The Surfer

It would be unfair to link India's struggles abroad to Fletcher's apparently dwindling prowess as a coach. Fletcher perhaps is used to the criticism. In the past too, his way of working has been misunderstood. A story goes that a few days into his appointment as coach of county Glamorgan back in 1997, the players and the management feared they had hired a "mute". But as former England offspinner Robert Croft reveals, the Welsh county would soon realise the worth of Fletcher's nous as he immediately led them to their first Championship trophy in 28 years

The keys were later traded in for a biro pen after Greigy lost the key to Room 210 of a Perth hotel deep in the WACA wicket. To this day, the room key remains buried. The first Test at the Gabba have been tough for the Channel 9 team, as their old mate battles lung cancer.

Asked how he felt about Greig being absent from the Gabba, Chappell paused. "It's like when we were playing and a player was dropped or injured, it's a shock to all of a sudden not have them there," Chappell said.

The document feels like the work of Australia's new coach, Mickey Arthur. Given that he was South Africa's coach until two years ago, Arthur could hardly have a better understanding of their players. He is also a transparently decent man, so generous in spirit that if you nicked his car he would probably compliment you on your driving.

THEY say you only learn from the best, so for Australia this might have been the start of education week. South Africa's batsmen occupied the Gabba like the world's No.1 nation, a top order qualified to hand out cricketing lessons. Australia might end the series with 12 South African coaches, not one.

The comparison is made additionally enticing by involving two brilliant opposites: Sobers all prowling grace and feline elasticity, with his 360-degree batswing and three-in-one bowling; Kallis all looming bulk and latent power, constructed like a work of neo-brutalist architecture.

Yet what they are just as much opposites of are their respective eras. Sobers was the most explosive cricketer of a more staid age, the more mercurial because of the orthodoxy and rigidity around him; Kallis is the most stoic and remorseless cricketer of an era more ostentatious and histrionic.

For me, commentating is wonderful because of the way cricket technology has evolved over the years. Most of all that is to do with the brilliance of the cameras, and those who stand behind them, plus the director who shapes the story. The best at those I have seen anywhere in the television world is Channel Nine's Rob Sheerlock whose voice in my ear, counting down from 10 to zero, is one of the greatest confidence boosts I know. A few things I try to remember run along the lines of 'never ask a statement', 'remember the value of the pause', and there are no teams in the TV world called 'we' or 'they'. Only little things, but I believe they make a difference.

Chaturvedi has penned 10 books so far. The last one on wicketkeepers was very well received. He is now working on a book on umpires. His energy can embarrass a young scribe but Chaturvedi is a tireless "cricket enthusiast" as he likes to call himself. "You have to have passion to follow any subject. Cricket has always been close to my heart from the time I grew up watching some of the finest players one can imagine."

Apart from batting beautifully, sending the purists into a swoon and, early in his career, winning the acclaim of Sir Donald Bradman - what has Tendulkar done to Australia-India relations apart from make piles and piles of runs in the Gavaskar-Border Trophy?

So, sorry about the cynicism, but this decision smacks of political pragmatism and serves as another poke in the eye for Andrew Symonds and one or two of his former Test teammates.

Australia's improvement has coincided with the emergence of a number of young pacemen to complement the more experienced Peter Siddle, Ryan Harris and Ben Hilfenhaus.

The rise of James Pattinson, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc has led Cricket Australia Centre of Excellence coach Stuart Law to state that the Baggy Green bid to regain the Ashes in 2013 will be built on "pace and aggression".

The walls around his house--and life--are higher than the usual, designed to keep away prying eyes. But on occasion the air of secrecy around Kalanidhi Maran, the billionaire founder of the Sun Group, does drop. In 2006, he was fronting a roadshow in Mumbai for the initial public offering (IPO) of Sun TV. As an analyst who attended remembers, at some point Kalanidhi got so irritated with the barrage of disconcerting questions coming at him that he burst out in Tamil (a polite translation went like this "Get lost, invest if you feel like it, I don't really give a damn.")

All this matters now because his latest acquisition (IPL's Hyderabad franchise) might finally bring Kalanidhi into the public eye. There is no evidence that he is crazy about cricket. Kalanidhi is not the kind to do business deals on the golf course, and probably rarely uses the gym at his bungalow on the tony Boat Club road in Chennai. So it'll be a change for the many observers who view the 48-year-old media mogul via the prism of politics.

What England wanted from him was above all confirmation of what they believed they had bought into, and over the course of four hours he gave it. He was determinedly disciplined with anything off line and played forward when he could as clearly he likes to do. But, with a solid backfoot game that sees the ball played late under his eyes, he looked unflappable and absolutely certain in his mind that what he was doing in his own time, in his own way, was precisely what England wanted to see.