The Board of Control for Cricket in India's enforced game of musical Test grounds appears finally to have ended with the governing body announcing that England's two pre-Christmas Tests will, safety and security permitting, now be played in Chennai and Mohali.
When the team beat West Indies in three days last December, the NZC chief executive David White said that he could swallow the revenues lost from the lack of play on the fourth and fifth days because "our budget for the pre-Christmas Tests is not significant.
The coming one-day series against South Africa will undoubtedly provide him with sterner challenges, as will the pre-Christmas Test and limited-over tour of India.
England may have lost the pre-Christmas Test series in India but Pietersen returned, having taken the team back shortly after the Mumbai terrorist attacks, with his reputation at an all-time high.
Christmas, even in a recession, is by far the busiest time of year for selling books – and this Christmas is a crucial test of whether Waterstone's will have a significant future selling our books in Britain.
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It has noted news developments over the years like "Knitted Underwear: Clever Christmas Gifts for Convalescents" (1941), "South Pacific Bomb Tests Due to Include 360 Fabrics" (1954) and "Are Wigs a Sexual Threat?" (1970).
A Green Bamboo assembly was subsequently taken to Christmas Island for Operation Grapple, but was deleted from the test series to save money.
The British-held Christmas Island in the mid-Pacific is being considered for such atmospheric tests if it is decided they are necessary "to maintain they effectiveness of the deterrent," according to official spokesmen.
When I was involved in the coaching team, what we most wanted from the pre-Christmas internationals was clear evidence that the players we'd introduced were genuine Test performers.
