The Surfer

... there were only two crowds of above 50,000 on the opening day of the MCG Test during the first 15 years of the "tradition", both against England. It wasn't until Sri Lanka attracted a surprisingly healthy 55,000 on Boxing Day 1995 that large crowds became a regular feature of cricket's biggest day.This was about the time that the primary school kids who were seduced by the one-day razzmatazz of lights, coloured clothes and action introduced by World Series Cricket had grown into discerning adults ... The bad news was that with sports fans under 25 there is an increasing vacuum and with 10-15 year-olds cricket ranks eighth [among Australia's most popular sports].

Unlike the Duke, with its prominent, hand-stitched seam, the Kookaburra ball, with its flatter, machine-stitched seam, allows a batsman to settle after the newness has worn off. Also, an Australian summer is drier than its English equivalent. The less water-charged the atmosphere, the less the ball is observed to swing. On Australia's firmer wickets, moreover, the ball doesn't deviate off the surface to the same degree it does in England.

A few clouds change a game, so the old saying at Lord's is that you need to always be looking up. Other things create microclimates, which change the game. When a new stand was built at Trent Bridge, the ball moved less. At seaside grounds, tides affect the swing. Captains study the tides. This is wonderful stuff. I imagine the American cable television show, where red-faced writers scream at each other about the tide tables, about the phases of the moon, about how volcanic activity in the Ring of Fire is messing with the barometer, Woody Paige having an aneurysm over hectopascals.

All this, I realize, is part of the joy of Test cricket. The outcome of the games is so closely tied to nature that watching demands an awareness of the world around you. Modern inventions mostly keep the world at bay. Don't like the weather? Close the windows. Turn on the AC. Light a fire. But following Test cricket requires, for at least five days, being governed by subtle shifts in the elements, just as surely as an ancient sailor.

A privately sponsored enclosure is the only decent thing standing with a structure formerly used as a ground-floor pavilion with VIP seats, crying out for repairs. The two-storey pavilion houses termite-ridden cupboards, once used to store players’ belongings, crumbling washrooms and broken frames of historic photographs.

Dear Santa, I was going to ask for a 100th 100, but then I saw the Australian bowling attack and realised you’d already done your bit. Aila, Sachin

Dear Santa, What do you want for Christmas? Viru

Some context: Bradman's eventual tally of 117 centuries comprised 29 in 52 Test matches and the balance in other first-class cricket. Tendulkar's 99 hundreds consist of 51 in 184 Tests and 48 in one-day internationals (but ignores 27 other first-class centuries). This merely reflects the way the game's infrastructure has changed.

Bradman made his 100th hundred in his 295th innings. Tendulkar will have played at least 746. This reflects the way Bradman's standing has remained unassailable. But there is no doubt that the vibe about the imminence of the achievement is almost identical.

England, convincing victor against both teams in the last 12 months, picked up the major team honour in the two-hour British TV sportsfest to announce BBC's Sports Personality of the Year. The programme left a trail of reminders that the Englishmen were the best cricketers in the world. First, there was Kevin Pietersen with the statement that although England respected other Test teams — “frightened of them? Think again.”

Christian's mother Toni spent hours driving him from Campbelltown to Kensington when Christian joined the University of NSW cricket team, where he was mentored by Geoff Lawson and Michael Slater. "And the M5 Motorway didn't extend all that way back then," Toni laughed. "It was especially busy when the footy and cricket seasons overlapped, we'd be driving from the footy to the cricket, and the cricket to the footy."

She added: "The move to Sydney was a big thing for him at 13, he had to make a whole lot of new friends, but that was his dream, going to St Greg's mainly to play footy. Cricket came second back in those days. "He broke a leg playing footy when he was 14, he had to get screws put in but came back from that fairly well," she said.