Australia has just completed a remarkable resurgence, transforming from a struggling ODI side to beat the highly ranked Indian team and follow that with a comprehensive series win over Pakistan in their home territory. The victory over India was even more remarkable for the fact that they were at home and led the series 2-nil and Australia was missing four of their top players — two from suspension and an injured pair. Australia's spirited revival, plus the pending return of star players now has them on an equal footing with India and England as joint favourites to win the World Cup. That sounds like a team on the up but the story at home is one of a different hue.

For many years the Sheffield Shield competition was recognised by players — Sir Garfield Sobers among them — as the toughest cricket outside the Test arena. A glance at a recently completed Sheffield Shield round suggests that accolade is well and truly out of date. In two of the three games played — New South Wales [NSW] v Victoria and Queensland v South Australia [SA] — there were eight completed innings, none of which reached a total of two hundred.