Is the future bleak for independent schools’ cricket? A piece in The Times raises grave concerns:

So serious are the problems that one Master in charge of a successful cricketing school is calling for a national conference to see what can be done before cricket dies in some independent schools

He's all grown up now barely two years on from his Test debut; shorter, less colourful hair, wedding on the horizon. But has Kevin Pietersen really matured and is he really less a lone ranger than he once was meant to be? Andy Bull, for The Guardian tries to find out.

Was he shocked at how hard the Australians came at them? "Not at all. It was not a shock for me at all. I was prepared for it. I was ready for it. I did my part." That last sentence, I feel, is one of the few lines he speaks that has a truth behind it that transcends the slightly superficial nature of his answers. It is delivered with real poignancy, and it hangs in the air after he has said it.