Of course, this is one-day international cricket, and only four teams can make it to the semi-finals, but still, there is something impressive about all this giant-killing. South Africa’s exit is but the latest depressing entry in their big-tournament record, while England have showed that it is possible to pick themselves off the mat and not be cannon-fodder. India’s plight was made worse by the weather, sure, but their bowling thus far has looked weak and it seemed like they would always be struggling given the number of runs they were leaking.

At this stage, it isn’t too difficult to pick a favorite: Pakistan. They have the most varied bowling attack and that will count for a great deal in a country which manages to serve up bowler-friendly pitches on a regular basis. They have a young left-arm quick Mohammed Aamer, who is learning quickly; a veteran right-hander in Rana Naved (back from an ICL exile); an expert reverse-swinger in Umar Gul, who can also bowl yorkers at will; a crafty leg-spinner and googly in their skipper Shahid Afridi, and lastly an off-spinner in Saeed Ajmal. If the pitches are dry, the Pakistanis can also call on the offspin of Shoaib Malik.

While the Pakistani batting is flaky, there is talent and firepower aplenty (as was evident in their racking up over 300 against India). No bowling attack in this tournament can take them lightly.

There are three pool games left. England and New Zealand meet tomorrow in a game that will decide who tops the pool; Australia meet Pakistan the day after (if Australia win or the game is washed out, India’s tournament is over; if Pakistan wins, India will need to win by a big margin against the West Indies in the last pool game).

Whichever way this tournament goes, it has done one important thing: it has shown the ICC that it is possible to have a meaningful one-day tournament that brings together the world’s top teams, that is short, and that can generate intense interest.

South Africa might have just talked themselves up a bit too much before this Champions Trophy. For in the opening game of the tourney, they crashed to a 55-run drubbing at the hands of the Sri Lankans, a game in which they never looked like the pre-tournament favorites they were supposed to be.

To be absolutely fair, the South Africans did some things right. They did win the toss, (though they elected to bat first on a dry pitch), and they did rid of the dangerous Sanath Jayasuriya early. But from there on, things did not go so well for the Proteas. They ran into Tillakratne Dilshan, arguably the most dangerous batsman in one-day cricket today. Dilshan, inventor of the Dillscoop, a shot that appears destined to be pegged as the cause of a serious cricket injury one of these days, went on to lash a brilliant 106 off 92 balls, with sixteen fours and a six. The Sri Lankan captain, Kumar Sangakkara supported him well with a quick 54 as did the experienced Mahela Jayawardene with a typically deft 77.

The Sri Lankan total off 319-8 was always going to be a tough ask. It didn’t get any better when Angel Matthews, the Sri Lankan opening bowler, quickly dismissed the South African opener Hashim Amla. The South African captain Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis put on a good recovery but the proverbial smelly stuff hit the fan when the Sri Lankan ‘mystery’ bowler Asantha Mendis came on to bowl.

With his first ball, Mendis clean bowled Smith. Six overs later, he dismissed Kallis, caught by Matthews, and then with the very next ball, bowled Duminy. Suddenly, South Africa were 113-4 in the 20th over, and the heart of their middle-order was gone. From there on, despite small fightbacks from Boucher, Morkel and Botha, they never looked like getting back in to the game.

When the rains finally came, and made sure the South Africans would lose according to the calculations of the Duckworth-Lewis rule (the score was 198-7 in the 38th over at that stage), they had merely ensured an early end to the Proteas’ misery.

All in all, the South Africans, as might be expected from a team that has not played much international cricket in recent times, looked a little rusty, while the Sri Lankans as befitting a team that has come off a grueling international season, looked in form, and well-practiced in the different departments of their game.

This opening result puts an end to all the early chatter about how the South Africans were destined to win and it sends clear warning about how dangerous the Sri Lankans can be. The Champions Trophy could yet be a special one; even though this opening game was truncated, it can only be a good thing that the result was not predictable.

