Is this a day for nostalgia and hoping for new beginnings? Patrick Kidd's guest Murray Hedgcock lists his Ashes Top Ten. And Patrick says that Ken Barrington is Ashes Hero no. 49 (just pipping Gary Pratt):

The craggy-faced Surrey batsman was a bit of a dasher in his youth but transformed himself by necessity into one of cricket's great stonewallers, the hardest man in the side to shift. And Down Under, where he averaged 70 in two series, he helped England to come away with a share of the spoils each time he toured.

On his first tour, the series was tied at 1-1 when England came to Adelaide for the fourth Test, with Australia looking to tighten the screw. Barrington top-scored with 63 in the first innings but England gave up a 62-run deficit and then, chasing 356 to win, were four for two before Barrington's four-hour 132 not out steadied the ship and secured a draw.

The Nation newspaper in Barbados is carrying a series of articles on the state of cricket in Barbados. First, on the Cricket Legends Bill the legislature just passed, why just cricket players? And, second, Philip Hunte on the need for long-term fixes of Caribbean cricket:

Now, we in the region are feeling short changed by our current representatives who are allowing cricket newcomers to visit these shores and humiliate our Caribbean people, literally rubbing our noses in their failures.

It is the type of situation that these opponents were longing and hoping for when the vintage team of Lloyd, Richards, Greenidge, Haynes, Roberts, Holding, Garner, Marshall (may his soul rest in peace) et al, ran rings around all and sundry.

It has been more than a decade that this humiliation and capitulation has been occurring and radical measures are needed to rectify the situation or else the team could end up in the Test cricket second XI, among the cricketing minnows Bangladesh and if allowed, Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe.

And, lastly, on cricket administration in the Caribbean:

 CARICOM nationals, to whom cricket means so much, deserve to know more. Is the presidential election process flawed? Is the size of the board superfluous? Can WI cricket continue to afford a non-executive president, part-time administrators, a board whose membership is determined on a constituency representative basis, a system frowned upon ages ago by the late Sir Frank Worrell?

Surely, it is high time suitably appointed West Indies cricket executive offices were established in a selected Caribbean territory, where the president and executive staff are expected to reside.

Is not the ICC headquarters office located in Dubai? How much longer can CARICOM nationals and the nation be embarrassed because of a "hop-scotch" approach to our national sport?

Really? That the ICC is in Dubai is a good thing?