Quotes from players’ press conferences don’t often shed a whole lot of light on the game, but there have been a couple of revealing ones this week. Mitchell Johnson, the new kid on the Aussie fast-bowling block, was asked about Kevin Pietersen, whom he dismissed last weekend with the age-old two-card trick – a nasty bouncer, which Pietersen fended off uncertainly, followed by a full-length ball in the slot outside off, which he edged, equally uncertainly, to Adam Gilchrist.

“My plan to him,” Johnson said, “was to get a short one in early and then try to get that nick. Against Pietersen maybe the short ball is something we will try - from the footage that I've seen, he likes to get forward early.”

Fairly standard stuff, but it told us that Johnson had done his homework. So what did Pietersen have to say? “He's a new bowler, check him out, probably see a lot of him over the winter. Never heard of him before.’

Never heard of him! What planet is KP on? Every England player has a Sony Vaio laptop. Does Pietersen just use his for watching DVDs of action movies, or does he study the footage that is routinely supplied of all opposing players? If he hasn’t heard of Johnson, has he heard of Google, or of Cricinfo? Has he, perhaps, been spending too much time hurtling from one promotional opportunity to another, and not enough doing his prep?

Pietersen is an untypical English batsman, with his aggression and audacity, but this attitude is all too familiar. Down the years, many an England batsman has gone to Australia and come up against an unknown fast bowler, just out of the bush. The difference this time is that Johnson has actually been around a while. Dennis Lillee was raving about him seven years ago. In 1999, he toured England with Australia Under-19s, taking two wickets in a Test in which Ian Bell made 90. He has played for Queensland on and off for years, and his international debut was last year, not last week.

Pietersen is a hard worker in the nets, known for practising in a highly targeted way, playing the same shot over and over. Even now, he is no doubt pushing forward purposefully to hundreds of deliveries from some willing young Ahmedabad left-armer. But in the internet age, preparation means getting on the net as well as into them.

	'Is it Fletcher, or is it England?' © Getty Images

Geoff Boycott has been sounding off about Duncan Fletcher, advising him to quit. Boycott has half a good point.

His suggestion that Fletcher has reached the end of his shelf life as Test coach is just bizarre. His best spell came very recently, between February 2004 and September 2005. In the last Ashes series, he led England into the promised land. Since then, they have stuttered, but have still had two series results that were improvements on the previous meetings, drawing in India and beating Pakistan. In seven years under Fletcher, they have gone from ninth in the rankings (a quirk of the old Wisden World Championship, but only slightly unflattering) to second.

In one-day cricket, it’s a very different story. They are eighth in the world. They never win anything major. Fletcher has survived seven years as England’s one-day coach for one reason only: because he has been a good Test coach. Like certain big-name players down the years – from Ian Botham to Michael Vaughan – he has got away with mediocrity at one form of the game by being highly successful at the other.

	'Let’s see the old boy back at 85mph' © Getty Images

Australia are firm favourites. England are clear underdogs. England will have to be at their best to win. Australia can probably win without being at their best. The Diwali meeting between the two sides in Jaipur is the Ashes in miniature. There should really be a special trophy for the occasion: a one-inch high urn, containing the remains of a tiny firecracker.

Here are eleven wishes for the game.

1. A truer surface. Nobody’s expecting a 330 pitch, let alone a 430, but a 230 would be good.

2. A close game. Cricket has nothing to show more dull than a 50-over match that flows in only one direction.

3. Some nip from Glenn McGrath. A great fast-bowling career shouldn’t end with military medium. Let’s see the old boy back at 85mph.

4. An outing for Jon Lewis. England will be tempted to play both their tall guys, Harmison and Mahmood, in order to dish it out like they did at the Rose Bowl in the first meeting of 2005. But Lewis is a better one-day bowler than either, and his brand of accuracy is just what these eccentric pitches cry out for. Don’t forget, he played at the Rose Bowl – and took four wickets on debut.

5. A day without shoulder-shoving or verbal onslaughts.

6. Some runs for Andrew Flintoff. Last Sunday he did a good job of leading from the back, but it’s not his way.

7. Some runs for Shane Watson. It’s a bold move to open with him rather than the solid anchorman Simon Katich. It means that for possibly the first time ever, Australia are opening the innings with two men who are not specialist batsmen, though Adam Gilchrist is as good as. Mind you, England have two non-specialists at three and four – Flintoff and Michael Yardy.

8. Fewer wides from England. The seamers, and especially Harmison, owe it to Flintoff to bowl the way he would himself if he was fit: fast and straight.