The England-Australia series has already been decided with three games still to be played. Odds are, most English players would gladly surrender their match fees if someone would offer to play in their stead. They have not looked inspired, and clearly, the idea of playing a long series of one-day games after the Ashes is appealing to precisely nobody. The Australians might be enjoying getting some revenge after the tests, and some of their fringe players possibly appreciate the chance to impress the selectors, but the first counts for little, and the second is hardly likely to impress selectors when the chance comes to select the test team for the Australian home season.

Meanwhile, away in Sri Lanka, we have been offered further proof that interest in even this form of the game is waning if a home team is not involved. The India-New Zealand game was played in front of a largely empty stadium, and it featured that most dreaded of one-day international finishes: the low score that is a formality to chase down (to their credit, India did their best to introduce some artificial excitement into the proceedings by losing four wickets in reasonably quick fashion).

The win meant that India moved to No.1 in the world rankings, a feat which made some headlines, but didn’t seem to excite India’s large fan base. They, like just about every other cricket fan in the world, know that what really matters is winning the World Cup, and that India haven’t done since 1983. More to the point, India lost the top spot the very next day to Sri Lanka, and now face the challenge of trying to ensure that they can overcome their “finals chokers” tag when the Cup final is played tomorrow.

From a personal point of few I found both games less than riveting; the only true entertainment came in watching some of the Sri Lankan batting on Saturday as they made a 300-plus total against an Indian attack that served up some wildly inconsistent fare.

One-day international cricket still has a place in the cricket calendar, for it affords the chance to watch a form of the game that is a reasonable middle-ground between tests and T20s. But cricket administrators need to take better care of this particular golden goose. Letting it out less often to play would be a good start. And concentrating on marquee tournaments like the Champions Trophy, which is about to start in a week or so would be a good idea. Indeed, the timing and the format of the Champions Trophy suggests a good starting point. Why not stage a scaled-down World Cup every two years like T20 does? And do it in every year alternating from the T20 one?

But the format’s biggest problem is not of its own making: quite simply, too many one-day internationals are staged every year. Cricket boards worldwide realized a long time ago that it was a money spinner (compared to test cricket) and took to staging as many as possible. This was taken to a fine art by India and Australia. The former, by elevating one-days over test cricket and playing bilateral series that often only included one-day games; the latter, by staging an interminable triangular series at the end of the Australian season.

Over the years, fans have become simply saturated by the game. There are, after all, only so many variations possible on a theme, and most of one-day cricket’s possible twists and turns have been exhaustively explored (and repeated ad nauseum) over the years.

It is ironic that the charges being leveled against T20 cricket now (too short, too compressed, destructive of batting skills, contemptuous of bowlers,’not real cricket’, ‘merely festival cricket’, etc) are precisely the same as those that were leveled against one-day international cricket as it rose to prominence in the late 70s and early 80s. Then, like now, one-day international cricket fought for respect, and slowly but surely fans came to realize that the shorter version had something to offer, that bowlers could be match-winners in the shorter version as well, that it could, via increased revenues, subsidize the longer version of the game, and most importantly, bring in a new audience base for cricket.

All these arguments are now being made for T20 cricket. It appears to have gone through the same stages as the 50-over version: initial contempt followed by grudging acceptance followed by the development of a loyal fan base that prefers it to test cricket. The wheel has come full circle.

The one-day game, could, of course, be salvaged by simply reducing the number of games being played, and by returning to it a position that works best for it: serving as a brief appetizer for test cricket, and by being the format of choice for a short, sweet, tournament involving the world’s best teams. The former was the manner in which the English board scheduled it for a long time, and the latter is still present in the Champions Trophy (the next one starts in a little over two weeks).

England and Australia are now playing seven one-day internationals after the Ashes series. No one, it seems, cares much for the series. It’s too long, the test cricket is already over, and the players want to go home. A short set of three one-day internationals before the tests would have been the perfect appertif for the Ashes.

