A recent heavy workload has made posting difficult. so here goes with a potted review of the last month...

Smells like 1983 spirit: Taking a three week break would have given scope for reviewing just the group stages of last spring's World Cup, but the World Championship of cricket's shortest format was mercifully, and fittingly, brief. Still not short enough for England to fail to depart with what seemed indecent haste, but it seems that some traditions have transferred to Twenty20, not least the South African's departing early from an event in their own country; they only lost one game, pitifully at that, but then it seems every tournament brings with it a new and more circuitous route to the exit door for them. But just as 24 years previously, it was unfancied India who swept the board, an irony considering their previously ambivalent stance to the shortened format. Yuvraj Singh was the star, his runs coming at a painful strike rate of 194.73, although it was Gambhir's three half-centuries which provided the consistency. Pakistan were twice agonisingly close to beating them, but a bowl out was never going to be in their favour in the group, while the final was evidence that nothing short of a miracle will help them beat their neighbours in a World Cup. It is, there seems that there is life after Dravid, Dada and Tendu, and, although 20-20 may be dubious evidence of this, try telling that to the 1 billion.

Misbah Ul Yousuf: There were some strange selections by a few countries for the World Twenty20. South Africa ignored Jacques Kallis, their best batsman and reliable back-up seamer, as well as Andrew Hall, their best death bowler in a game which consists of little else. England also chose to overlook Ian Bell's excellent form in the India one-day series when injury gave them license to tinker with the squad. But it was the failure to pick Mohammed Yousuf which caused the most consternation. Not a massive aberration, one might think - Yousuf might be one of the best Test batsmen in the world, but Twenty20 is a different bag. What got the goat of many Pakistan fans and pundits was his replacement - not a 19 year old trailblazer, no Pathan warrior whistled down from the Khyber Pass. Instead, the honour went to Misbah Ul Haq, 91 days Yousuf's senior and out of the international game for three years. What was to be gained, went up the outcry. Potentially the loss of their best batsman, it seemed, as Yousuf upped sticks for the ICL, which under PCB rules would have barred him form playing for Pakistan again. As it happened, Misbah was Pakistan's leading run scorer in the tournament, and the third best overall. He is now back in the Test squad, as is Yousuf, who will "do anything" for Pakistan. Never say the world of Pakistani cricket is not a strange one...

Achilles Heel: Andrew Flintoff has often seemed like a mythic figure in the second half of his England career, but the comparison to the greatest of the Greek heroes, Achilles, can never have seemed more prescient. For Flintoff is England's greatest weapon, yet is continually felled by the smallest of body-parts. Were he to have been a character in Homeric poetry, surely his epithet would be Flintoff of the unstable ankle. Briefly, at the end of the summer, England fans glimpsed his best with the ball, as he released the frustration of another season without a Test on the Indians. The purpose was there in the run-up, the accuracy, as ever, was nagging, and, most importantly, the pace and bounce were lethal. But it seems that the great talents of the man are hostage to his ankle, which duly gave out again during the World 20-20. He clearly struggled, was reduced to medium-pace against New Zealand, then played, ridiculously, in the dead-rubber. And as predictable as that decision was stupid, the announcement shortly followed that he would be unfit to play the one-day series in Sri Lanka. If there is to be any chance of England fans witnessing Flintoff on the field of play for any significant period in the future, surely the best thing now is the last resort of a total break from cricket. Should they choose to rest him from the entire winter programme, he will have 6 months of rest before the English season comes around in April. Whereas before he has either been playing, or doing heavy-duty rehabilitation on the ankle, it has never had an extended period of rest, which seems the only thing left for the medics to suggest. He is now at the second watershed moment in his career, the first having been when some sharp words from those close to him incited him to lose the weight and realise his potential; the sadness is that, this time, there is only so much that he can do.

