The Surfer

Please be honest... Was Gambhir fit to play the eliminator against the Mumbai Indians?
Did you see the way Gambhir ran out Rohit Sharma? I rest my case there... Gambhir would never prefer the franchise over country.

But Gambhir’s been hauled over the coals for playing all 15 matches despite a shoulder problem...
There are two types of injuries... One is trauma, when you get struck on your arm and a bone breaks or when you snap a hamstring while going for a run... You’ve then got to rest, there’s no option. The other type is an injury which develops slowly... Such injuries need to be managed... Some call them niggles and the issue is at what point does a player take a break in order to manage better.

India, more than any other, should appreciate that West Indians feel patronised when they send a weakened squad for a series, even if one still likely to triumph. Until relatively recently, England despatched teams on sub-continental tours while allowing some of their best players the winter off.

Yet the West Indies should realise, as India did, that the only way to regain recognition is to start winning again.

For now, he has three objectives. First, perfect his technique in English conditions as a reliable top order batsman against the swinging ball; second, expel the myth he does not score his runs quickly enough; and third, harden up to the daily grind of cricket.

The point of the non-expert witnesses is pretty persuasive. Neither of Pietersen's dismissals in the opening two Test matches of the summerspeak of a man who is within touching distance of his next double-century as the rest of the dressing room try desperately to make the case for him. Perhaps they are tryingto convince themselves.

Indeed nobody in their right mind should consider omitting him for the third Test at Southampton, even if he were to fail a second time here at Lord’s. He’s failed twice this summer, that’s all.

And this is my hectoring moment: nobody please again use the line “if you take out his double-century at Adelaide...” in trying to emphasise Pietersen’s recent ineffectiveness. If memory serves correctly, those runs were not gifted during some boozy benefit match. They were scored in a live, hugely significant Ashes Test that England won. They count all right.

It was a very inconsistent performance from the seamers, and Steven Finn in particular, who produced some uncharacteristically wayward deliveries. When you start firing the ball as wide as that down the leg side, there is a problem. You could see his wrist was tilting to the left and the ball was coming out of the side of the hand.

Once again, it was evident how much England are missing Paul Collingwood - they just lack someone who can come on and bowl a spell or two, offer a bit of variation and give the frontline attack a rest.

Here again on Saturday England’s wicketkeeper was taking a Test attack apart, making his second successive century at an excellent lick. He has made five Test centuries now, at an average of 44.58 and a strike rate of 65.21, which is higher than any of England's recognised batsmen.

And yet Prior the Test-dasher has made just three fifties in 62 ODI innings, and in 42 of them he has batted in the top three of the order, so it is not as if he has had limited opportunities.

Like England in general, Prior never quite knew what was coming next on the subcontinent. Six innings brought him a top score of 22 not out and a total of 78 runs but he batted here, there and just about everywhere, thanks to the short-lived experiment of opening with Kevin Pietersen

Perkins was a left-arm spinner, and a handy one at that. “I remember watching him bowl,” says my Telegraph colleague Simon Parry-Crooke, who was an aspiring leftie in the Seventies, “and he had this incredible control: he could just drop the ball on a handkerchief.”

The cricketers in Tihar cover every possible crime between them—murder, kidnapping, rape, honour killing, robbery, peddling or smuggling drugs, embezzlement, even terrorism. There’s Manu Sharma, Jessica Lal’s killer; and Santosh Singh, who raped and murdered his fellow law student Priyadarshini Mattoo. But many are also undertrials, and some, even though they have spent more than a decade behind bars, still vociferously proclaim their innocence.

On the field though, they are bowlers, batsmen or wicketkeepers, listening attentively to their 74-year-old coach Rajinder Pal’s instructions, padding up in anticipation, shadow-practising under the shade of a tree, running into the field with water bottles when needed, helping each other stretch or warm-up.

A whole generation in India has grown up in the years when the West Indies no longer ruled world cricket. Raina, born three years after India’s first World Cup victory, played a crucial role in their second a couple of months ago. Neither he nor his teammates will carry the kind of baggage into a West Indies tour that some of the earlier tourists did. In 1987, skipper Dilip Vengsarkar accused his batsmen of running from fast bowling. It wasn’t until 2006 under Rahul Dravid that India were able to repeat their 1971 series-winning effort.