Hopefully, the ICC and cricket boards worldwide will realize that when it comes to one-day cricket, they can have their cake and eat it too.

It has been a very long time (long enough to be not remembered by me) that a mainstream work of literature in the US has featured cricket so prominently. And to O’Neill’s credit he does not describe cricket as an outsider, but rather with the knowing touch of someone that has played the game. So he does not trade in the tired old American lies about the game: that it is quaint, archaic, tepid, and lacking in dynamism.

He does a good job of describing the skills of the game, the particular hold it exercises upon its players and spectators, and importantly, he acknowledges (even if only briefly) the international side of the game, one that is as different from the version played on American parks as a high school softball game is from major league baseball.

But the best parts of O’Neill’s description of cricket have to do with his locating it in a specifically American context: the flourishing leagues in New York City. As such, what makes Netherland singular is that it is about cricket as played in a non-cricketing country and as experienced by someone who has grown up in a marginal cricketing country (the Netherlands; for Hans, the protagonist of the novel, is a Dutchman).

This location of the game, and the choice of the narrative voice, allows the novel to engage in an extended commentary about immigrant communities and multi-culturalism within the context of a community formed around cricket in New York City. In doing so, Netherland manages to be both a classic New York City, and a cricket, novel.

There are no extended descriptions of games, no cliches about how the protagonist saves or wins a game. Instead, the focus is often largely on action off the field, sometimes on the “Field of Dreams” hopes of the enterprising Trinidadian Chuck Ramkissoon, Hans’ new-found friend, and sometimes on the bonding that the game affords to a bunch of men condemned to be sporting exiles in their new home in the US. Hans does not appear to be obsessed about international cricket scores; he is concerned mainly, with playing the game, partly to assuage the loneliness of the jilted lover, partly to reconnect with his Dutch childhood, and partly, to re-establish the kind of physical connection that a great game can build with us.

In doing all this, O’Neill has managed to write a very good sports novel. Even if you don’t know anything about cricket, but count yourself a sports fan, you owe it to yourself to read this book. The feelings Hans describes for his game are familiar ones; they are the ones that keep the world of sports ticking.

But when viewed in the light of the weaknesses of the Australian batting, the uninspiring captaincy of Ricky Ponting, and the inconsistency of the Australian bowling, it was decidedly less so. Statistically, Australia dominated England in the series (scoring more centuries, taking more wickets for instance) but they failed at the crucial moments, and that was enough to sink their campaign to hold on to the Ashes (which they had regained in style in the 2006-7 series by means of a 5-0 clean sweep).

Australia did not help their cause with a muddled selection policy. They dropped Phil Hughes, their young opening batsman, after failures in the first two tests (that Shane Watson filled in reasonably well did nothing to dispel the feeling the Australian selectors had panicked). Mitchell Johnson was persisted with despite only showing glimpses of the form he had shown in the South African tour, and at crucial times simply lost the line-and-length plot. Stuart Clark was not picked for the first three tests, and then, after aiding in the Australian win at Leeds, remained part of a four-man pace attack at the Oval, despite clear indications the pitch would aid spin as the match wore on. The unlucky bowler to miss out was Nathan Hauritz who had shown early in the series that he was improving quickly.

The failure to come up with the right bowling attack at the Oval was all the more surprising because Australian selectors are known for their ruthlessness and lack of sentiment when it comes to picking sides. The strange decision to stick with a winning combination rather than go with a horses for courses policy cost them dearly in the end.

When all is said and done, Australia lost because they were the more flaky and inconsistent team of the two on display. England’s batsmen frequently failed to convert starts into big scores; their bowling often looked toothless; their captain was solid but not inspired (Strauss’ best contributions to the team cause came from his bat as he scored consistently and solidly throughout), and their fielding was just adequate. But what really matters is the ability to find a good performance when it is really needed and in that regard England did well. They deserved to win, let there be no doubt about that.

