The Surfer

De Villiers really shouldn’t be burdened with batting, keeping and captaining in the five-day format – that would be, even for one as enthusiastic and willing as De Villiers, too much to bear. Immediately there’ll be those who’ll point to Mahendra Singh Dhoni as an example of someone who has done all three, but it must be remembered De Villiers is far more important to South Africa as a batsman than Dhoni is to India in that role.

Whatever your reaction to failure, your ability to still believe in yourself however is tantamount. To strengthen your resolve, sort things out and go again are necessary to survive in any professional sport. Like life, pro sport always has its ups and downs but to possess the belief that whatever happens you will get there in the long run is critical. If you don’t believe in yourself, who will? I hope each individual in the Kiwi team is thinking along those lines. Any improvement between their two Tests versus India, has to start with the mind.

Two years ago, Chinnappa was growing bananas on this land, part of the 30 acres that his family has owned for generations. A long-distance runner and cricket enthusiast in his college days, the Bangalore-based Chinnappa always rued the unavailability of space to play. After years of farming and trying his hand at floriculture, he decided to create a sports village on part of his land.

“The idea was to build a small ground for friends and local youth to play,” says Chinnappa, as he oversees the demarcation of the 15-yard circle before the match. “And so I went online and started reading up about how to make a pitch, create the perfect outfield and turf maintenance.”

‘Challenge’ has always been the key word in Strauss’s vocabulary – he is looking for more of them, not fewer, in future life – so not surprisingly he was at his best against Australia. Not because he lived there for a couple of years in early childhood; not because he played three seasons of grade cricket in Sydney; but because Australia was the benchmark for the whole sport in his formative years.

..his special achievement lay, as if in defiance of his public-school manner and early dressing-room nickname of Lord Brocket, in appealing to the popular imagination. For this he has the Ashes to thank, and it is here that he can lay particular claim to belonging to English cricket’s elite. Like it or not, the casual observer will forgive most things as long as England are beating the Aussies.

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But beyond the field of play, he maintained total control, his relationship with Andy Flower as complete as had been those of Hussain and Vaughan with Flower's predecessor, Duncan Fletcher. He was not just the safe choice to help clean up the mess left by the Kevin Pietersen-Peter Moores fiasco, he was the only choice. Through it, from the watershed clear-the-air team meeting in the immediate Jamaican aftermath of the humiliating 51 all out innings defeat in his first match as official captain in February 2009, he gained the unequivocal respect of all his players, something he was not to lose until, it seems, recently.

Strauss has been one of the best things to happen to English cricket in the Spin's lifetime, a monument of unflinching decency and underestimated talent who has almost imperceptibly enriched our lives. If there is one word that defines Strauss's career, it is probably 'equilibrium'. He rarely dealt in sexy or showy gestures, and had no inclination to distinguish between Kipling's two imposters. He was a reassuring constant and a positive force for English cricket.

Hafeez is the top-ranked bowler in ICC ODI Rankings, and he is no sleeper to this emplacement. He has earned it through his shrewd lines and lengths, variations of pace, and has become a bogeyman to the southpaws. He has the best economy rate (3.57 from 353 overs) since 2011 among bowlers who delivered more than 5o overs. That he is no more a part-time bowler is evident from the fact that only Lasith Malinga, 435, has delivered more overs than his 353 in ODIs since the start of 2011. A hard-nosed critic might have some reservations for ICC’s rankings system, but even he wouldn’t view these stats as those of a mediocre bowler.

The corresponding ranking for his batting is 43, a far cry from his current bowling ranking (1). The highest batting ranking he ever climbed in his nine-year ODI career is 32.

Most of us grew up hearing wonders about South Africa’s massive 1960s cricket team: Peter and Graeme Pollock, Ali Bacher, Trevor Goddard, Lee Irvine, Eddie Barlow, Mike Proctor, Barry Richards, all of whom I have met or played against. That team plowed the way for the new, successful, determined South Africa. That country’s continuing cricket direction, on the field at least, comes from one man now; one man only: Graeme “Biff” Craig Smith.

Aged 31, he has shepherded his country’s players with a strength that probably comes from his own inspirations by “Madiba” ... Smith was just 11 when South Africa returned to real international cricketing involvement, so his memories would be very fresh and poignant.

Pietersen and Collingwood are of course very different – coal and gold, fuel and riches – but could Pietersen too find fulfilment back in county cricket, in conjunction, you assume, with a bit of IPL? He would have to eat some words, have to deal with what he perceives as lesser talents in a way that they don’t find morally offensive. Grow up a bit. [But] on the evidence of that great smile on reaching a century at Taunton, he has a soft spot for county cricket. Perhaps he even needs Surrey.