The Surfer

This is said to be a feckless age. Yet six of the 17 longest innings in Test history have been played since 2000. It is too glib, plainly, to charge batsmen of the T20 era with flimsy decadence. In fact, only four of those 17 innings pre-date 1987. True, many factors contribute to that imbalance: the sheer volume of fixtures, and an increasing environmental prejudice towards the bat. But while T20, in particular, absolves him of his responsibility to balance conflicting obligations - and so severs the exquisite tension, between attack and defence, that defines the game - the modern batsman evidently remains capable of deferring fatal indulgence to a nearly tantric degree.

Dear Francois "Faf" du Plessis, I'm sorry. I was wrong and boy, did you prove it in Adelaide on Monday.

Two weeks ago in this space I wrote you didn't deserve a spot in the starting XI for the second Test against Australia.

I based this on the fact that, well, you'd shown very little form with the bat in the last six months and that you'd last played a first-class match towards the end of last season. In fact, until the warm-up game against Australia A at Sydney before the first Test, your "game time" had consisted of one-dayers and T20 matches - a lot of T20 matches.

Ponting asked yesterday that we stay the toasts while he negotiated one last Test, but for the best-of list, here's a starting point: back-to-back double centuries against India in 2003. In the fullness of time, it is this regal Ponting who will live on in the mind's eye, not the toiler of the last month, and justly so.

Born to cricket, Ponting loved everything about it: the net sessions, the touring life, the brotherhood, the talk, the joining and re-joining of battle. In this team, he is, as well as a batsman, mentor to Clarke, de facto coach to off-spinner Nathan Lyon, consultant to all the batsmen.

There has been a tendency to put most of the great modern batsmen in one of two categories: the blessed ones and the cussed ones, those who were born great and those who achieved greatness. It's a bit of an oversimplification, if not without merit. Ricky Ponting was right in the middle of that Venn diagram, both golden boy and grizzled streetfighter. He had the natural talent to play astonishing shots like this but could also will his way to runs, as he did in the 2011 World Cup quarter-final.

I only met Ponting once. It was at a Tasmanian State League football match in Hobart between North Launceston and its great rivals at that time, Clarence. By this stage, he was a sportsman of international renown. He'd come down in the bus that morning with the North Launceston players. I respect the fact that Ponting has been true to his origins.

Whether you're Javier Bardem in front of a camera, Leonard Cohen behind a microphone or Tendulkar with bat in hand, no one is, or should be, immune to criticism. Columnists are paid for their opinions, and have every right to express them. But there's a thin line between criticism and slander, and that's been crossed often in the past week.

For 23 years, he has helped people dream, he has made them feel better emotionally. More's the reason why we need to give him his emotional space now. There have been instances when he has been the sole reason for India's wins, but he has never been the sole reason for India's losses. It's best to leave it to him to deal with what is in front of him now, because no one else has been in his position. No one else has played 192 Tests, made 34,000 runs, or scored 100 centuries. Let's not jump the gun, let's give the man the respect he deserves.

Hammond's batting, wrote Crusoe, was about "strength scientifically applied. He had a combined power and grace that I have never seen in any other man. I can't think human agency could do more to a ball. To field to him at cover point was a sort of ordeal by fire." When he made 240 at Lord's during the second Ashes Test of 1938, Hammond is said to have given only one chance, and that so fiercely struck it split the fielder's finger as he attempted the catch.

No Twenty20 cricket, from what I have seen in the last week here. The obsession with 20-over cricket and the IPL is not manifest on Mumbai's maidans, not at this time of year at any rate.

The fact he had to work hard for everything he achieved as player helps him as a coach. He knows how difficult it is to be an international cricketer. He had to graft for every wicket and run. He had to go to his room at night and think about his game, and analyse opponents.

I have not known a player get on better with KP as well. That will help in the next couple of years. He knows how to communicate to Kevin.

He is massively into details, especially when it comes to the opposition. The amount of times we'd watch how other players play, and how they got out. As a bowling unit we would look, for example, if batters were not too sure if the ball was swinging away from them and didn't know where their off stump was. It was very specific on the opposition.

Bounce allows batsmen to play back with more confidence. Numerous times in Alastair Cook's exceptional innings he negotiated a sharply turning ball on the back foot, playing it to safety at the top of the bounce. It also enabled him to play his favourite cuts and pulls. A clean-hitting player such as Kevin Pietersen also prefers the ball to bounce. It is easier to defend against, his booming drives and cross-batted shots work better and he can also get underneath a good length ball and lift it over the infield.