It's one way to explain India's turnaround in the 50-over games in England

Would he have fared better than the incumbent middle-order batsmen, Root and Ballance?

Aggression, defence, success, failure, innovation - they are all about our willingness to take risks and how we judge them

Do you gauge it by rewards or in terms of the experiences accumulated on the way?

Since players know they can get away with murder, umpires are often reduced to being a chorus

It's possible for two people to argue for hours about someone "crossing the line" without anyone knowing what or where the line is

Like football, can it be reinvented by master tacticians, or is it too individual to be shaped?

Exceptionally gifted but unreliable players are often given lots of rope by management, but far too many seem to believe themselves to be deserving of that leeway

Looking to autobiography for insights on how sportsmen play obscures the truth more often than it illuminates it

It's difficult to beat a huge talent base exposed to good facilities, and possessed of a long history of competing as a nation

Elite sportsmen today don't lack motivation, nor do they need to be whipped into shape. What they need from their coaches is tact, judgement and clear speaking

The role is still evolving, but it's unlikely it'll become the centrepiece of the narrative like in football

Teams that encourage individualism along with a sense of belonging to the larger group are likelier to succeed

Too many sportsmen are classed as "mentally not good enough", and though that may be true at one moment in their life it's not necessarily true for all time

The media wants constant access to players, and insights and honesty from them, but this desire can only cheapen the experience of sport

The idea that trash talk is a by-product of competitiveness, and essential to spice up a contest, is laughable

In separating sportsmen into two distinct categories - tough men and cowards - we not only miss the subtlety, we miss the whole truth

Hasty assumptions will not help Jonathan Trott, or our understanding of mental health

In some ways, we know less about him now than before. The more he has played, the more godlike and inscrutable he has become

The real characteristic of good players in form is not the immobility of the head but rhythm and poise