One has to hand it to the new-look Australian team in South Africa for winning the Test rubber after the setback at home. Ricky Ponting led from the front as the visiting team seemed to find the new recruits taking to responsibility with alacrity. In such a situation one should not mention individuals because the old and the new combined so effectively that the South Africans were caught napping.

Ponting does not have very many friends and supporters in Australia, but that cannot be helped. He is a man who has a view on every matter and cannot be persuaded easily to alter it. One might think the word inflexible should be applicable to him. But that is not quite right. Ponting listens very carefully and after having given the matter some thought goes about his business his way. Being among the top batsmen in the game and an outstanding fieldsman, the Tasmanian has the knack of proving others wrong, especially his detractors.

South Africa lost its captain, Graeme Smith due to injury in the second Test and that was a major blow. The team depends on his leadership and pugnacious batting. He also got injured in Australia on the last tour and his team missed him. Is he injury prone?

However, South Africa’s hopes of becoming the top Test nation received a knock, though it is the leader in ODIs. The never-say-die spirit of the Australian team has to be appreciated and is a lesson to other teams going through a temporary slump.

In the Caribbean, the West Indies won the home rubber against for the first time since 1998 and a lot of credit has to be given to the captain, Chris Gayle. For one who has been regarded as so laid back that he exasperated Viv Richards, Gayle seemed to have all the players right behind him.

England, after losing the first Test, improved thereafter and had the West Indies on the mat as it were. It did not though have the necessary edge in bowling to win and the West Indies batsmen, to a man, resisted.

Ramnaresh Sarwan, who made three centuries in the four Tests (one was abandoned), was declared man of the series. He had backed Gayle as the best captain available in the Caribbean and ensured that he saw to it that the West Indies won. Even the West Indies seem to have found a new lease of life and the same never-say-die spirit has returned. Good for the game all right.