The Surfer

Together, you've graced all the grounds and ennobled all the occasions. Once, in a Test against South Africa in Colombo, you came together at 2/14 and put on 624, the biggest partnership for any wicket, anywhere, in first-class history. As the record neared, you both grew nervous as schoolboys; this was not the time to let down a mate. You didn't. They lit fireworks for you then, and they are lighting them still.

You were still at school when you first met, and were rivals then. Eventually you came together in the national team, alone in your age group in that team. Soon, you would prove a class apart. Fortunately, you enjoyed each other's company, off the ground as well as on. In aggregate, you've made around 53,000 international runs, Test, one-day and T20, when it came along. You've both captained your country, to a World Cup final each, losing both, and the bitter memory drives you on still.

There is talk, and it is not idle, that New Zealand could even win the World Cup with McCullum at the helm. While McCullum's star keeps rising, so Carter's seems to be fading. Why the comparison? It is not about the opinion I expressed recently in this column about the relative merits of the CWC and the Rugby World Cup (the latter is much more important), but rather it is about the manner in which the careers of Carter and McCullum have enfolded, and, more importantly, how they began.

Five years ago, when Harris's daughter Phoebe was born, she wasn't breathing. Her twin brother Louie, who was pushed out second, breathed first. As the doctors tried to resuscitate her, Harris was in great anguish for three to four minutes before he heard her scream. In a few weeks, though, the doctors discovered that there was a slight discrepancy in Phoebe's left side and right side -- she had hemiplegia which causes problems in movement and coordination. Although the muscles are fully formed, messages from the brain have trouble getting through -- her right side would move but her left wouldn't, and it has led to some trouble. Like a black eye on her second birthday when she fell down and hit a table. He and his wife Linda, who had to spend 7 weeks on the hospital bed after Phoebe's birth, are still learning to deal with it.

We do not know whether Shikhar Dhawan possesses a Moleskine notebook or not but if he was ever to jot down his story, it should surprise no one if it was titled: How Facebook Changed My Life. Back in 2004 he had been the leading run-scorer at an Under-19 World Cup. After that, he spent more than half a decade treading water. There would be the odd sparkling innings for Delhi but as the years passed, those that watched him wondered how badly he wanted to make the step up. Those younger than him - Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma being the most prominent names - established themselves in the Indian side even as he remained on the fringes.

A surprising number of the old maxims hold true. Doubling a team's score after 30 overs still just about works (it's actually nearer 31 overs, but same difference). Seeing off the new ball(s) is as important in 2015 as it was in 1975.

After the New Zealand hammering they have to make some changes to the team to freshen it up. We need some purpose and energy with bat, ball and in the field. Surely they can't stick their heads in the sand and pick the same team. Steven Finn has to go along with Gary Ballance, and England hope that does the trick.

Though it would be entirely understandable if the incident had provided added motivation for his appearance against England in the Black Caps' third World Cup outing, in Wellington on Friday, Elliott remains gracious. "Oh, heat of the battle," he says. "It was a tough situation for [Paul] Collingwood." He gives the then-England captain the benefit of the doubt, even though Collingwood later apologised for the incident. "Collingwood didn't see what was going on, so I guess he was going on the words of all his senior players."

The question on my mind has always been this: How does one square the near-virulent antipathy towards the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) with support--even adulation or idolatry--for the team that wears its logo? This is not India, this is the BCCI's team. The BCCI today, in India and in the eyes of the cricketing world, is a discredited organization, whose various administrative decisions over the past five-odd years are the subject of judicial and governmental scrutiny. It is rotten at the top; so rotten in fact that the top exists at the mercy of the Supreme Court. Am I am supposed to place my unflinching, unquestioning loyalty in the team and system it controls so tightly?

But because the number of available deliveries is rationed, even a dot ball implies runs that can never be recovered. Six dot balls is a maiden over's worth of them, not a wicket as such, but having the effect of one. In Test cricket, crafty bowlers build dots into maidens, maidens into miserly spells, and are admired for their skill. In contracted forms of the game, a maiden at the right time can be as good as a spell, a dot as good as a maiden. It is skill in itself, not of attrition as in Test cricket, but of nerve and knowing.

This did not feel like the classic underdog result characterised by a dodgy pitch, as was the case when Ireland toppled Pakistan in Jamaica in the 2007 World Cup, or a player enjoying the game of his life, as in Kevin O'Brien's evisceration of England at Bengaluru in 2011. Rather it was a victory for a side who appeared better drilled, more confident and better versed in the cricketing fundamentals.