9. Smart captaincy. Ricky Ponting shuffled his bowlers well on Wednesday and got some tight overs out of Michael Clarke. Flintoff, boxed into a corner by his batsmen, didn’t even try England’s dibbly-dobbly options, which may have been a missed trick.

10. Some runs from Ian Bell. He had done nothing to earn a place in the last Ashes, and it showed in his mousey performances. Now he is ready, and can show the Aussies what a classy player he really is, if he can overcome the drawback of having to open the innings with another non-dasher in Andrew Strauss. On paper one side’s openers are too wacky, the other’s are too straight.

11. Sharper commentary. Wednesday’s memorable encounter between Australia and West Indies was not reflected in the com-box, which dealt mostly in statements of the dismally obvious. Silence or insight, please, gentlemen.

	West Indies simply played out of their skin © Getty Images

The Champions Trophy hasn’t had many runs, but it has had something more precious: upsets. South Africa fell to New Zealand, and now Australia have gone down to West Indies.

The Aussies showed two unexpected weaknesses. After a strong start with the ball, they couldn’t finish off the West Indian top order. The killer instinct was missing. Glenn McGrath, still shaking off the rust and trundling in as third seamer, was anodyne, and while other teams’ spinners have flourished, Australia’s gave Brian Lara and Runako Morton no headaches.

When they batted, the Aussies seemed unsure how to play it, as if they didn’t know whether 234 was a good score on this strange and tricky pitch. By not knowing, they ensured that it was. Adam Gilchrist adjusted his game manfully, gritting his way out of trouble. He deserved to finish on the winning side, but only Michael Clarke gave him much support. The Aussies’ new batting order backfired, with Shane Watson making an early misjudgement and Mike Hussey only reaching the middle in the 42nd over. Watson may well turn out to be the right man to open, but Hussey is surely too low at number seven.

But mainly it was a case of West Indies playing out of their skins. They had so many injuries and illnesses, they had to field a 12th man from outside the squad - Vinayak Samant, the former Mumbai first-class cricketer, who is 34, still actively in cricket, and vice-captain of the Cricket Club of India team - for all of two balls, yet a stand-in captain, Ramnaresh Sarwan, and a junior bowler, Jerome Taylor, combined to slay the giant. The Aussies like to say that it should take a great performance to beat them and Taylor, who had sweat pouring off him yet stayed ice-cool, produced one.

The Aussies were more vulnerable than usual, but England can’t take much comfort from it. For one thing, Australia now need a win on Saturday as badly as England. For another, West Indies are no longer the weakest link in the group. England are.

There are two immediate consequences. The batsmen have little form or confidence to take into Saturday’s meeting with Australia. And England now have to win that match to stay in the tournament. Whether all the England players want to stay in it, deep down, is doubtful – if they drop out early, they get a precious few days at home before setting off for Australia. But you can be sure they don’t want to be humiliated, to be the next whipping boys for the marauding gangs known as Fleet Street sports editors. Which is what will happen if they crash to a second defeat.

	Left-handed openers are going to play a major role in the Ashes series, and not just in the top two © Getty Images

To win the Ashes you almost certainly need a strong opening pair. Most of the Ashes-winning pairings that comes to mind have been either two right-handers or a right and a left. Hobbs and Sutcliffe, Woodfull and Ponsford, Gooch and Robinson were all right-handers. Wessels and Dyson, Broad and Athey, Taylor and Slater were all right-and-left.

Since the final Ashes Test of 2001, Australia’s first-choice opening pair have been two left-handers, Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer. They have never been in danger of being mistaken for two peas in a pod. Hayden is huge and takes a big stride forward, Langer is little and mainly moves sideways, so bowlers have to change their length every time the two of them take a single, just as they would have to change their line for a right-and-left combination.

In 2004, England joined Australia in lefty heaven, when Andrew Strauss became an instant automatic choice to open with Marcus Trescothick. They too play differently, though in a less marked way. Trescothick is a stand-and-deliver thumper, Strauss a nudger, cutter and puller. So in the 2005 Ashes, both openers on both sides were left-handers. Almost as unusually, the English pair did better, making 824 runs between them at 41, to Hayden and Langer’s 712 at 39 - and doing a lot more in the decisive matches.

