Even without his background as a player, MIke Atherton would be one of the best sports journalists around. As it is, his experience as an England captain informs his pieces and thus us, the reader. His piece today on the decline of West Indies cricket is typically insghtful. This passage is especially shocking:

This is a team who have to learn again the meaning of such terms as 'work ethic' and 'professionalism'.

If you don't believe me, then you should read the remarkable report of the physiotherapist, Stephen Partridge, following the 2006 home series (it was released on a website called CaribbeanCricket.com). In it he outlines how the players held a meeting in St Lucia during which they decided that the training regime was too intense and forced its cancellation. Of Dwayne Bravo, the brightest of the young players around whom you'd think a team might develop, Partridge said this: his ''approach to bowling training is minimalist''; that he has ''largely moved away from adhering to his personalised physical program''; that ''his diet is of major concern, consisting of sugar and little else'', and that any gains in physical conditioning would be ''gradual and directly linked to the support we gain from his fellow countryman and patron [Lara]''.