The Surfer

To me, Roebuck was a passenger or driver on countless tortuous trips around the country looking hopefully and often haplessly for the team hotel; in the car he was impatient and garrulous. As a roommate, he was opinionated, usually very confident in the merit of those opinions and never dull, yet capable of self mockery and as prone to self-doubt as any other cricketer.

Suicide is something Roebuck, 55 when he died, predicted would never take him, though those who had known him since his youth were less certain.

He was complex, intense, taut, edgy, opinionated, a little manic, mostly cheerful, sometimes broody. He was a contrarian, not for the sake of it, but because he always had another view. He spoke quickly, in a clipped tone, needing to get the thoughts out so that more could follow; his broadcast voice was his street voice. He did not do small talk, ever.

The embarrassing loss means Australia have won just two of their past 12 Tests. That dreadful sequence is the most miserable since Border's battlers went 14 Tests in a row without a victory from November 1985 to January 1987. At least that struggling side had some valid excuses. The game in Australia was still healing following Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket schism of the late 1970s and had been gutted by rebel South African tours of the mid-80s.

For a long time, Ponting has been a tremendous player who intimidates opponents. However, the expected rejuvenation resulting from relinquishing the captaincy and moving down the order hasn't eventuated. It's starting to look like Ponting's is a terminal decline rather than just a slump.

"The intent behind which nations draw up their fixture list is an intent based on financial gain as opposed to testing the best against the best. Because of that we have a jumbled fixture list. We have situations where we play seven-match one-day series, which are too long and, if they're one sided, can be damaging for the game. We have situations whereby two of the best and most exciting nations in the world – Australia and South Africa – are playing a two-match Test series. That's a ridiculous situation and I'm saddened by it. The intent behind creating the fixture list has to be addressed. We want to find out who the best side in the world is and we want to have them compete in exciting conditions and exciting series but at the moment the intent is a financial one and that's why the fixture list is comprised."

Considering the pressure that comes with being a test No 3 - sometimes you're a faux opener, sometimes you're the Mr Fix-it, sometimes you have to set the pace - the weight of a nation's cricketing hopes are on young shoulders, but Martin Crowe says it isn't going to be a burden for Williamson.

"Nah, not at all. He'll find playing at the top, month in, month out, you have your ups and downs. He'll be playing against Australia [next month] and that will certainly test him. But he'll grow into the role as he matures and there's no stopping him scoring as many runs as possible. He's just one of those finds that come along every now and then, so we are lucky."

Some former teammates of Australia's best batsman after Sir Don Bradman were right to believe that when Ponting retired from the captaincy this year he should have walked away altogether. His downward spiral has become a free fall but Ponting is not tumbling alone among those who were involved in Australia's second-innings debacle yesterday. If Simon Katich was sacked to rebuild for successive Ashes campaigns in 18 months, then the new selection panel under chairman John Inverarity has much to do.

A hundred years ago it was not unknown for a new cricket nation to be dismissed for 20 or 30. The pitches were rough and sometimes wet, the players were inexperienced and often out of their depth, the bats were thin and the gloves were spiky. Nowadays the players are professionals, fit, seasoned, trained, protected and surrounded by advisors. And the pitches are the same. It is just about conceivable that they might fall for 80 or 90, as did the hosts in their first innings. But 9/21?"

... this is not an aberration but increasingly Australia’s norm as soon as the ball starts to move consistently. The last two Ashes series highlight that. It is the third time in little more than a year that Australia has been bowled out for under 100 once the ball started to deviate. Australia was dismissed for 88 against Pakistan at Headingley and 98 against England in Melbourne ... This South Africa-Australia Test series is a beacon to the marginalisation of the once sacred game.

But even by his own record, Mr Khan comes across as naive, short on the cunning displayed by Pakistan's brilliantly awful politicians, who milk funds from the state to keep control of their regional fiefs. More important, he still looks unable to organise. He talks grandly in his book of Pakistan's desperate lack of strong institutions, arguing that these are what made Western countries flourish. Yet judge by how his own party has failed to develop over the years, and Mr Khan seems to have little gift for building any structure that goes beyond his personal brand.