The Surfer

There is no convincing case to be made for recalling Jayasuriya. It has been two-and-a-half years since he scored a century in any kind of cricket, and the fact that he has said he will play only in the first of the five ODIs against England is testament in itself that he is not coming back because he has the interests of the team at heart.

For too many years, debates have raged over who gets on with who in the Black Caps, whether the power should lie with the players or the coach, and just what is the best makeup of the leadership group.

The first major challenge is two tests against Australia in Australia in December. New Zealand's leading players must front as a unit against the Australians and win some respect in international cricket circles - if they don't win the tests, they must at the very least take them into day five of the tests.

I still have to learn how to convert my fifties into big ones. My priority as of now is to spend as much time as I can in the middle. That has always been my main area of concern, something I’ve struggled with in age-group cricket, during my India A days, and now with India ... Before leaving for the West Indies, Yuvraj Singh told me that my biggest test will come only after I taste success. Now that I’ve tasted it, I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to waste any more opportunities.

No song, and no string of words pieced together in his head, can help Trescothick when "the shiver" returns with inexplicable force. Then, he feels himself being pulled towards that terrifying vortex which once left him sobbing on the floor of Dixons at Heathrow. Trescothick has long been open and brave in detailing the extent of his past traumas; and yet it is a shock to hear his response after he is asked when last he felt the "shiver".

"Last week," he says. In the midst of his imposing form, with Trescothick batting as impressively as he ever did in his 76 Tests for England, you might expect the beast within to be muzzled. But his answer is a jolting reminder of how vigilant he needs to remain ... "You're always only one step away from it and that's why you need to maintain the good things in your life."

As for this summer, well at least he is on the inside looking out, rather than the other way around. But thanks to Alastair Cook and Bell continuing to bat like princes, Jonathan Trott making a double hundred in Cardiff and Kevin Pietersen rediscovering his silver, if not quite golden, touch, Morgan has spent many an hour admiring his team-mates from the dressing-room balcony.

Cardiff, Chester-le-Street, Southampton – all fine places and there's something commendably inclusive about stadiums which place you so close to the action that you hear third man cursing the bowler's length. But intimacy is not the same as intensity. Dress up your stadium however you want – and the Emirates Durham ICG certainly sounds less genteel than the Riverside, Chester-le-Street – but it doesn't give it the aura that sends statisticians rooting for the record sixth-wicket stand on that turf or makes it an opener's dream to see his name on the honour board/

England's performances on 21 June, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, have generally been pitched somewhere between gentle self-deprecation and vile self-loathing – a quintessentially English comedy to sit proudly alongside Fawlty Towers and The Office. England have not played Test cricket on 21 June since 1998. A good job, too, because on that particular day they are pathologically incapable of being anything other than truly, madly, deeply inept.

As well as following his son's game, and teaching Vikram Seth, Smith can claim credit for the theatrical career of Dan Stevens, who recently starred as Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey. One of the most arresting passages in The Following Game describes how the 14-year-old Stevens auditioned for a school production of Macbeth, expecting to be allocated the part of Macduff's son, or Fleance, and found himself playing the lead.

A quick tot up of domestic form and statistics, combined with the list of emerging players selected for New Zealand 'A' in their tournament in Australia in August suggests a few new contracts could be handed out.

The ranking decision is largely determined by 'gut feel'. Coach John Wright, stand-in national selection manager Mark Greatbatch and cricket director John Buchanan make their final call from what they have seen (Buchanan is more likely to facilitate this time around, given his recent arrival)