Venues switched

For the record, the security concerns spoken of yesterday have led to a swap in venues for the first two ODIs in Pakistan.
Elsewhere, Wasim Akram has joined the growing lineup of former Pakistan players who see the upcoming contest as a no-contest.

"The advantage of pitches is with Pakistan, they have a transformed Shoaib Akhtar who can rock the Indians on hard pitches," he said. Akhtar, considered to be the world's fastest bowler, took 17 wickets to help Pakistan beat favourites England 2-0 in a Test series early this month.

The scary part is not that such statements reduce the series to a mathematical formula -- make fast pitches and win; the really scary bit is that there is a little over two weeks to go before the series actually kicks off. Imagine how many more statements of this kind -- and the corresponding ripostes from the Indian side -- we all have to endure before the focus can shift to the actual action.