The Surfer

The difficulty for the likes of Jacques Rudolph, Ashwell Prince and Mark Boucher is that a white-knuckled, intense determination is unlikely to help them as they contemplate the dreadful, personal consequences of failure in the second innings. Instead, like Kirsten did at the end of 1999, they will be better served by coming to terms with the reality that all good things come to an end. Their best chance of ensuring that it doesn’t happen will be to be at peace with their fate when they walk out to bat sometime in the next two days.

We shall never see Dravid bat again in a Test match in England, but what a legacy he left. None of India's travails last summer could be laid at his door, and to score at Lord's, Trent Bridge and the Oval, three centuries in four Tests, mostly in adversity, was remarkable. Calling him the Wall does not do him justice. This is the Great Wall.

In the first week of this year, Australian cricket was a humiliated entity. Since then, it has submitted to three reviews and spilled every position and structure. It has played nine Tests in three countries, beaten Sri Lanka, South Africa and now India, but also lost to New Zealand. It has made as few as 47 and as many as 488 in an innings. It mounted a record run chase against South Africa, but failed in a modest one against the Kiwis. It has tried 18 players, some of whom were uncertain that the cap fitted, others unsure that it still did. But, oddly enough, the spinner was a constant. Yesterday, it finished this most tumultuous of calendar years with a thumping victory over cricket's powerhouse, witnessed over four days by the biggest crowd for an India Test in this country. Teams being rebuilt are mercurial, but this one at least can believe that its best is good enough.

One can see a good camaraderie between Ponting and Clarke, and that's a big thumbs-up to the skipper. A lot of teams have leaders who look to keep the past captain away as they want their own boys and own group, but Clarke has showed enormous maturity in that department. That will really stand him in good stead with his tenure as captain. You can see that in the way Ponting and Hussey bailed him out of trouble at the crucial juncture.

Three years ago, the India selectors pushed the first of the Fab Four, Sourav Ganguly, into retirement. Perhaps, it was a signal to the ageing middle-order troika that their phase out was not far away. But they kept coming back with superlative displays. Natural talent apart, the key to their success is single-minded focus and a disciplined life.

Born Reginald Erskine Foster, but better known as Tip, Foster was the only man to captain England at football and cricket. His 287 on debut in 1903 has stood for more than a century as the highest score made in an SCG Test ... Foster's debut effort remains the highest score by a Test debutant, well clear of the unbeaten 222 by South Africa's Jacques Rudolph in 2003.

Who would have thought, after taking 1-150 on debut at the SCG, that the chunky 22-year-old with a blond mullet would retire with more than 700 Test wickets and be regarded as one of the best players ever? Shane Warne was punished by opener Ravi Shastri and a softly spoken teenager called Sachin Tendulkar in the 1992 Test against India. Shastri hit a career-best 206 and shared in a 196-run stand for the sixth wicket with Tendulkar before entering the record books as Warne's first Test victim.

Once, most good batsmen played late, with soft hands, delaying contact until all the movement of the ball was spent. Rubber-wristed Indians were past masters. Now, nearly everyone commits forward, bodily expressing the all-sports mantra about the necessity of getting on to the front foot. But in many, the display of strength becomes an exploration of limitations. Only Ponting, among the contemporary Australians, is catlike enough to press forward, then retreat without unbalancing himself.

On a wicket which helped the bowlers, two senior guys [Ponting and Hussey] stood up when it was required. Their stand could be the deciding factor in this Test match. Watching them play, I felt it was not just the runs they made, but the manner in which they played that told its own story ... We all know Australian cricket has a history of slowly leaving ageing players out and bringing in young players. [But] the likes of Ponting and Hussey need to be handled carefully. One shouldn't have young players coming into a losing culture. It takes away the faith and belief and could hurt them mentally.

From where I was sitting, Tendulkar’s 70 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground was worth its weight in tons – yes, even a hundred tons. It was wrapped in confidence, flair and consummate ease as he lived up to his larger-than-life legend in front of a largely knowledgeable, intense crowd that could not stop talking about him. It was all Tendulkar after tea on Tuesday, both on and around the field, with stories from as far back as his growing years being recounted by Australians in the Members’ Reserve where I was sitting, even while the protagonist, unconcerned with the drama around him, played his part with the bat.

All of the attempts at cultural transformation and the flood of peripheral information seem to largely ignore the character and entrenched practised behaviour of people generally. To think that players' behaviours and motivational stimulus are going to change overnight is unrealistic, no matter how well the various corrective measure programmes are presented. The make-up, personality and state of mind of players varies from bullet proof to depressed. Players within the same team are personally stimulated by all sorts of things. They range from internal to external drivers; from self fulfilment, to doing it for others; to national pride, to money and statistics.

Therefore, on the topic of the Decision Review System in cricket, which has been analysed threadbare this year, going over the merits and demerits of every component – Hawk-Eye, Hot Spot and Snicko – comes later. First, the world cricket governing body (the ICC, not the BCCI) needs to take a call on whether ensuring that results of close matches are not altered and peoples’ careers not cut short by inadvertent human errors, is important to it or not. If it is, it should evaluate the technology available and ascertain if it offers a solution. If it does, the ICC should take a vote of its member nations and decide for or against implementing the rule, irrespective of what the BCCI, or any other minority group, no matter how rich, may have to say about it.

Sunil Gavaskar talked about his son going through the same thing. It is quite difficult as you are always compared to your father and how good he was; how good you are and all that is added pressure. But the pressure on yourself also, I think it increases with this expectation. But it has its pros and cons, and it is something you can’t avoid, you can’t change, and you have to bear it.