The Surfer

But there have been a few more recent precursors. In a John Player League game at Lord's in 1972 Warwickshire captain MJK Smith posted his wicketkeeper to the boundary for the final ball of a limited-overs game against Middlesex, who needed three runs to win. In 1979 England played a day-night game in Sydney against the West Indies, who ended up, like Middlesex, needing three to win off the final ball. So Mike Brearley, who had been in the Middlesex side denied by Smith's ingenuity seven years earlier, sent wicketkeeper David Bairstow to field as longstop.

Placing enjoyment at the heart of what they do has helped to filter out the important stuff from the background noise. It explains why New Zealand generally do not sledge the opposition ("There's less frustration, less animosity, and we've played our best cricket, so it's hard to argue that sledging works for us," McCullum says) and while the current side still cop their share of negative press, they deal with it a lot better than they used to. "You're always going to be criticised to a degree," McCullum says, before adding with a smirk: "Some people didn't like Mother Teresa as well."

St Peter's CC was set up in the belief that sport can unite communities. In our Mass, Father Eamonn O'Higgins, the Vatican's team manager, spoke to us about how we could all gain something from this experience in Rome. That we certainly did. We may not have won, but cricket like this is not about victory. Sometimes a defeat can be strangely enjoyable. After all, there's no shame in losing to the future of the Catholic Church. And judging from a few days with these Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan seminarians, that future is bright.

Indian cricket will have to find a balance between Dhoni's tendency to let things drift and Kohli's impatience with uneventful overs and sessions.There is an element of fishing in the longer format. You put out your bait and wait. Kohli will have to learn the waiting game.
Whether it is a reflection of the times, a consequence of playing too many matches in the shorter formats of the game or a question of temperament, India's cricket is currently characterised by an impatience that makes them perform well below potential.
Bowlers are in a hurry to take wickets or simply run through their overs, batsmen seem to have forgotten how to play session-to-session. Kohli will have to rid the team of bad habits.

The 30-year-old Saha now has a flat in South City Mall, drives swanky cars, but he has barely changed, attitude-wise. He is an intensely private person and doesn't really socialise much. His elder brother Anirban, an engineer, is still his best friend. He met his wife Debarati on the social networking site Orkut and married in 2011 after a four-year courtship. Saha kept the marriage pretty low key. Less than 200 people were invited. Just family members and few close friends. "I am like that, I like to keep things private. I don't express myself. If you want to know me, you have to make an approach."

At the age of 19 Fazal was selected to play for India on its maiden tour to Australia in 1947-48, which was going to be his only chance to play against Sir Don Bradman who was to retire that year. He even attended the conditioning camp for the tour, but amidst mass murder and bloodbath in the region, Fazal had to flee the country in haste.

I get the impression that the two senior bowlers, Broad and James Anderson, can do whatever they want. That cannot be right. The captain has to dictate tactics. For example, as soon as Broad gets hit for a boundary he signals he wants a slip taken out and moved to where the ball went. Our captain lets him do it even when he has bowled a bad ball and every cricketer knows you should never set fields for bad bowling.

Ian Bell's confidence and form is at a low ebb after 55 in eight innings. If he had been dismissed every time by a great ball then there would be no problem but that is not the case.

Mentally he is not thinking straight. In the first innings at Headingley Tim Southee bowled him some big outswingers around off stump, teasing him to drive. He let a couple go but then could not resist a push drive and was caught at slip. It was naive and a sucker's dismissal. It was not smart because he had done the same thing at Lord's to the same bowler in the second innings.

"I ended up out the back in the warehouse," Mark once told cricket writer Mark Gately. "I used to go to sleep in this huge, big box. I used to curl up and have a nap in there." Steve would term his work-day approach as "looking busy, doing little," but more importantly working at Kingsgrove gave the young prospects plenty of time to hone their skills.

James Anderson set out on the path to bowling greatness in his home town of Burnley as he worked his way up to the cricket club's first team. But it was a shrewd piece of scouting by the mother of one of his team-mates that alerted Lancashire to his potential. John Stanworth was the Lancashire academy coach who remembers Anderson as a bright young talent who was painfully shy.