The Surfer

The 20 over game, with its quota of 4 overs per bowler, permits no bowler to deliver a spell. While the 50 over game allowed bowlers windows in which batsmen might care about their wickets enough to not take risks, the 20 over game offers no such luxury. Courtney Walsh, arguably the worst batsman of his generation, was dismissed once every 17 balls in Test Cricket (the comparable figure for Tendulkar is 103, for Dravid 123). In a T20 game, the batting side has 10 wickets to play with over 120 deliveries. Even a hat-trick off the first three balls of the match would leave the batting side with 7 wickets over the remaining 117 deliveries – or just under 17 balls per dismissal. Even Walsh survived that!

“One of the things I was most uncomfortable about with my decision was that I was retiring without having this situation resolved fully. I didn’t want to leave it on Andy Flower’s plate or put it in Alastair Cook’s hands, but in the end it would have been the wrong reason for me to stay on. That week before the last Test was a difficult week – the run-in to selecting the side, my 100th Test, and a Test we desperately needed to win. My second innings against South Africa was the only time in my career where I’ve walked out to the middle and my mind was completely fuzzy. It was at the end of a long day, and it had been a long week, and I just couldn’t concentrate, and that was a shame. At the back of my mind I was reasonably clear that it was going to be my last innings for England and I wasn’t in a position to play as well as I would have liked to.”

Another bitter separation! By letting the situation get out of hand, the BCCI/IPL exposed a woeful lack of imagination and dexterity in handling the crisis. One way perhaps would have been to outsource the management of the team — like the way the Satyam crisis was handled. The board, anyway, has held back the Chargers’ share from the central revenue and that could have taken care of the expenses.

Ray Illingworth: It looks to me that Andy Flower is against his return from a team spirit point of view. If that is the way Andy is thinking, I would support him. He has been closer to this problem than anyone. The whole thing has gone on far too long. I would have made Pietersen apologise publicly. He would have had to eat some humble pie. If he had done that, we would have got on with the cricket. KP thinks he is bigger than the game. He forgets that cricket is a team game. Men with egos like that would have been slapped down long before this in my day.

Darren Gough: There are issues with the parody Twitter account and there are issues with things that were written in players’ books about Kevin that were just not right. But at the same time, some of Kevin’s words have not been acceptable. Nasser Hussain and I used to argue like cat and dog. He got the best out of me. Alastair Cook is determined to take the best side he can to India. We all know that Kevin is in the best team. I’m hopeful he’ll be in the team.

If you are a bit blase about another Twenty20 tournament, that is understandable. Maybe this is what is called being old-fashioned, but there is still something about the best players in the world (except, of course, you know, Kevin Pietersen) assembling at one place to represent their countries in one tournament that rouses the mind. One of the best things about it is that the format has still not found shape. The evolution is in progress. Trends and fashions, successful strategies are not easily identified, and neither does a particular style of play associate itself with a specific nation.

T20 is a baptism of fire for a young cricketer and because of its importance to the modern cricketer, it is certainly not "a bit of fun" any longer. If the Black Caps decide to persevere with Milne in this form and the lad comes through, I will be thrilled. But unless the kid can find the confidence and pace to blast players out with yorkers and bouncers, this experiment could ruin him. At the very least, it could make him defensive-minded.

The New Zealand team could benefit from having a regular - if not permanent - spin bowling coach. It can be argued this might further clutter the support staff, adding another voice to a cacophony when money could be better invested. However, New Zealand are vulnerable when facing most opposition when they rip their fingers or wrists over the ball. And they must also developing a spinning successor to Daniel Vettori. A specific spin coach might help Vettori extend his test career by finding more turn, particularly in the second innings.

Cheeka will struggle to tell us if he even knows what a performance appraisal system means. This system, if at all it existed, must have existed in Srikkanth’s mind. He pretty much conducted the meetings of selection committee in the manner he batted in his prime — without a plan and without a care in the world. It helped, of course, that the BCCI system was favourable, or he would have been shown the exit door much earlier.

Furthermore, in the two abbreviated games there was a higher percentage of aerial shots than in the first, complete, T20. Aerial shots are instant excitement; they can bring out the best in the fielders as well as the batsman. Will the ball go for six? Will it be caught? Oh no, he has dropped it! And now there is almost a run-out as the batsmen race for a third!

“I was wasting my time and everyone else’s,” he says, “I was at rock bottom. I didn’t have a great network – I’d moved across the world from my family and dedicated everything to cricket. There were things that were making life very difficult for me on a daily basis. The idea of playing cricket just seemed absurd.”

Ambrose needed help. He rang a sports psychologist who had done some work with Warwickshire. They met at a motorway service station. She asked some questions. Four hours later Ambrose was still talking. He even received a parking ticket. But it was worth it. He had begun his path back, however rocky it has been.

Our cheering is also a resounding encouragement to Yuvraj to recover his old, earlier self. We know in our hearts that only then can the absurdities of existence be said to have been truly overcome and the randomness of life rendered irrelevant. A less-than-average comeback would imply that the irrational had extracted an exorbitant price even though it spared his life.