickets a season at 24; as an England fan, I’m delighted that the transition was timed so brilliantly. It was pretty obvious from the first few times we saw him that Jimmy Anderson would one day take over as our premier swing bowler, and the performances he’s put in this year are evidence of a baton being passed with an efficiency the Great Britain 4x100m track teams could usefully study. Just as the Hoggster runs out of steam, the lad from Burnley is off and running hard

	Put simply, it’s hard to dislike Andrew Flintoff © Getty Images

From an Australian viewpoint, they don’t come much better than Freddie Flintoff. If the Brits were feeling particularly generous, they might even consider making him an honorary Aussie! We’d love to claim him.

Seriously though, it’s great to see the old Flintoff back in full swing. It’s not just his talent that stands out a mile - to me, Flintoff stands for everything that is good about cricket. He’s almost an Errol Flynn-type character.

Buccaneering - now there’s a word that one doesn’t often get to use in modern language but it was made for a chap like Flintoff. He’s not perfect, he gets into the odd scrape and he occasionally plays a daft shot at a crucial time. Even then, he disarms people with his slightly sheepish grin and his refusal to take life too seriously. There’s a hint of Ian Botham in him in that sense. Cricket seems to be a bit of a lark to him and his persona is infectious. Put simply, it’s hard to dislike Flintoff.

	Matt Prior is, without doubt, the best batsman among the current candidates © Getty Images

I’ll come back to the batting, but is there an accepted definition of the best keeper?

Keeping for England, Read has not impressed me because he minimises obvious errors rather than maximising chances. He didn’t drop as many as Matt Prior (on his first go-round) but there were a few that he ought to have gone for but didn’t, thus making it look as though first slip was at fault; the new version of Prior has no such qualms.