On second thoughts...

Being a reasonable man (and not a prime minister or a president, who seems to believe that changing one's mind is a sign of weakness (little bit of politics)), I'm having second thoughts about whether old Monty (Panesar, not the golfer) should be selected to go to India after all. My doubts were inspired by this article. Perhaps it would be better for him to go on an A Tour to the West Indies. It's more than likely that he wouldn't play much in India (unless Giles gets injured), and if he did, it's more than likely than he wouldn't have too much joy bowling to Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar et al (Warne probably still wakes up in the middle of the night after nightmares about it, although I guess his success during his last Indian tour may have eased them somewhat). Anyway, it's not up to me, and we'll all find out tomorrow (I think).
The whole Zimbabwe situation is very sad (and I'm not just talking about cricket), but it is a relief to see that they've withdrawn from Test cricket. Perhaps Bangladesh could also do the decent thing. Recent announcements regarding future series between India, Australia and England seem to imply that the national authorities have been deciding that they no longer need to toe (tow?) the ICC line, which is only right, I think. No one is too interested in the Test league table (or whatever it's called) and I'd far rather see 5 tests against India or Australia spread out over an entire summer, like they used to be. As much as anything, it gives fast bowlers time to recover between matches, batsmen time to lose or get into form, and, perhaps most importantly, spectators a bit of time to talk about it all. That, however, is unlikely to happen, I guess.