Got your New Year resolutions sorted? Me too (must spend less time blogging). But I wonder if the players have… Here are some friendly suggestions.

	Must avoid press conferences © Getty Images

AUSTRALIA
Must remember to give opponents a chance. Declining to bring any bowlers out of retirement should do the trick.

Must stop John Buchanan giving press conferences. It’s one area where he and Duncan Fletcher are as bad as each other – one defensive, the other passive-aggressive.

Must see if they can collapse even more dramatically than at Melbourne and still win. Maybe let things go to 84 for 9 this time.

ENGLAND
Must play an extra batsman. Kevin Pietersen hasn’t been a place too low at number five – the four men after him have been a place too high. Picking Jamie Dalrymple at seven will help, but Andrew Flintoff, in his present lack of form, will still be too high at six. There’s no point playing five bowlers if the captain doesn’t have faith in them.

Must reach 100 with just one wicket down, something they have managed only in the second innings at Perth.

Must be aggressive with the bat and patient with the ball. Just bowl at the top of off stump: as Matthew Hayden helpfully pointed out, that’s all a Test-match bowling plan needs to say.

Must remember how to play overseas. Since the successful tour of South Africa two years ago, their home record reads won 8 (7 if you disregard the Pakistan forfeit), lost 2, while their away record is won 1, lost 7.

Must not publish any more autobiographies until they have the Ashes back.

SHANE WARNE
Must announce his retirement from international hair-replacement ads with immediate effect.

Must agree not to take any more tail-end wickets in this match – they’re beneath him, aren’t they?

ANDREW FLINTOFF
Must bat as if he’s no longer captain.

Must keep smiling, even in defeat – Brett Lee showed the way last year.

Must give Monty Panesar an early bowl and a reasonable field.

	Counties: must not offer a contract to Shaun Tait, Mitchell Johnson, Ben Hilfenhaus or anyone called Cullen until at least 2010 © Getty Images

GLENN McGRATH
Must allow himself to have a tear in his eye, so that he can’t see where he is landing the ball.

Must do something about his batting average. In an age of multi-dimensional cricketers, 7.36 is rubbish. Should aim to finish in double figures, which will mean scoring 237 for once out. If Jason Gillespie can do it …

STEVE HARMISON
Must stand up and think of Durham, grab the new ball and repay all the faith that has been placed in him.

DUNCAN FLETCHER
Mustn’t play the blame game, unless he is prepared to take some of it himself.

Must take the players to a bar afterwards and have a drink with the travelling fans, whose support has been beyond barmy and well into the realms of certifiable.

THE COUNTIES
Must not offer a contract to Shaun Tait, Mitchell Johnson, Ben Hilfenhaus or anyone called Cullen until at least 2010. Exceptions may be made if the state the player represents offers a contract to a young Englishman in return.

JUSTIN LANGER
Must come clean about whether he is retiring. His dad has hinted as much, but that may be just a New Year tradition – an old Langer sign.

Happy New Year.

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.