Over the decades it has been Tendulkar's rare combination of mastery and boldness that has delighted connoisseurs and crowds alike. More than any other batsman, even Brian Lara, Tendulkar's batting has provoked gasps of admiration. A single withering drive dispatched along the ground eluding the bowler, placed unerringly between fieldsmen, could provoke wonder even among the oldest hands. A solitary square cut was enough to make a spectator's day. Tendulkar might lose his wicket cheaply but he is incapable of playing an ugly stroke. His defence might have been designed by Christopher Wren. And alongside these muscular orthodoxies could be found ornate flicks through the on-side, glides off his bulky pads that sent tight deliveries dashing on unexpected journeys into the back and beyond. Viv Richards could terrorise an attack with pitiless brutality, Lara could dissect bowlers with surgical and magical strokes, Tendulkar can take an attack apart with towering simplicity.

Vettori is undoubtedly the best player in the country and in a team that can only be regarded as dreadful under-performers, he wields huge influence simply by virtue of his on-field deeds. Even some of the great New Zealand players and personalities of generations past - like Tom Lowry, captain for the first two tours of England, and manager too for the second in 1931, or John R Reid, captain, star all-rounder, national selector, and de facto coach from 1958 to 1965 - never seemed to pull as many strings as Vettori does today.

Player power in the New Zealand team could rise to new heights if the players successfully lobby for a manager, rather than a coach, to replace Andy Moles, writes Paul Lewis in the Herald on Sunday.

In the same paper, Andrew Alderson looks at the John Wright conundrum - Wright reportedly wants the job but the players aren't exactly falling over themselves with enthusiasm at the prospect.

One senior correspondent on a national paper admitted: “Actually, I’ve got a button set up on my keyboard – one of the IT lads did it for me – that I can press and it just generates all the key phrases ‘burnout… sovereignty of the five-day game… intensity of Test cricket… what would Cyril Washbrook have made of it all…’ and rearranges them into something approaching a coherent article.”

Now he is five years older and wiser, witness the disappearance of that preposterous white stripe from his hair. It has been replaced, moreover, by an eminently sensible Brylcreem bounce, which augurs well, because the last Brylcreem Boy to play cricket in South Africa, in 1948-49, scored what remains the fastest triple century in first-class cricket.

Test cricket is routinely sold out months in advance in England and is held in high esteem by players, administrators and the cricket-watching public. Therefore, we are often unaware of the indifference felt by the majority of cricket-playing nations towards the five-day game. The empty stands that greeted the two top Test teams in South Africa last winter prompted MCC to commission research into the popularity or otherwise of Test cricket. The findings did not make for happy reading.

Before Chennai, India had never lost a Test match in which Mongia scored fifty or more (five fifties and a hundred).

Before Hyderabad, India had never lost an ODI in which Raina score fifty or more (11 fifties, two hundreds).

In a piece on Rediff.com which has plenty of theology thrown in, Prem Panicker tries to make sense of the Sachin Tendulkar phenomenon in the wake of the glittering 175 against Australia. After saying Tendulkar is treated like god by Indian fans, Panicker asks of the constant references to the batsman's statistical achievements such as the 17,000-run milestone: "Is 'god' god, if you have to parse his deeds against those of the mortals?"

Here his description of the 175:

It was all there, every single element of the Tendulkar mythos: the majestic certitude of the straight-backed thumps through cover and extra cover; the nonchalant ease of his many waltzes down the wicket to hit straight with slide rule precision; the calm certitude with which he repeatedly split the field and, when it was drawn in tight, carried it; the unparalleled balance of his many whips off hips and pads; the schoolboy cheek of the impossibly late cut; the exuberant energy with which he repeatedly traversed the 22 yard strip for singles taken with the judgment of a Solomon

Tendulkar's endurance remains a source of wonder to Panicker.

What does it say of Tendulkar that having raised the bar to impossible heights in 1998, he is able to effortlessly vault over it 11 years later?

We have for the space of two decades repeatedly witnessed the alchemy of genius effortlessly convert the impossible into the seemingly inevitable.

In his column for the Hindustan Times, Ravi Shastri says Tendulkar will need another special effort if India are to stay alive in this series.

What is the difference between Daniel Vettori and Brian Tamaki? The Black Caps do not bow when they approach Vettori . . . yet.

Whether it is by circumstance or Machiavellian design, the left-arm spinner has acquired enough power to dim the environmentally friendly and energy-efficient lights over Seddon Park.

He's now a selector, the stand-in coach, the captain, a leading bowler and one of our best batsmen.

The focus is on player burn-out, but ignores a parallel effect that in the long term may hurt the game more: fan burn-out. ''Spectator fatigue,'' it was called by Adam Gilchrist. Thursday night's stunner in Hyderabad, far from disprove the thesis, adds to it. Though replete with entertainment, the chances are that few were watching - why this one, rather than the last or the next? - and that it will soon be lost to memory in the rush of more matches. That's the pity.

Cricket Australia's sins of this winter can't be repeated, writes Peter Roebuck in the Sydney Morning Herald. Australian players have had an overdose of cricket, domestic and international, and unsurprisingly the injury list has been lengthening by the day. Dizzy? Confused? Exhausted? Media managers and selectors came and went but the senior players hardly saw their front doors for months on end.

