The Surfer

The concrete pitch has been constructed at the far end of Faqrullah's schoolyard. It isn't big enough to contain an entire cricket ground, so all the overs have to be delivered from one end during matches. Faqrullah's PE teacher also serves as the team's coach. However, that title is mainly ceremonial, one of his colleagues explains in confidence. Cricket is, to a large extent, the sport of the young generation of Afghans, and as far as tactics and techniques go, the students often know more than their teachers. Over time that will change.

When Lloyd's international team-mate, fast bowler Andy Roberts arrived to play for Haslingden in the spring of 1981 snowflakes as big and fluffy as poodle pups were swirling around Bentgate. The air was so thick with them you couldn't see the sightscreens from the clubhouse window. A field that had once echoed with wild applause for the strokeplay of George Headley, the strangulated appeals of DK Lillee and the merry strains of Burnley's legendary Australian all-rounder Cec Pepper clonking a callow local medium-pacer for six and then yelling to the home side's captain: "Oi, skipper. Keep this twat on, will you? I like him," were cloaked in slumberous silence.

"After we were bowled out for 74, we packed our bags [because we thought we were finished]. But Imran insisted we would still win the World Cup." Laughing, Fazal said his teammate Wasim Akram had joked that Khan, who would turn 40 later that same year, had "gone senile". What they hadn't appreciated was that their captain was motivated by a simmering anger that first surfaced when the Pakistan Cricket Board unveiled the team's uniform for the tournament's opening ceremony.

It's equivocal and bittersweet, and for the time, brilliantly done. The cricket match is equally well observed: it rings with scenes and characters familiar to any club player – bored wives on the boundary, no spikes in the pavilion, the crooked, unchallengeable away umpire; even those distant and long-gone tropes the home-knitted jumper and the club kit bag. I'd say John Esmonde [the writer] was a fan: alongside the Compton/Mann scene, Paul walks into bat with a Jumbo, which in the 1980s was the bat du jour. Martin makes do with a Fearnley.

The history of contact between the two sides has the feel of an eating disorder; stuff yourselves for a while before forcing it all out and then starting all over again. Extended periods of stark drought have been followed by a few years of heady, greedy pillage. Much more sensible to keep it special, so that it is treasured and not causing the kind of ennui and overfill as happened between 2003/04 and 2007/08 (and a few times before).

Contractor’s injury is a perfect example of destiny playing a cruel hand. Firstly, he was not supposed to play this game against Barbados, but had to take the field because the others were ostensibly not fit to play. Secondly, one delivery before the fatal one bowled by Griffith, Contractor was dropped by Conrad Hunte at forward short leg. Had he been caught, he would never have got injured. And finally, while Griffith ran in to bowl, Contractor was disturbed by some movement in the dressing room. He decided to sort out the problem after that delivery, but it was too late. He had already played his last delivery as an India player. No grudges.

“After the operation, he [the doctor] asked me when am I going to start playing cricket again. I was shocked because I could barely walk then. But he insisted that I get back to playing else I would be a vegetable,” says Contractor. Less than a year later, he walked in to bat at No 5 in his first first-class match after injury for Maharashtra Chief Minister’s XI against Maharashtra Governor’s XI ...

As a former Mumbai captain I dare say the relevance of a hundred over the years has been best understood by a Mumbai batsman ... In an age where coaching was uncomplicated in Mumbai, batsmanship was measured by one's ability to score a hundred. Coaches, more often than not, kept the script very simple: If you were to attract eyeballs, a hundred was your most productive route. One heard of revered coaches in the Gavaskar era and later, hammer the importance of a hundred.

Cricket is a potent idiom of Indian life and cricketers have traditionally been heroes. But nobody has inspired so much sentiment. Tendulkar has been gladiator, saviour and loveable boy next door making him a mythical character, which is obviously flawed. As his travails of the past year have shown, he is all too human in his desires, self-doubts and in coping with an ageing body.

His patience was clearly obvious to the onlookers: he waited almost an hour for his first run of that first Test century. And afterwards he came into the press room to receive the Man of the Match award and a huge bottle of champagne. I can still recall his high-pitched response: “But I do not drink!”

Through the course of the last few years, Sachin has become a site of manufactured expectations, a storehouse where we stockpile a nameless unexpressed rage. Even his 100th century has been a milestone we have imposed on him. Every game India has played since March 2011 has been consumed in reverse, from Sachin’s hundred downwards. We have put him before the game and then accused him of doing the same.

As for the second reason why I've demoted Sachin from God to god -he's reached the landmark against... er, Bangladesh. Taking a single off Shakib Al Hasan on the 138th delivery he faced in an innings with 10 boundaries and one over-boundary leaves me -now what's the word? -underwhelmed.

Some have pointed out that Sachin has not made as many big scores as some of his contemporaries such as Brian Lara and that India won less than 40 per cent of games in which he made centuries. The same can be said of Lara but he was often the lone member of the band. Sachin had a whole orchestra at his disposal for much of his career.