The Surfer

[Michael] Vaughan and [Duncan] Fletcher liked Nixon's effervescent energy, believing the endless chatter for which he was renowned behind the stumps would lift team-mates and distract opponents. Steve Waugh, the former Australian captain with whom he would often share dinner when they both played for Kent, likened him to a mosquito he wanted to swat.

Given that sledging is almost in a wicketkeeper's job description, no one thought Nixon's behaviour particularly odd. Yet he now believes it was this inherent hyperactivity that perhaps denied him earlier recognition ... "It definitely harmed my cricket over the first few years ... The bowler could be running in and I'd be looking at field placings when I should have been concentrating only on the ball."

No Indian cricketer has been as accommodative as Dravid. If there’s an award for selfless cricket, then the 38-year-old has little challenge. That’s not to cast aspersions on the others. But where the rest are happy disposing of the normal duties, Dravid has often been asked to step out of his comfort zone to meet the requirements of the team.

“There are not many who will agree to keep wickets, and there are fewer people who agree to open. But Dravid has always done that for us without any complaints. We are lucky that we have somebody like him in our side,” said Dhoni, acknowledging his former captain’s commitment to the team’s cause.

The mood in the England camp can be gauged by the happy slip cordon, especially when Swann is around. Father Raymond says that Andrew Strauss seemed a relieved man at Trent Bridge when a hand injury had forced Graeme to field in the deep.

“He is either in splits because of some joke that Graeme has cracked or has his fingers in his ears,” he says. With the motor-mouth within handshaking distance, the boredom of a long-drawn day doesn’t affect the team. Raymond adds how Strauss loves pulling his son’s leg by calling him a “buffoon” and Graeme gets back by labelling the England captain “upper-class”.

6. The Pakistan slurs brought us closerHow we came through the match-fixing scandal showed just how close we were.

Today's ICC Reliance Test Championship uses a ratings system developed by David Kendix, an actuary and cricket scorer. It is based on some complex calculations, though the basics are not dissimilar to the system that originated from Independent Towers, with results covering a rolling four-year period and taking into account the number of matches and series played.

He eventually got her letter, posted from Taihape - the final chapter in their tragic love story. She would meet him off the boat and they would be married, she wrote. But first, he needed to concentrate on hitting a six for his country ...

It was Christmas Eve, 1953. With 151 dead, many more injured, and a lump in the back of the throat of the nation that would last for generations, the site was renamed Tangiwai, or river of tears.

Chief cheerleader-cum-nightclub doorman for the IPL and India's most visible TV commentating presence, Shastri has become a strangely central figure in new-era cricket, the personage who most clearly embodies the attitude and style of the branded global game as it turns its face towards its largest market. It has taken some time for a new tone and timbre to inveigle itself into the post-Benaud broadcasting vacuum. But hold on to your hats, something's got to give because he's firing on all cylinders: Shastri is perhaps the closest thing we have now to a reigning voice of cricket.

All these factors have increased the danger of the commentators turning into defenders of BCCI policies. This seems to have happened with Shastri, who didn’t respond to Outlook’s attempts to talk to him. The dashing commentator was a member of the icc’s Cricket Committee, which, in May this year, unanimously recommended the use of Decision Review System (drs) in all Tests, odis and Twenty20s. He never raised a dissenting voice then. But, as a commentator, Shastri is a vehement, aggressive opponent of the drs. During the second Test, he said on air that those who criticised India’s opposition to drs were jealous of its success. This led to a sharp exchange, again on air, with his colleague in the box, Nasser Hussain.

In these soft days, I gather blind batsmen don't run: scores are based on how far the ball has been hit. At the special blind school where I and my friends regularly played, two totally blind batsmen would cheerfully hare off from opposite ends for quick singles, frequently colliding in the middle with earth-moving consequences (one of them my now slightly crooked nose).

The value of mimicry in blind cricket must not be underestimated. Mischievous fieldsmen would often imitate your batting partner in calling you for an impossible run. Compared with the gamesmanship employed by blind players, the likes of "bodyline" Jardine, Tony Greig and Paul Collingwood are mere babes in arms.