The Surfer

When it was one to win off four, Fleming says an interesting incident occurred on the field. “I told Tugga that I wanted to come over the wicket to change the line and bowl a yorker. But Steve didn’t even look at me. He said ‘Yeah, whatever.’ The captain knew that the ship had already sunk,” reckons Fleming. The pacer did so eventually, and the rest as he says is ‘bizarre history’.

For the next eight months before India, Flower will be working on improving how the players pick off ones and twos. A lot of net sessions will be geared so the lads can play in the subcontinent. They have boundary options, but you have to be able to go down the wicket on these slow low wickets. You cannot punch the ball off the back foot as the old way of working the ball off a length for ones and twos is dangerous because of the pace modern spinners bowl at – Abdur Rehman was bowling at 56mph.

Physically, I don't feel as though I need a break. Some of the younger English players have been playing domestic cricket there and, if it's possible, I'd jump at the chance to do something similar. When you play on the subcontinent, it's vital to get used to the climate and the conditions. In Sri Lanka, I expect it to be hot and humid, so practising there would be far more useful than doing batting sessions in an indoor school.

I simply don't think its right that players can be picked match after match if they are not performing, and it would not be remotely right if the same top six rock up and play in the first Test in Galle because they have failed here. They need to give someone else an opportunity, because Sri Lanka would be a good chance to blood a young player.

Batsmen, even the best ones, may be afraid of the odd unplayable delivery, but they fear even more not being able to work out how they are going to get their runs. Especially in an age when runs frequently gush at four per over they cannot bear the prospect of suffocation at the crease. On these surfaces – against highly skilled practitioners – the England batsmen could not fathom where they could score. That breeds a certain panic

As it often happens with longrunning soaps on TV, the mistake many viewers make is they try and judge this IPL family by the standards that apply to real life. They get angry when one of them gets out-ofturn favours, they are appalled by the high-handedness of some of the elders, they are stunned by the spineless acceptance of arbitrary decisions. In the real world, this would be unacceptable behaviour, the experts fume, forgetting that this isn’t the real world.

On a number of occasions in the past, many of the IPL franchises have openly questioned whether the board respects the rights of all the league's stakeholders. At one stage, Royal Challengers Bangalore owner Vijay Mallya, who has served on various committees in the board, had gone to the extent of asking if the franchisees were merely slaves of the BCCI.

It was quite disappointing to see Ashwin continue to operate in the same way as he did in Tests. Strangely, Ashwin seemed incapable of doing anything different to keep the batsmen under check, as there simply was no urge to fight back – a trait he often showed in the past when batsmen took him on.

Is someone sat on the fast-forward button? This Test series was always supposed to be brief, with three matches to be played back to back, and at venues barely 80 miles apart. But this is getting ridiculous now. If this morning brings the same havoc as yesterday’s first session did, this could become the first Test match for the Twitter generation: all over in 140 overs. Hash tag: shockingbatting.