The build-up to the opening Test of the summer at Lord's is well under way with England's squad announced. The players meet up on Monday and it will mark Peter Moores' first Test match build-up as coach. In The Sunday Telegraph Scyld Berry says he has all the right qualities to be successful.
Moores wore a white ECB shirt and black shoes which had been polished, but blacking had not been applied to that front part of the sole which scrapes the ground. The unpretentiousness, if that's what it is, continues in his choice of location: he lives in a Leicestershire village and has no plan to move his wife and children to brighter lights near the capital.
In the same paper, Steve James takes a look at Andy Flower, who has joined Moores' back room staff.
We all know now about his impressive work with the National Academy over the past two winters and his passing of the ECB's much-vaunted level four qualification, but what has slipped under the radar is that Flower has actually been coaching for the best part of 20 years.
In a well-timed interview, given his call-up to the Test squad, The Guardian speak to Matt Prior about his ambitions as an international cricketer.
So how did Prior feel when he heard that his guru had been appointed England coach? 'I was very pleased, I've known Mooresy for a long time - I honestly believe that he's a fantastic coach and I think he'll get the best out of a bunch of very good England cricketers. He's a great motivator and one of his strengths is keeping it all very simple, which at times can be quite tricky in cricket.'
And in a fascinating article, Kevin Mitchell explores the chances of more and more overseas players coming into the England team.
The narrow, knee-jerk view is that these obviously good cricketers are using the system solely to earn a better living in this country than they can in their own. The more considered opinion might be that they are entitled to do so. The British spent centuries colonising the rest of the world; the rest of the world, liberated by prosperity and opportunity, sees little wrong in repaying the favour. Is this not the way capitalism was meant to work, supply following demand?