Now both teams have gone further still. Australia have brought in Mike Hussey, who has spent most of his career as an opener for Western Australia, at number five. He has done so well that WA may be wondering why they ever asked him to open. The nerveless adaptability that Hussey had shown in one-day internationals has translated seamlessly to Test cricket. He can defend, attack, rebuild or shepherd the tail. England’s main hope with him has to be that sophomore syndrome sets in, as it did with Strauss during the first half of the 2005 Ashes.

England’s own top order now consists of three left-handed openers. Alastair Cook has come in at number three to replace Michael Vaughan, and, in all but place, he is the classic left-handed opener – watchful, well-organised, sometimes crabby, powerful square of the wicket, strong against pace, not so hot against spin. His strike rate is a bit old-school (44), but he makes up for it with an outstanding average (54).

Having three openers worked for Australia under Allan Border in the 1980s, when they split up the successful pairing of Geoff Marsh and David Boon to squeeze Mark Taylor in. And it worked for England under Ray Illingworth in 1970-71, when John Edrich was at number three behind Geoff Boycott and Brian Luckhurst. It’s a form of insurance, which England need at the moment, with Trescothick convalescing at home with his stress-related illness.

David Graveney said this week that he had spoken to Trescothick on the phone and he “sounded upbeat”, which is good, but a month ago Graveney was trying to allay doubts about Trescothick having a deadline for his recovery by saying he lived near him and would be able to meet up. That seems not to have happened. The feeling persists that the England management, for understandable reasons, don’t know quite what they are dealing with here.

	He's behind you... and, of course, Australia: Glenn McGrath, the pantomime villain © Getty Images

Dear old Glenn McGrath is at it again. “I reckon it will be 5-0,” he says of the forthcoming Ashes series. He said it last time too. Once bitten, twice … not shy at all.

Speaking at the Adelaide Oval, he also said, “This is where we’re going to win back the Ashes”. Someone gently informed him that Adelaide is the venue for the second Test, so that’s not actually possible. “Aw well, it will be 2-0,” McGrath replied, “and that’s as near as dammit.”

McGrath’s predictions are always entertaining and, when it comes to the Ashes, always wrong. Australia haven’t beaten England 5-0 since 1921. The last team to win five Tests in an Ashes series was England, who won 5-1 in 1978-79 (Australia had an excuse: several of their star players were signed to Kerry Packer). Even when England were a rabble, a few years ago, they usually took one Test off the Aussies.

“To say anything else,” McGrath explained, “would be negative. If we're going to win 2-1, or 3-2, which games are we going to lose?” Well, they could lose at Perth, where it’s pacy and bouncy, as England look like having the only three bowlers in the series who are very tall and very fast – Harmison, Flintoff and Mahmood.

They could well lose again at one of Melbourne and Sydney, where England, with their supporters flooding in for the Christmas holidays, won one Test on each of their last two Ashes tours. And there could easily be a draw at Adelaide, where the pitch is flat. So the Aussies could win in Brisbane and one of Melbourne and Sydney, and still not regain the Ashes.

McGrath is too shrewd not to realise this. His predictions, unlike his bowling, are not really about accuracy. They are part of the ritual. He is playing the pantomime villain. His words will amuse some of his team-mates and irritate others. They will fire up some of the England players. And they will give the Barmy Army something to sing at him.

	Brett Lee: Test match or baby? © Getty Images

Most of the comments fall into one of four groups. One lot agrees with me that Brett is in danger of missing one of the biggest moments of his life. Many of those who have written about this are fathers speaking from personal experience. That’s where I was coming from too. A birth is a huge event, life at its most vivid. It’s comparable to losing someone very close to you, only much more fun (for the new dad, anyway). If a top cricketer’s father or mother was on their deathbed, we would quite understand if the player missed a Test match to be there, and we’d be a bit surprised if he played on regardless.

Then there are those who think Brett is right to “put his country before his family”, as one contributor phrased it. Fair enough: it’s a matter of opinion. But this line has come with a few misconceptions attached. One post talked of “girly men”, another of “teary men”. Girly is a bizarre word to try and use as an insult in the context of childbirth. Many women go through more pain having babies than most of us men could stand. If anyone is being feeble here, it is the man who shies away from the maternity ward.

The third school of thought reckons I only suggested that Lee should miss the Test because I’m English. Anyone who wrote on that basis wouldn’t last very long as a cricket writer. I’m all for England players missing Test matches to be at the birth of their children. Michael Vaughan took a break from a Test to do so; Andrew Strauss missed a whole Test; Andrew Flintoff was planning to, until he unexpectedly landed the England captaincy. Personally I think Flintoff should have gone ahead with his trip home. The only good excuse for missing a birth is if you were, say, a heart surgeon with a life to save somewhere else.

