The Surfer

Timeri’s tale has all the ingredients to make it a masala read — courage, cunning, conspiracy and cupid. And his characters are mostly well etched out. Rukhsana, as the embodiment of enterprise and the engineer of the team’s escape, is portrayed as a woman of sense and substance. She presents the personification of two parallel lives, the character in which two contrary worlds — her freedom-filled life in India and the burkha-imprisoned existence of Afghanistan — converge.

But as all the main characters race towards a climax on the cricket ground, this tale of political guile and gimmickry in the garb of cricket diplomacy proves that even as far as penning prose goes, it’s all in the game.

When he was first selected for the Proteas in his first three Tests, against India and then England in 2004, Amla struggled. His technique was hopeless, some of the commentators said. Though he offered a mealy-mouthed voice of contrition this week, the legendary Barry Richards was one of the loudest critics at the time.

Now, six years and 50 or so Tests down the line, Amla is headed towards the pantheon of the game's greatest players. Wearing his statistical anorak this week, Naidoo celebrated Amla's success by revealing that, after 60 Tests, Amla's batting record was better than all his compatriots in the highly esteemed South African batting line-up, including the darling of the cricketing media, Jacques Kallis. Given his temperament and fitness, there is every reason to think Amla will play another 60 Tests in the next six to seven years and score a great many more runs, which raises a new question: Is there any good reason he should not be the next captain?

During one of this year’s many rain breaks the other week, Sky showed a re-run of the 2008 Twenty20 final at the Rose Bowl when I reckon the ‘new’ format was very much at its peak. There was a cracking final between Kent and Middlesex. Bumble at his absolute best on the mic, Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame sitting with the players in the dug-out and a young lad dancing in the stands who was to become something of a symbol of all that was good about Twenty20.

It has been downhill since then. There are many reasons for that. Too many games, of course. Counties playing their matches too closely together — this year Surrey, for example, played four games in a week and then had a week off — and a bonkers schedule and start times.

With his gifted sense of inflection at appropriate moments, expressions sprinkled with wit and wisdom selected to perfection, and the keenness of eye to capture the minutest detail, Gibson was a natural genius when it came to commentary. Even with John Arlott in the box, he was easily the most erudite soul to ever grace the box of Test Match Special. When he teamed up with Arlott, as they often did during Gibson’s brief but brilliant stint, the broadcasts were graced with a double barrel of poetry, lyrical description and razor sharp humour, elevating the commentary to the level of sublime art.

There was one glorious back-foot drive off Jimmy Anderson that raced to the fence and a host of more orthodox, graceful cover drives. It was those shots especially that reminded The Spin of Yousuf but the little flourish at the top of his backlift also brought back older memories of arguably the most aesthetically pleasing and textbook-purest right-handed cover-driver this writer has seen. By coincidence that batsman, Zaheer Abbas, who turned 65 on Tuesday, made the previous best Test score in England by a man of Asian heritage, whose 274 Amla overtook on his way to establishing the fourth-highest innings in the 476 Test matches played in this country since 1880.

The half an hour spent with him was also more than enough to convince one that despite the special treatment - the Castle Lager logo had been removed from his shirt out of respect for his religious beliefs - he was still one of the boys. The room was as messy as any other, with clothes and kit strewn everywhere, save for the prayer mat, carefully folded away in a corner.

But there are complications. Not all of them, however, are cricket-related. Indeed, the cricket-related ones are the easiest to handle. For instance, the visiting Pakistani cricket team may well be given the rights to adjust the ground conditions to suit its team strength. So technically then, the pitch and the surrounding area of the ground are given out on a temporary lease to the Pakistan Cricket Board.

Does the Indian law allow it? My guess is, even if it does not explicitly prohibit it, it isn’t actually contemplated under it either.

The score was 251 for two, Kevin Pietersen and Alastair Cook were looking secure, there was one over to go to the second new ball being available, and 11 overs left in the day. Jacques Kallis tried three of his awkward bouncers in a row to Pietersen. The first was paddled for two, the second missed as KP attempted a rather wild swish at the ball, the third was too tight for the uncontrolled shot and was gloved down the leg side.

"Obviously, I've got to meet the selection manager [this] week and throw about a few ideas. But I'm my own man and I've always got my own thoughts while still valuing people's contributions. So I'll be bringing that to the table and having a damned good discussion."

Most importantly, he wants the job. Whereas Wright had been there and done that in the world of coaching, and seemed world weary towards the end of his tenure, Hesson's professional career has been building up to this job for more than two decades.

Dhoni & Company haven’t learnt from the past experiences. Considering the number of times he has been cautioned and banned, they should have taken note of their short-comings and shown more urgency on the field. There have been many occasions where the Indians have shown a casual attitude while changing ends after overs. The lethargic attitude is a major contributing factor to the slow over-rate.

During close finishes – one that demand a number of changes in the field and discussions with other team-mates – a team may breach the time limit. This may have been the reason for India’s breach at Hambantota as Sri Lanka looked good to get close to the Indian target in the final overs.

Bats are broader and heavier than ever today, with bigger edges but Amla's looks like something from the past, narrower somehow, less edged (it is probably neither). That imagined visual is key to enjoying Amla for it sustains the implication of equality in the fight between bat and ball. It makes his game appear riskier and more fallible than it probably is, as if any ball just now might catch an edge or sneak past the bat because it is so thin.

When others such as Jacques Kallis or Kumar Sangakkara or Sachin Tendulkar make double hundreds for example, their mastery can induce a numbness of experience after a while, where there is no hope ever that they will get out and that the balance that is cricket's eternal striving, between bat and ball, can never be restored. With Amla on the other hand the sense of domination never presents itself.