Complacent officials point out that strained sides and hamstrings are occupational hazards for pace bowlers while broken fingers are part and parcel of a keeper's life. They add that some of the crocks only joined the tour a few weeks ago. But the longer a trip lasts, the heavier the toll it takes. Peter Siddle had been on the road longer than Mick Jagger. How on earth was he supposed to stay at his peak for 25 weeks? Fast bowling puts immense pressure on the body, and the artificial way of life derails the mind.

Peter Lalor, in the Australian, says the Australian team is threadbare, living on care packages and needs replacements.

The Catholics are worried. The long-hairs, too. For there's news about that Andrew Hilditch, chairman of the war cabinet, is pushing for conscription to fill the quota. How else to make up the numbers? Already there are suggestions that the able-bodied are reluctant to serve. Hilditch is a cold-eyed and desperate man. There's talk in underage cricket circles of him trying to lure strapping young adolescents from suburban fields with the promise that they'll see the world and be home by Christmas.

More than cold statistics though, it’s the moments that will endure long after he’s put his bat away for the last time. That final over in the Hero Cup semi-final. The audacious assault on Shane Warne in Chennai. The cold-eyed targeting of Shoaib Akhtar at Centurion, South Africa, in 2003. That match-winning century in Chennai, just a fortnight after the streets in the vicinity of his restaurant in Mumbai had resembled war-torn Beirut.

On his blog Cricket with balls, JRod writes that Tendulkar's glittering 175 made the result of the match almost irrelevant.

He scored over half the runs, passed some unimportant milestone, seemed to be dragging Raina and Jadeja by the neck like kittens, and then eventually went out to a shot that wasn’t even thought of when he started playing.

India didn’t deserve to win, but Sachin did. I wanted him to make 200 and win the game, but he came up short and pretty much no help at all.

KingCricket pens a tribute to Tendulkar on his blog, where he writes that staying at the top for 20 years is the batsman's most jaw-dropping achievement.

You get batsmen who are exceptional when they’re 16. You get batsmen with adamantium wrists. You get batsmen who choose their shots well.

You get cricketers who are fit and dedicated to their sport. You get cricketers who can cope with the downs and who come back stronger. You get get cricketers who can last for 20 years.

You never get all of this.

Of course, the idea has been imperfectly applied. It is hard to justify putting Moises Henriques in front of a player as energetic and effective as Andrew McDonald. Yet the approach has much to commend it. Dirk Nannes and Shane Harwood are splendid bowlers, but what is the point? Cockley has strong shoulders, plenty of pace and can improve. Admittedly, he was a bolter but speedsters were going down like sprayed mozzies. Moreover, the alternatives were either seasoned campaigners or complete novices. Right or wrong, if it is part of a return to youth and aggression, it has merit.

In the Daily Telegraph, Nick Walshaw looks at the rapid rise Cockley has enjoyed.

It's a flight that represents a remarkable rise for this Blues speedster who never played A-grade in the Newcastle competition until he was 18. Who only came to Sydney at 21. Who was even forced to withdraw with injury from that one Australia A match he was selected in last year.

Craig Cumming, which competition would you most like to win?

"Obviously the Twenty20 has the greatest reward and we got to experience that in India last month so we'd love to win that again. Having said that the real focus at the start of the season is on the four-dayers, that's an area we haven't performed as well as we would've liked in and if we start well in that I think everything will flow from there."

Trott, reared in a suburb of Cape Town, grew up playing in the same Western Province team as Jacques Kallis, Graeme Smith, Herschelle Gibbs and Ashwell Prince and will feel added motivation when he plays against them this month. The pinnacle of achievement for a professional sportsman is total respect from your peers. Trott, whose English father, Ian, is a cricket coach in Leatherhead, inherited his parent's passion for the game and always striven to be as good as he could be. That ambition often leads South Africans here. The money now in the county game is attractive. But what also drives them is the intensity and frequency of our cricket. It is a fast track to maturity.

To approach the stadium in the morning was to observe a few apologetic drops dripping from the skies and to notice that the light was a tad gloomy. Only the lamest soul or someone fresh from a coiffeur would have raised an umbrella. Windscreen wipers were not required. The previous day the temperature had soared to 37 degrees and the batsmen had dictated terms. Now the tussle might be more even. Changing conditions are part and parcel of the game.

Apparently the outfield was damp. Research indicated that beads of water could be detected on the tips of the grass. Poor souls, the bowlers might be handicapped with a slippery ball. Poor lads, the batsmen might have to peer into the gloom. Inevitably news broke that the start had been delayed. Not that the players were huddled in the rooms. Instead they were on the park, loosening their prodigious muscles, preparing for the contest. Some cheerfully hoofed a footy ball around, others practised close catches. No one seemed to find any irony in this exposure to the elements. As far as could be discerned none of them contracted pneumonia or fell flat on their face or cracked a bone.

Peter Lalor in the Australian points out that the very few fans who turned up were understandably unhappy.

When the players did come out to start at 3.15pm one paying customer (there were only 241 others) yelled at Stuart Clark to get a move on. The bowler told the man that it was only 3.14pm and the umpires wouldn't let him. It gets that intimate at a Shield match.

It gets heated, too. With poor Beau Casson bowling at times like John Howard did to the troops, another spectator chipped in with some harsh criticism that echoed around the stands. This time NSW captain Simon Katich gave the bloke a single-barrel blast of advice.