The Heavy Ball

England coach Andrew Flower was caught looking up the word "teesra" on Wikipedia yesterday, in an apparently desperate attempt to learn more about the mysterious "special delivery" that Saeed Ajmal has been taunting his team with, both on and off the field.

"It's my job," protested Flower. "It's my duty as coach to do what it takes to help my boys, and if it means looking up things on Wikipedia, then by God, that's what I'll do."

However, when asked what he had found out, Flower grew testy and evasive. "Something-something-jalebi," he mumbled and shrugged. When asked to repeat what he had said, he lashed out: "I said, I found out that it's also called a jalebi," he roared. "As if one strange-sounding word wasn't enough, I have to deal with another. I mean, what on God's green earth is a jalebi?"

The faces surrounding the nameless man were either glum or tense. The older board members tended towards the former, accepting of what was happening and feeling there was nothing they could do. The others betrayed the tension and anxiety borne of trying and failing to have an impact. It was now unmistakeable. International cricket was in crisis.

The man in the ill-fitting suit chaired the meeting. "The projections are bleak, I'm afraid. At the current rate of decline, the popularity of our sport could actually fall below that of the World Test League within six years."

"How can that be?" asked the fat-necked man. "How is it that they're retaining their fan base while we're losing ours? That doesn't make any sense."

Mobile-phone applications have caught on to such a degree in recent years that even your average BCCI luddite probably uses a "flashlight" app to illuminate his cave every once in a while. Even so, cricket fans might be forgiven for feeling a little let down by the dearth of good, useful cricket-themed apps out there (other than the ESPNcricinfo one, of course. Ahem.) Happily, 2012 promises to change all that, with a sudden glut of apps soon to be available for use on your favourite still-not-as-unpretentious-as-you'd-like smartphone.

The Mayan Calendar Countdown to Extinction
This quirky app counts down the number of days remaining until December 21, 2012 - believed to be the date the Mayans predicted would see the end of Test cricket as we know it.

The Pakistan Coach Finder
This handy app points you towards the nearest available potential Pakistan coach, no matter where you might be. Recommended both by and for the Pakistan Cricket Board.

We're just days away from the Test series opener in Dubai's legendary cricket cauldron, the Indentured Labour Stadium, and the English batsmen are putting the final touches to their preparations by giving Ali Cook plenty of time in the middle. Meanwhile, literally dozens of Barmy Army fans are making the trip of a lifetime to the cricketing hotbed, and are currently working out whether it's worth risking 15 years in prison for smuggling cans into the stadium.

Bookmakers have also been gearing up for a busy series, and there are certainly some value bets on offer for those in the know. Our resident betting expert marks your card.

Top wicket-taker is often a hard call on these slow pitches, so I'm instead looking at Most Bizarre Injury to An England Bowler. Chris Tremlett has put down an early marker with an eye infection, but I fancy Jimmy Anderson at 3/1 to retire from the series with RSI of the wrist after those long evenings on the PlayStation in the England team hotel. Stuart Broad is 5/1 to fly home early with a strained voicebox after yelling himself hoarse with his over-aggressive appeals. And keep an eye out for aspiring TV personality Graeme Swann getting sidelined with a sprained neck after practising one too many "turn and smoulder" head-turn manoeuvres to an imaginary camera, at 10/1.

A month-by-month guide to the next 12 months of international cricket, with a special focus on India, because, let's face it, if it weren't for us you'd still be competing in boring week-long exhibitions of bowling outside leg stump in order to win a little wooden eggcup. Instead today you are enjoying delectable well-played cricket starring well-paid men in well-made uniforms in places like Kochi, the winners lifting elegant, tasteful trophies made of precious metals.

January
Setting aside losses to Australia in the first two Test matches, India begin the year auspiciously, with victory in the third Test, in Perth. The Indian batting line-up finally clicks, with all the frontline batsmen, barring Tendulkar, scoring centuries. The cricket world is agog when Tendulkar is given out caught off his helmet to a rank no-ball by James Pattinson. But without the DRS, the little master has no option but to walk back in front of a stunned, silent full house. India effortlessly bowl Australia out twice in the next two days to secure a famous victory. With Tendulkar's century no longer on the cards, the turnout for the last two days is poor. Only only one Mr Nathan Woodward, a retired librarian, is present in the audience when India secure victory. Shortly before the end of the match Virat Kohli runs up to him and calls him a "shit-faced halfwit". The ICC docks 55% of Kohli's match fee. At the post-match press conference Tendulkar, while slowly crushing a can of sports drink in his hands, denies that the pressure of the century is affecting him at all.

Elsewhere, South Africa crush Sri Lanka 5-0 in the ODI series, with Marchant de Lange taking an aggregate of 26 wickets and scoring 200 runs. de Lange is dropped from the side.

In the years since Test cricket was removed from the fixture list, an unofficial branch of the sport had developed, filling that niche. Beginning as exhibition matches, five-day cricket had grown, so that there was now a robust international programme. It wasn't enormously popular but it had a small, loyal audience.

Known as the World Test League, the game featured an odd assortment of promising young players and second-rate pros who were never likely to win recognition in conventional international cricket. The sport's administrators tolerated the World Test League, not seeing it as a threat. Occasionally they acted to ensure that a particular player renounced it in favour of official cricket, but other than that, they were content to let it tick over in its understated way.

The nameless man was today attending one of their infrequent matches. He'd volunteered to keep an eye on the World Test League several years ago, and secretly rather enjoyed this part of his job. He found the matches offered something different from the shorter, more predictable, official forms of the game.

After the recent debacle of India's loss in the first Test against Australia in Melbourne, the BCCI has decided to arrest the side's alarming slump in form by doing away with first Tests in all series abroad.

"We have examined the past records and they do not make for good reading for any Indian cricket fan," said a spokesman. "Traditionally, India have always been slow starters, and we have inevitably performed very poorly in the first Test matches of series abroad. Hence, we have come to the decision that in all future tours, India will not play the first Test match. The series will only start from the second Test match onwards.

He added a rider: "However, in the event of India losing the second Test, it will then be considered to be the first Test, and that result will thus be declared void. If, however, India have won a warm-up game, the second Test could be accepted as a loss and the series will thus be level."

Ravi Shastri missed what appeared to be a clear-cut opportunity to utter a cliché last week, stunning onlookers and plunging himself into a state of deep introspection and existential angst.

"Ravi is understandably in a fragile state of mind at the moment," said Sunil Gavaskar. "We ask that his privacy be respected at this difficult time as he tries to cope with his loss."

Shastri, who has earned himself a special place in hell the hearts and minds of cricket fans the world over for his endlessly repeated banalities, is said to have locked himself in his Sydney hotel room, and hadn't responded to calls for an interview at the time of writing.

The nameless man had been in New Zealand for just over 24 hours and he was due to fly out again later that afternoon. He had hoped New Zealand Cricket's administrators would be the ones to pass on the bad news to the players, but they were having none of it. It had been a board decision and so a board representative should present this to those affected, they said. It was fair enough, in a way, although he didn't feel he really had anything to do with what was happening, and resented being put in the firing line.

The players massed in the nondescript conference room. It seemed a low-key location for the destruction of so many dreams, but maybe that was apt. The worst nightmares always take place in the most mundane of settings.

When everyone had settled down, the nameless man launched into his speech without even bothering to introduce himself. "Most of you will be wondering why I've flown all the way from Dubai to speak to you. Well, quite obviously, this is something serious." A couple of the players looked at each other in puzzlement, but no one seemed unduly concerned.