The Surfer

The DRS is not a competition between human ability and technology. It is a way forward for the correction of possible human errors as one single wrong decision can change the whole scenario of the match. So, I would never mind if a player rightly survives with the help of DRS. I am confident that good umpires make very less mistakes in the matches and if slightest possibility of error is also eliminated with the help of technology, it would only add to the grace of the game

Botham's life may have been often chronicled, but not always well. I found myself constantly surprised by fresh details: from the great-great-grandfather named Chappell, to his grandparents being married a short walk from the ground where he would play his first match for England; from him picking a drinking mate for a Sunday league match against Glamorgan, to him having a Mickey Mouse phone in his bedroom; from the chambermaid delivering a breakfast of two pints of milk and the racing papers, to the steps he took to leave Somerset before the trouble over Viv Richards and Joel Garner ever arose.

So the future beckons for Topley, and the present isn’t too bad either, as he bowls a full and old-fashioned length that draws batsmen into the drive, and the Tiflex ball that is used in the second division swings copiously. As he grows stronger, he can develop the plan B of banging it in and pushing the batsman back, as Voce and Sidebottom learned to do. And maybe go one better.

I enjoy the vastly improved coverage of overseas cricket, and while I am not a great fan of the shortest form of the game I am pleased to see that, again as it should be, twenty over cricket, IPL included, is properly covered. In years gone by the space devoted to the supposedly inferior one day game was also cut in order to meet the increasing demand for space caused by the rapid increase in the number of Test series played around the world, and I would not have been entirely surprised if the short game had been relegated to a mere footnote.

To be honest, I was just in the zone. I didn’t really think too far ahead or what happened in the previous game. I was trying to stay in the present, take it one game at a time. Once things started to fall in place for me, I just kind of built on it throughout the tournament.

That’s what we always talked about – peaking when it mattered. Everyone knew about it. Obviously, when we had to go into the knockout stages, we also talked about how now is the time, that we have to put in that extra bit from here on. It definitely worked this time for us.

The Yusuf Pathans and Ravindra Jadejas used the IPL as the stepping stone to India caps. If a few more can follow suit, then the IPL can rightfully take credit for being an assembly line, and not merely for bestowing ‘unreasonable’ gifts on the not-so-gifted.

The argument that the days of one-day cricket are numbered and T20 is going to swamp it, are over. The 100-over game has the capacity to give enough space and time for genuine talent to express itself, unlike a 40over game, where luck and chance play a far more pivotal role in the performance of a player.