This was not a classic Ashes encounter by any means. Still, the weaknesses of the two teams meant that results were always possible, and that in itself, meant that the cricket never failed to hold one’s interest. Add to that the fact that all the test grounds were filled to capacity with large, noisy, partisan crowds, and one had the makings of a wonderful series.

Australia, it can be reasonably surmised, will start looking ahead to the next Ashes series, while England will have some hard work to do in order to make sure they do not enter the downward slide that they embarked on after the 2005 Ashes. In the next couple of years, many cricketing fans’ attentions will be focused on the fortunes of these traditional cricketing foes, and on the oldest rivalry in test cricket.

Shane Warne. Greatest leg-spinner of all time. One of the greatest bowlers of all time. The captain Australia wish they had had instead of Ricky Ponting (at least till Warne retired, and perhaps even now). When a man with these credentials holds forth on what he thinks the future of international cricket should be, it’s a good idea to listen.

So what is Warne’s prescription for international cricket? The boldest claim isn’t that bold: get rid of the one-day international and stick to a calendar only has room for test cricket and the 20-over version of the game. It’s a change that many fans have called for ever since T20 cricket became popular, and especially since the Indian Premier League made its presence felt. The longer version of the shorter form of the game now feels archaic to many and simply not dynamic enough compared to the T20 version. Players don’t like it either as it adds time to overseas tours (tacking on seven one-day internationals to Australia’s Ashes tour adds nearly a month away from home).

The only party interested in keeping the 50-over game alive is the ICC, which stands to make more advertising revenue from television rights just because they can sell more advertisements in a day’s play. But their hand could be forced if advertisement revenues are switched to the T20 game.

Still, I have mixed feelings about this. The 50-over version offers a chance to see limited overs action in a context that still allows for some classical skills to be displayed: most importantly, the ability for batsmen to rebuild an innings that has been set back by the loss of early wickets, and correspondingly, for bowlers to try and make comebacks after the opposing side gets away to a flyer in the opening Powerplays.

Warne’s suggestions for banning switch-hitting, creating a window for the IPL, and holding a World Cup for cricket are less interesting than the idea that pitches not be rolled or swept once the game has begun. Such a move would aid in the natural deterioration of the pitch and help spinners. I’m not sure how much it would help if the underlying pitch lacked bounce and was hard as a bone to begin with, but anything that would make the surface rougher as the game went on would help spinners in a small way.

My take on this is that anything that helps bowlers today is a move worth experimenting this. Such non-interference with the pitch would be a partial return to the days of uncovered pitches, an era that often saw bowlers dominate batsmen.

For my money, the most interesting ideas involve umpiring and technology. Warne is right to ask that competent umpires be rewarded with higher salaries and that technology be used sparingly till it can be shown that the third umpire is competent to over-rule on-field decisions by the standing umpires. The current mix of mediocre umpires, flaky technology and inconsistent use of technology is a disaster, and its no wonder we seem to be witnessing an increasing number of umpiring controversies.

It’s not clear to me whether the ICC has the desire or the ability to implement these changes. But some measure of planned change is required in a cricketing world which is in a state of flux, and whose contours are increasingly being reconfigured by the actions of its biggest, and most powerful entity: the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). But much, much, more on that later.

A cricket ball impacting on the upper body can do severe damage, and given that no penalty accrues to the bowling side if the batsman is hit, intimidating the batsman with fast, short-pitched bowling is a time-honored strategy. As a small example, watch Ian Bishop and Courtney Walsh of the West Indies give Robin Smith of England (a very good player of fast bowling otherwise) a severe working over.

But that’s not all, for even deliveries not aimed at the head can be very dangerous. Watch, for instance, Pakistani fast bowler Umar Gul breaking West Indian batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan’s foot with a yorker aimed at the stumps. A quick read of the appendix to David Frith’s The Fast Men reveals a gruesome list of injuries caused to batsmen over the years: broken jaws, teeth, forearms, elbows, toes etc. And the reason for this is quite simple: the helmet and sundry protective gear like forearm and chest guards are relatively new entrants to international cricket.

