The Surfer

Australia have lost cricketers who have retired early. Adam Gilchrist retired because of the IPL. Andrew Symonds left cricket early because of the IPL. There are a few guys from New Zealand. Definitely from Sri Lanka and the West Indies and it will get worse. We have to come up with a sensible argument to make sure that this tournament doesn’t turn out to be detrimental for world cricket.

Brett Lee The Australian fast bowler is all set to release his first single with his new rock band, White Shoe Theory. Earlier the Kings XI Punjab player was part of the band, Six & Out, that also included his brother Shane. Lee can play both the bass and acoustic guitar and loves to jam with offie Jason Krejza. During the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy, he also recorded a duet with the legendary Asha Bhosle, “You’re the one For me”. It peaked at No 2 on the charts.

Graeme Swann The pugnacious 32-year-old offbreak bowler is the lead singer of a rather erotically named Nottingham-based band, Dr Comfort and the Lurid Revelations.

Australian icons Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh once bet against their own team at 500-to-1 odds, went on to lose the match (the famous Headingely Test of the 1981 Ashes series), and pocketed huge wads of cash. Shane Warne, another Australian icon, was found using a banned steroid, and also got into trouble sending unwanted text messages with lewd content. And let us not forget that Hansie Cronje -- the only player so far to have confessed to match-fixing in cricket -- was not a Pakistani but a South African.

Yet you don’t see Australia or South Africa derided as thieves or cheats, and the idea of suspending these teams from the ICC does not even remotely cross the mind. Cronje even died in mysterious circumstances when a chartered plane in which he was a passenger crashed inexplicably, but the matter was glossed over. Clearly, Pakistan is not the only international team to which bad things happen. But the stigma sits heavier on Pakistan.

In three of the past four seasons he has averaged 60, albeit from limited appearances due to injury, and was in sparkling form for Western Australia before breaking down - again - on the eve of last summer's Ashes. There is also the matter of Marsh's extraordinary record in the Indian Premier League, in which he boasts a better average (51.26) than the world's most destructive Twenty20 batsman, Chris Gayle (50.24).

Marsh is proud of his IPL record, yet the importance he places on Twenty20 is negligible compared to the longest form of the game. It is there, he told The Sunday Age, he wants to finally make up for his years of underachievement - and, by doing that, earn a coveted baggy green cap

It is the captain's fallibility against left-arm pace that has attracted attention, mainly because one of the best of that particular breed, India's Zaheer Khan, will be shortly heading this way.

From a cricketing perspective, I was there as a youngster in 1997, and I am going back there now almost 14 years later. When I went there first, I was in awe of people like Ambrose and Walsh, and wondered if I could ever even face guys like that and how it would be like. And here we are today!

Even with cost-cutting measures, Kent still loses about £500,000 a year. After it reduced the wage bill from £1.4 million per annum six players left, including fast bowler Amjad Khan. Radio Kent no longer broadcasts a live commentary from the ground, and the lime tree that lived inside the boundary in one corner of the pitch has died from heart rot. If this club were a dog, it would be on its last trip to the vet.

“I will never forget the first interaction I had with each player. Sachin said just one line — ‘I want you to be my friend’. It was a very powerful statement and only later did I understand it because you know when I look back, I felt ‘gee that’s easy, I can be a nice guy,’ but that’s not what he meant. He wanted me to be a genuine friend."

“One word that comes to my mind about Dhoni’s leadership is presence. I put the words — inspiration and presence — together, because I believe, I was in a position to inspire people through my work ethic whereas Dhoni was a leader for them through presence.

Only in recent years have India shaken off the habit of losing the first Test in an away series. True, the team will be strengthened when Mahendra Singh Dhoni, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid return to their posts, but they will find it that bit more difficult against a team that has been injected with a crucial dose of self-belief by India’s approach. And going by the manner in which the medium pacers have performed, the man who will be missed the most is Zaheer Khan.