The Surfer

"Getting out like that was hard for me," he told me. "Harmison's was a bad ball to start the series but he ended up bowling OK in that match. We just played badly and were badly beaten. But people still look back at that ball which I don't think had a bearing on the outcome. So when I got out, I thought: 'OK this is fine, this is not a precursor to what is coming any more than Harmison's ball was.' Deep down, though, I was fighting against it, and thinking: 'I know what they are going to write.' Test cricket can always ask some pretty serious questions of you and I realised that I was going to have to dig pretty deep in the second innings."

In 1996, Haber and Hayes decided to expand their horizons and bring the game to Compton where they thought young people could benefit from the game that teaches proper etiquette and sportsmanship. They began by teaching a workshop on how to play the game at Willowbrooke Middle School. Some of those students grew up on the team and are still active on the green grassy fields. They love to play, but they also enjoy helping change the city’s negative reputation.

Since the start of May 2010, he has scored 1,317 Test runs at 94, 72 more runs than the next man on the list Sachin Tendulkar (1,245 at 77). The others with 1,000 or more are Alastair Cook (1,125 at 66), Jacques Kallis (1,104 at 110) and Virender Sehwag (1,003 at 52).

When we won it was a bit surreal. It was like: ‘Has that just happened?’ We had been sat in the dressing room for much of the five days but now we were back in those same seats after bowling them out in 24 overs!

One bloke was going absolutely mad as we ran up the pavilion steps. He told us he had had a tenner on us at 999 to one and had won £10,000!

We believed we could win and it happened for us. It’s amazing what this team can achieve.

It still rankles for Auckland-based Griggs, who cut all ties with CD and barely took an interest in their results last summer. But he wasn't to be hurled on the career scrapheap. He had planned for that eventuality, slightly further down life's track, and took up a fulltime role in the ANZ Bank's commercial section, having decided five years earlier to get a foot in the door with a big company in the cricket off-season.

Shahid Afridi has never been shy of retiring. As such, his latest announcement feels like it has all the permanence of a snowman on Jumeirah Beach in July. Retiring seems like something to do to pass the time in Pakistani cricket. In much the same way as players from England and Australia, for example, compete for Twitter followers, social standing in Pakistan seems to depend on how many retirements you have had.

Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni sharing the stage would have been an apt way to celebrate, but what does the BCCI do? Keep him in the audience while their big wigs give away the biggest honours of the evening - the CK Nayudu lifetime achievement award to Salim Durani and the Polly Umrigar award to Sachin Tendulkar, the outstanding cricketer of 2009- 10. These awards were given away by BCCI chief Shashank Manohar and president elect N Srinivasan even as legends Sunil Gavaskar, Gundappa Vishwanath, Kapil Dev, Dilip Vengsarkar et al were in the audience. The question on most lips was: “ why was Kapil called in the first place?” “I am sure Kapil is hurt about this, although he won’t talk about it and mar the function,” said a former teammate of the 1983 captain.

'Country versus club/county' debates and choices are not new to Indian cricket. These have long preceded the Indian Premier League (IPL). Where Mankad and Gavaskar were lucky was that their decisions were not dissected by that 24/7 khap panchayat called Indian news television.

On this count, the recent fracas involving Gautam Gambhir and the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) has been revealing. It has shown up the media for a fundamental inability to understand a sportsman's ethic. It has emphasised the dangerous sensationalism news -particularly cricket news -is subjected to. Finally, it has been a reminder of the tawdry and crude nationalism that (at least some) news channels have made their calling card.

From an average Indian fan's perspective, the present-day, newlook West Indies squad provides zero connect. During the 1980s, the West Indies was cricket's Brazil -a team with a global appeal. Even when it played against India, it was acceptable here to support the highly skilful entertainers from the Caribbean. The slide has been gradual but the last decade saw a free fall. Today, Sammy has under his wings players like Lendl, Hyatt and Nurse in a largely unknown team. In case these names bring tennis, hotels and hospitals to your mind, it isn't an insult to the obscure players but a true reflection of the times in West Indian cricket.

India's flagship event may have had a difficult year but it is undeniably the blue riband of Twenty20 tournaments. It has the crowds (albeit diminished in 2011), the big names and, most importantly, the money. Many of those young cricketers who do well in this year's Friends Life T20 will be dreaming, perhaps above all, of an IPL contract.

Of course, Twenty20 can be exciting, but it remains a shallow game that has become more formulaic with time. I was watching one Twenty20 match with a current player last season, and before every ball of one over, by just observing the field positioning, he called correctly the ball that was to be bowled and the shot that was to be played in response. “It’s boring,” he said.