The Surfer

Only twice have spinners bowled more balls in a year than the last, once in 2000 and once in 1987, a year that belonged to the modest duo of Iqbal Qasim, Tauseef Ahmed and the gloriously immodest Abdul Qadir. Partly circumstances have necessitated this, the loss of two opening bowlers and matches on surfaces where spin is more durable. But it is not as if there is a dearth of pace men suddenly; with Umar Gul, Junaid Khan, Wahab Riaz, Aizaz Cheema, and others at the door, there can't be. Yet that they have felt secondary to proceedings is mostly because the trio of Mohammad Hafeez, Abdur Rehman and Saeed Ajmal has been so outstanding.

No, England were undermined, not by the teesra, but by themselves and it was not so much a failure of technique, but of the mind. One of the problems when facing slow bowling is that there is time to think. So the brain comes into play as much as any instinctive hand/eye co-ordination. And England batted brainlessly, making poor choices all along the way. Ajmal, bowling no rubbish, just sat back and waited for another batsman's error. In Test cricket on a true surface it is usually necessary to wait a bit longer.

He [Dhoni] has failed dismally to rally the troops in two disastrous overseas campaigns and his suspension from the Adelaide Test is almost a blessing in disguise. His own form, not just with the gloves but also with the bat no longer warrants a guaranteed place in the Test side and Wriddhiman Saha has a glorious opportunity to make a big impression in the fourth Test. As for finding a new Test captain, there are no obvious choices from those players who are likely to remain.

The first delivery arrives in a handsome hessian box. Soulmate give you three meals and two snacks per day, to be eaten roughly three hours apart. In total, this provides about 2,000 calories, although this can vary from diner to diner. Cyclist Ed Clancy, for example, will receive about twice as much. Eagerly, I dig in. The mango and blueberry yoatie – oats smothered in yogurt – is fine; the chicken and peanut salad is particularly impressive, the meat fresh, tender and utterly lean. A pot of nuts, seeds and raisins is less enjoyable – generally, I try not to eat anything you could buy in a pet shop ...

The logic part is simple - of the two South African-born players, only van Wyk can claim to be a specialist gloveman. The 31-year-old has been doing the job for more than a decade at first-class level both in South Africa and New Zealand, while Watling, six years his junior, is a part-time keeper who is rated behind Peter McGlashan for his first-class team, Northern Districts, and only been mooted as a keeping option at international level during the past few weeks. You can get away with non-specialists at Twenty20, and possibly even one-day, level, but surely test cricket is the domain of specialists.

Whoever has to be left out, whether they be young or old, equality has to be there and a proper message sent that puts a priority on performance. There will always be instances in cricket when one player selectors are more patient with than another. But it may not be the case this time.

Pakistan seem, in short, to have got their act together. But that will not prevent an air of suspicion and intrigue around the Dubai International Cricket Stadium tomorrow. Misbah and Mohsin are trying desperately to move on. They have convinced their colleagues to forget the past and England too seem anxious to stress that what's gone is gone.

It may just be that Pakistan have pulled back from the brink of eternal disarray. Truly, it seems that being the pariahs of world cricket, the one activity above all that makes their nation special, was no fun any longer.

Aggression is not all about being lippy. England are aggressive in other ways. In the field it is with their body language and the way they hunt in packs. They crowd the batsman and constantly throw the ball in to the keeper which annoys the opposition and keeps them on the back foot. Matt Prior is at the heart of it all with the tempo he brings to the fielding unit. England have a body language that says “we want to be out here”.

The effect of too much cricket, without context, is to induce a sleepiness in the same way a heavy turkey dinner releases tryptophan. It leads to an inability to recall details, to distinguish one innings or one game from the next.

Far from being the new-era Indian from a town once famous for its British-era mental home, Dhoni has been shown up to be the clerk he is. I was struck by this thought when, just before the England series, he chose to launch his charitable foundation, Winning Ways—Today for Tomorrow, at a Park Lane London hotel. Why had he not launched it in Ranchi or Mumbai? It showed he was that old Indian type who’s in awe of the capital of the country that once ruled India.

From his vantage position beyond mid-on, outside the boundary rope, former Indian batsman and coach Anshuman Gaekwad heard some words that caused some dismay. It was a Deodhar Trophy match, a ball was hit towards him, and the man at midwicket chased it and finally dived. His captain at mid-on could have done this too, but he didn’t. The reason became clear when he admonished his teammate thus: “Are you mad, why are you diving? The IPL is coming, do you want to hurt yourself and miss it?” Gaekwad says, “I said, what the hell man, is this what cricket has come to? I was shocked, all the more so because the two players are in the Indian team now.”

Warner showed he can keep all his short-form habits and still prosper in five-day cricket. His century, off 69 balls, was pure entertainment in its own right. But everyone has seen him put bowlers in the blast furnace with those blacksmith forearms. What made this innings unforgettable was its strategic impact. In less than a session he made the bowlers's earlier work really count, and put the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, barring a miracle, beyond India's reach. And he did it not in lime but myrtle green.