All seem to be set for Pakistan's tour of India. There is far less hoopla than there was when India toured Pakistan last year and, mercifully, no one is talking about the cricket tour as a political breakthrough.

One hopes too that politicians will stay away from cricket and allow the game to be played as a game not as a clash of nationalisms. Shiv Sena is making its customary noise and the pity is that there will be no test match in Mumbai and the losers will be the cricket public in Mumbai who love their cricket.

On paper, India is the better team and will take full advantage of home conditions and as the selection of their Test squad shows no new Test caps are to be awarded. Sachin Tendulkar is back and his return seems to have coincided with the news that Shoaib Akhtar was not touring India. Was there a connection? We will never know.

Tendulkar will be short of match practice but I am sure that he would love to run into form against Pakistan. Playing before one's home crowd can be an unnerving experience and Tendulkar is someone who can't field a ball without being cheered to the rafters.

There is always the extra pressure on him but he seems to relish it. He seems to have a perfect relationship with his fans. Tendulkar's return provides a huge fillip to India, a psychological boost comparable to the loss of Shoaib Akhtar in the other direction.

The team selected is the best available and I can't think of a single player who may consider himself unlucky not to be in the party. A case could have been made for Rao Iftikhar but he is certain to be picked for the ODIs. He could only have been picked at the expense of Mohammad Khalil, but Khalil being a left-hander provides variation.

There is a lot of chatter before a team embarks on a tour and everybody seems to have their ideas and preferences. But now that the team has arrived in India, we need to close ranks and need to get behind the team. But I was dismayed to see a picture of the team's arrival in New Delhi with Rana Naveedul Hasan carrying his baby daughter. Quite frankly I am surprised that the players have been allowed to take their families with them.

I am inclined to be single-minded and I expect the players on a cricket tour, particularly on one as important as this one, to be totally focused on the job at hand with no distractions of any kind.

With so much cricket being played, one can understand players being unhappy separated from their families but cricket is a full-time career and I can't visualize taking one's family to one's office or place of work. Even more important is the bonding among players during a tour.

Players rely on one another for companionship and this helps to bind a team. A player who has to divide his time between the team and his family ends up by not doing justice to either.

I would have thought that the few days between the Test series and the ODIs would have been the right time for the families to pay a brief visit and then return home, leaving the players to get on with their business and for which they are being paid so handsomely and those on central contracts being paid monthly salaries in addition to their fees and other perks.

I would be interested to know whether players have permission from the PCB to take their families along. Some newspapers have carried stories about a bowling coach for the Pakistan team and the name of Waqar Younis was being mentioned. As I understand it this was no kite-flying and Waqar had the support of Inzamamul Haq and even Bob Woolmer.

If anything, Pakistan's bowlers have done a commendable and if anything, it is the batting that has let the side down and one would have thought if another coach was required (we seem to have money to burn) it should have been a batting coach. But, in fact, no other coaches are required and Inzamam's backing of a bowling coach and his subsequent expression of disappointment smacks to be yaari-dosti, cronyism.

Since the PCB has a costly, state of the art, academy and from what I can gather neither pupils nor teachers to speak of in a systematic and on-going way, it is might be more profitable to staff the academy more professionally.

Perhaps the PCB may be better off if it out sourced the academy and allow someone to run it who, while making a few rupees for himself, will be able to put the academy to its proper use. And one of its proper uses is not to provide jobs for the boys.

The original choice for manager was not Salim Altaf and yet looking at the appointment, it seems to be an ideal one. Salim or 'Bobby' as he is affectionately known to us, has a formidable cricket background but he also has considerable management experience and as a senior PIA officer held independent charge of major international stations.

He telephoned me and we had a long chat and he gave me the impression that he will be a hands-on manager and has a pretty good idea of what sort of discipline will be needed. Not parade ground discipline but flexible rules of conduct that can be bent but not broken.