God bestowed the greatest of batting talents on Mark Ramprakash (or genetics, if that is your perspective) and after so many years of flattering to deceive on the international stage, he has started to bat like him. With the England players limited to just a handful of games, phenomenal achievements tend to be the preserve of the overseas professional. And one of their legion, Mike Hussey, is the only man other than Ramprakash who has achieved the batting high water-mark of 2000 Championship runs in the English season since the two-divisional structure was introduced. And that achievement was a phenomenal one done once, against the inferior Divison 2 opposition. To do it a second time, against the cream of county bowling, including the likes of Clark, Hoggard, Warne, Mushtaq, Naved and Muralitharan, is a triumph beyond words. The fact that he needed over 300 runs in the final game to get over the line just augments the legend. Indeed his form merits an England recall, although that will not happen for the right reasons, and the man himself has shown little hunger for such an eventuality. With hindsight, he probably should have gone to Australia last winter, where he has had success in the past, for the one-off, esepcially bearing in mind the inexperience of the English batting unit. But Ramprakash it at a stage in his career where the "if-onlys" can be relegated to the back of his mind, something which has probably helped free him up and facilitate such success. He is contracted for two more seasons, his 10 centuries this term have made the career mark of 100 a formality, barring injury. And while some English supporters might reflect on what might have been for him on the international stage, Ramprakash and his large fan-base can look forward to more seasons, more runs, and some of the finest batsmanship you might ever see.

Singing in the rain: County cricket is dying. Attendances are low, as are standards; it is failing the national team as a producer of talent fit for international cricket. That is a precied paraphrase of any report, review or Bob Willis speech you could hope to get your hands on (or cover your ears from) when the national team is failing. But not only did the title race go into the last game a four-horse race, of which only one had seriously fallen out of contention by the last day, it went down to the last few overs at The Oval, as Lancashire made a valiant effort to secure the prize that has eluded them since the inter-war years, falling just 25 short of what seemed an impossible target of 489. It was a second successive title for the Martlets, a third in five seasons - an astonishing glut after more than a century without success. It had seemed improbable back in April when they suffered a brace of shattering defeats, but slowly things came together - hardy perennials Goodwin and Adams ground out the runs, wickets tumbled as Mushtaq rolled to the wicket. Richard Montgomerie also finished on exactly 1000 CC runs, a nice way to end a distinguished career as he leaves the changing room for the classroom and his new career in teaching. There has not been too much missing from the domestic scene this season - runs aplenty from Ramprakash, Di Venuto, Law, Trescothick and Rudolph, to mention a few; the old guard of seamers - Gibson, Gough, Caddick and Chapple - enjoying late flourishes before surrendering the ball to the battalion of world-class spinners which graced the first-class game. All the best spinners in the world were on show in England this summer- Warne, Muralitharan, Mushtaq, Harbhajan, Kaneira and Kumble for India - not to mention a few English hopefuls, notably Adil Rashid, whose bowling fell away in the second half of the season, but who still managed over 40 wicket, as well as 790 runs. His fellow leg-spinner from Somerset, Michael Munday, whom Terry Jenner reckons has the best leg-break of all the young English spinners, also caused a stir with 8-55 in his final outing of the season. And all of this despite the massive amount of rain which would have wrecked a lesser season. So there is much for the county game to cheer, and, for once, little for its detractors to carp about.

Indian Captains do not tend to do winning away. Nor do they usually depart without some sort of controversy, providing the fire for the smoke of the burning effigies. But Rahul Dravid has never fulfilled the traditional stereotypes of the superstar Indian cricketer, and the manner of his departure reflected his modest and self-effacing nature. Indeed so quiet was his announcement, deliberately timed to coincide with the much louder events of the World Twenty20, that you might easily have missed it; when his predecessor departed the captaincy, you might have been mistaken for thinking that there was anything more important happening the world over. The timing of his resignation seems strange, on the back of the massive Test series win in England, but the more one thinks, the more sensible his decisions seems. Despite their relative success in Test cricket, the one-day side has been going backwards, evidenced by the World Cup display and defeat to a still emerging England side. Dravid knows that he will almost certainly not last until the 2011 World Cup, and saw the need for the one-day side to move on from the stalwarts who have sustained it for so long, but of late have begun to stultify it. In Tests, although a successful leader, he was always something of a hesitant and flawed tactician, steady rather than inspired. His batting also, relatively, suffered - when captain, his career mark of just under 57 was reduced to 44.51. Dravid realises that if India are to have a chance of trumping Australia away from home early next year, they will need every single run he can provide; evidently, he feels that he is better able to fulfil his primary role as No.3 batsman without the weight of the captaincy, that much heavier when it is the Indian job in question. Such selflessness is rare in sport, and even more so in the ego-driven world of sub-continental cricket. Dravid would have been under no pressure to resign - he did it for the good of his team, and what is sad is that, once again, he will be deprived of the plaudits he deserves.