The final camp says it’s nobody’s business but Brett’s and his wife’s. Certainly the decision is up to them and I would defend their right to take the view they have. But Brett did go public on the decision. He didn’t say “It’s nobody’s business but ours”. And he was right not to, because sport doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Cricket, more than any other sport, cuts into family life. This is even true of club players, but it’s especially true of the professionals. Down the years, these tensions have often been swept under the carpet, because top-level cricket has been almost exclusively run and reported, as well as played, by men. So when I edited the Wisden Almanack, one of the main articles I commissioned for the front of the book was a long look at cricket and family life. It was written by Derek Pringle, and entitled Don’t marry a cricketer.

Sport is always more than just sport – if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t have meaning, we wouldn’t be discussing it, and Brett would still be full-time in men’s outfitting. Sport isn’t some distant planet: it’s part of the here and now. And the way top sportsmen live their lives can influence the rest of us. Andrew Flintoff has a new picture book out in which he has included a shot of himself changing his baby’s nappy. Flintoff is so revered that the photo will have ramifications in the world at large. It will make it a little harder for a certain type of dad to say “no, sorry, I don’t do nappies”. Or to think that anybody is “girly” if they do.

Brett Lee comes across as the most likeable man in the Australian dressing-room. He is a fast bowler with a smile where you might expect a snarl, he has a charmingly down-to-earth sideline as a shop assistant in men’s tailoring, and he has had the decency to turn down large sums to invade his own privacy by letting his wedding be photographed. So the thing he said today came as a surprise.

He confirmed that he would definitely play in the first Test against England rather than be with his wife Liz at the birth of their first child, due on the eve of the match.
"We've said right from the start, which is credit to the person that Liz is, I will definitely be playing,” Lee said. "I'm hoping and praying that it either comes early or late. To me, cricket is important, but family is the most important thing in my life. Hopefully I can be there for both.”

Hopefully he can. But he is saying one thing here and planning to do another. If family is really the most important thing for him, then he should be at the birth. He has already played 54 Tests, including plenty against England; he is unlikely to have 54 children. The birth of his first child will be probably the biggest event of his life. And he lives in an age when top sportsmen are no longer expected to sacrifice a moment like that on the altar of their ambition.

Get thee to the maternity ward, Brett. It’s the only place to be when your baby is on the way. You won’t regret it.

	Will MacGill, the world's most gifted understudy, play on the big stage this winter? © Getty Images

How many bowlers does it take to win a Test series? The question is so fundamental that you would think there would be no argument about it. But the best team in the world isn’t sure what its answer is.

In the Ashes of 2005, Australia played four bowlers every time, as they had throughout their long years of walking all over England. In the first Test, the strategy worked, but then it quickly fell apart. England set out to bully one or two of the four, so that there were always weak links, starting with Mike Kasprowicz and Jason Gillespie. The Aussies saw the problem to the extent of replacing Gillespie with Shaun Tait. But they didn’t see that the real problem was having only four bowlers. The sixth batsman they were so keen to acccommodate, Simon Katich, wasn’t making many runs. To English eyes, it was obvious that they should drop him, along with a dud seamer, and bring in an allrounder, probably Shane Watson, and a second spinner, Stuart MacGill.

It didn’t happen. MacGill, the world’s most gifted understudy, has still not played a Test in England at the age of 35. But as soon as the Aussies got home, they had to pick a team to play the ICC World XI, and sure enough, in came Watson and MacGill. Watson played only a small part – the fifth bowler isn’t needed when the opposition just roll over – but MacGill gobbled up nine wickets. Watson has missed most of the year since with injury, but is now fit and, judging by the recent one-day series in Malaysia, has resumed his upward arc as a hard-hitting batsman and feisty medium-pacer. He is only halfway to the full Flintoff, but that’s enough to make Australia stronger. Not for nothing has Ricky Ponting publicly hinted that he expects Watson to be picked for the Ashes.

If Watson plays, then MacGill can too (assuming he recovers from the injury he picked up at John Buchanan’s boot camp). England, for all their advances under Duncan Fletcher, are still pretty clueless against leg spin. MacGill might well have made all the difference in the last Ashes. The line-up England fans would rather not see at the Gabba on November 23 looks like this: Langer, Hayden, Ponting, Clarke, Hussey, Watson, Gilchrist, Warne, Lee, MacGill, McGrath.

Tim de Lisle is a former editor of Wisden. His website is
here.