The Fox Sports show serves as a useful reminder that nothing has changed modern cricket batting quite like the protection afforded by the helmet. Batsmen today face fast bowling with more confidence, are quicker to get on to the front foot to drive, and can recover from a blow to the head in ways that batsmen of old simply could not. This has inevitably meant that batsmen with obvious shortcomings against fast bowlers, or who in the old days, would have had to give up the game just because the physical fear would have been too much for them, have survived and even flourished in the modern game.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? As part of the general trend towards making cricket more of a batsman’s game, I don’t like it. Bowlers need all the encouragement they can get in a world of flat pitches, heavy bats, and smaller boundaries. To reduce the armament of intimidation is to handicap them further.

But every time I think about the kind of injuries that have occurred in the past, I am thankful the helmet exists.  The skull fracture that ended Nari Contractor’s career is but the most extreme example. And it’s not like the helmet has completely taken serious injury out of the game. In recent times, the Australian batsman Justin Langer suffered a concussion thanks to a blow on his helmet from the South African Makhaya Ntini, and the New Zealand batsman Flynn had his teeth knocked out by England’s James Anderson.

There is still plenty of fear in cricket. It still takes guts to stand 22 yards away from a man running in at full tilt, determined to send a hard orb at your head, knowing fully well that even a helmet will not prevent a blow that will probably require some sort of medical attention.

So even though the modern batsman is not afflicted by – to use Mukul Kesavan’s memorable phrase – the  “spit-drying fear” of days gone by, he does not take fast bowling lightly. The modern batsman still knows fear. And that fear is the reason the fast bowler retains his centrality in the mythology of cricket.

The first and most obvious one is that it will bring some sanity to the current out-of-season testing regime, which is not perfect, and needs considerable tweaking. Secondly, it should produce some reasoned discussion about the role of performance enhancing drugs in cricket.

Unlike baseball, cricket has not suffered a soul-scarring scrape with performance enhancing drugs. Instead, the two drugs most commonly associated with cricket remain alcohol and marijuana. The former, just because so much of it is consumed at cricket grounds and because every once in a while, a current cricket player provides a couple of news-cycles worth of entertainment by getting catastrophically drunk in public. The latter (besides being consumed at cricket grounds, albeit not openly) allows cricket administrators to fully display their ability to be sanctimonious hypocrites as they haul up cricket players (adults) who have the gall to smoke a joint in private.

Cricket has been tainted by gambling, but there is no Bonds-Canseco-Sosa scandal in cricket. There are obvious candidates who might benefit from a cocktail of PE drugs: fast bowlers recovering from injuries, or striving to find that extra yard of pace being the prime ones. Unsurprisingly, the two cricketers nailed for PE drugs were fast bowlers: the Pakistani pair of Mohammed Asif and Shoaib Akhtar. That case was handled in spectacularly, but not surprisingly, incompetent fashion by the Pakistan Cricket Board, which suggested that it cared little for procedural or substantive niceties when it came to drugs in sport. The accusations of “drug cheat” that followed were tempered by the fact that both players had self-destructed in other ways.  Their continued participation in the world of cricket would have been just as divisive as the baseball BALCO scandal.

Cricket has been lucky thus far. It needs to get its act in gear when it comes to drug testing. But there needs to be a way forward that finds a happy mean between the quasi-inquisitory mode adopted by the WADA and the concerns it expresses, and the desire of professional players, especially the high-flying ones, to not have their freedoms restricted at all by sports regulatory authorities.  And we still need clarity on which kinds of drugs, and how, affect player performances to deliver an unfair edge,  and furthermore, are likely to create health hazards with their continued usage.

The wrinkle in this case is that the players’ stand has been taken by the BCCI, the most powerful, and thus the most despised entity in world cricket. This has led to some predictable knee-jerkery about the absolute abuses of absolute power and so on.  Admittedly, there is plenty of power on display; it just isn’t all the BCCI’s.