Australia vs the World

One of the features of my trip to Melbourne was a morning ritual which involved sitting around a cafe table, drinking coffee and discussing the cricket columns in the Melbourne Age. Like every other group of foreigners in a strange land, we became much more patriotic and one-eyed than we are at home. Peter Roebuck quickly became widely despised for calling Dan Vettori "the least remarkable cricketer on display" in the World XI matches, while Greg Baum received cheers after he described Vettori as "the World's best cricketer". (In retrospect it can perhaps be seen that Roebuck was not being critical in his analysis, but was simply commenting that there is a lot more to success than being flashy).

If we were still in Australia I suspect Peter Roebuck might be the one to get the cheers this morning. In his preview of the Sydney Super Test he laments the missing Shane Bond and praises Vettori for keeping alive the ancient art of left-arm spin bowling. Roebuck also provides us with a very handy preview of the test.