The Surfer

Bafflement has become this series' factory setting. So many presumptions have been confounded. Australia would be too strong all round? Not so. Momentum matters? Patently not. Winning the toss guarantees victory? At Edgbaston, it didn't. It was not as if Michael Clarke made a maverick decision in batting first; Alastair Cook would have, too. Batting first guarantees victory? Again, Edgbaston explodes that theory.

All is not lost. There is frailty in both teams, which means that history might be defied yet. The loss of Jimmy Anderson, the best bowler on either side in these conditions, is a grievous blow for England. And unaccountably, England continue to offer Adam Lyth as a kind of parliamentary pair for Clarke. On such happenstance do series sometimes turn.

My aim is to play for Bangladesh for a very long time, at least 10-12 years. I know I will have to work very hard for that. I was getting a lot of starts since the World Cup, but I couldn't convert them into big knocks. Finally, I managed to break that pattern and make some big scores. That was due to two major reasons. After reaching twenty runs, I put more value on my wicket and became more selective with my shots.

Anticipating Trent Bridge, we can be certain that the result will be counter-intuitive. It has been that sort of series. But what should we intuit? That it is Australia's turn? England's pattern this summer has been win-loss-win-loss-win-loss, and now win. Oddness prevails even in this detail. Australia scarcely has been a model of consistency, winning five of 11 Tests in the last 12 months. So another reversal stands to reason. Or should we think that England now has not just the lead, but a road map and Australia's measure?

We can presume that the result will be known early. It has in all three Tests so far; the team that has taken the initiative on day one has dominated. Cricket teams in this era find it harder than ever to play from behind. They do not know how to pause and neutralise a match. They are trained and tuned to press on, even to their own certain ruin. The arrival of Ian Bell at the crease on Friday heralded an instance of this syndrome writ small. Bell drove five fours from the first nine balls he faced from Mitchell Starc, who kept bowling him balls to drive. From the 11th, he was dropped.

His career fell exactly into the period when apartheid South Africa was banned from the international scene. It is no exaggeration to say that Rice could have been bracketed with the four great all-rounders of the 1980s - Ian Botham, Richard Hadlee, Imran Khan and Kapil Dev - if politics had allowed.

If Bradman had been born in the current era, he would have been stronger and fitter as a full time player, and would have had the same opportunity of playing on smaller grounds with more powerful and forgiving bats. Against that, he may not have had the variety of stimuli that kept his mind sharp. Let there be no doubt: it was his mind more than his talent that put him in a class of his own.

"Yep, there was plenty [of bowling]," Wheeler said as he departed for Africa with the Black Caps. "Being the younger brother, there were always rules made up. I had to bowl this, or had to field there for a certain amount of time. If they couldn't get me out, there was always a restriction on how many balls you were allowed to face. It was always good fun."

"My job is to help those lads achieve their dream. I don't want to see them play for England and fail." As we talk, involuntary exclamations escape his lips as a wicket falls or a catch goes down; his heart and soul is in this job.

By basing the quantum of punishment solely on the codes and rules of the BCCI, the Lodha panel has held up a mirror to cricket. The tight group that has historically rallied around its own has been told that rules shouldn't just be followed in letter, but in spirit, too. This is a reminder that checks and balances do exist, but motivated overwriting or selective punishment can defeat the most complete constitution. The BCCI has got a public shouting for ignoring cricket's inner voice.

Punishing teams for misconduct is nothing new in international sport. The scandal that rocked Italian football in 2006 led to even a top team, Juventus, being relegated and stripped of two titles. Mr. Lodha has made it clear that the spirit of cricket is larger than any individuals or franchises, or financial losses. In any case, the BCCI has the option to hold a fresh auction for the Chennai and Jaipur franchises, or let the affected players be bought by other teams.

Even if he did not excel with the bat here, this victory was a personal triumph for Cook as well. He has become the face of England's fall from grace in the last two years, widely pilloried for his caution as skipper and blamed for England's decline.

He has been an England player for almost nine years now, and in that time he has been pounded, pilloried and parodied. He has been barracked by an entire nation and bashed in the face, and along the way has bowled more balls in international cricket than anyone apart from James Anderson. And yet he has emerged from it all - not stronger exactly, but still standing, still undeterred. Which would be commendable enough in itself. The thing is, Broad also wins cricket matches. It was easy to overlook amid the surgical genius of Joe Root, and the warm tummy-rubbing glow of England's win yesterday evening, but Broad had another outstanding Ashes Test.

Most compelling of all was Broad's duel with David Warner, a pedigree attacking opener but a man in need not just of a way into this series, but of a start in England, a method of playing in a country where he averages 22 after six Tests, against 46 elsewhere. England won here in part because they batted with new-found brio and aggression. But also because of the same-old same-old, England's most prolific fast-bowling pair performing as required in occasionally helpful conditions. That it was Broad rather than Jimmy Anderson who produced the decisive spell on day four might have come as a surprise to some. On a day of passing cloud and tepid high summer heat, Broad bowled with wonderful urgency and precision, in the process turning this first Test decisively England's way. There is an ease to his approach at his best, this great slender conifer of a man leaning forward at first, ears pinned back, then gradually, almost bashfully unfurling himself to his full height at the point of delivery. Not so much a wrecking ball, he was instead a relentless, suffocating presence running in from the Cathedral Road end.