The Surfer

The Proteas have been strong favourites in each of the last three campaigns and burdened with an outrageous and immodest sense of entitlement which was personified by the late Percy Sonn who, as president of the United Cricket Board in 2003, told anybody who would listen that South Africa's "time had come".

Ponting's admirable innings concealed as much as it revealed. Along the way, his team beat only one capable opponent, New Zealand, and spluttered even against the weakest sides. Nor can Australians complain about meeting India in the quarter-finals. It was the product not of chance but ordinary cricket.

One morning in Canberra in the winter of 2006-07, Trescothick and I were standing together by the hotel breakfast room toaster having a natter. He was in a fine mood and looking forward to the series. This was no front. Two days later, he had been spirited from the country and was on his way home. No support in the world was able to ensure that once he left the security of his family environment the curtain would not descend once more. It was a great loss to England cricket but quite literally saved Trescothick's sanity.

The back story with Yardy is not dissimilar. By all accounts he has been battling the illness for some considerable while, but this has been a long winter. He was not part of the England Ashes squad, but, in the knowledge he would be involved in the one-day matches that followed he played cricket in New Zealand before joining the squad after the fifth Test in Sydney. So he too has been on the road effectively for five or six months.

In walks Yuvraj. 18-year-old Yuvraj. Boyish yet not without a swagger. A lamb to the slaughter. Or so we thought. Until he unleashes a straight-drive so powerful that Lee simply stops in his tracks. And smiles. That angelic smile. A commentator captures the mood: “The boy is pumped. Pumped big time.”

In ran 22-year-old Zaheer, in just his second ODI, and splintered the stumps. Steve Waugh castled with a ball that swung. Kaboom. Almost a yorker. More than a corker.

As a person Titmus was old school. He had a dry sense of humour and was very witty but he could also be caustic and blunt. He showed his tenacity by recovering from a horrific boating accident in Barbados on England's 1967-68 West Indies tour, when the propeller of a boat removed four of his toes. It would have ended the careers of many cricketers but in the summer of 1968 he returned to take 111 wickets in a season for Middlesex.

At the risk of sounding like a wet blanket, one wondered to whom Graves was actually referring.

At some point England have to start planning for the World Cup after this when Collingwood will be 38. He is carrying a knee injury and it was confirmed yesterday that he will have an arthroscopy to repair minor cartilage damage after the World Cup. Collingwood is still a centrally contracted player, he is still fit and fuller of beans than just about any other player in the squad – the knee surgery notwithstanding – but there is more to top-level professional sport than that.

It has become a cliche to compare Tendulkar to Bradman ever since the Don did so. Is one better than the other? Well who, other than the sage, John Woodcock, knows and, frankly, who cares? But should Tendulkar score a hundred tonight in the World Cup quarter-final with Australia, it can be said without question that his achievement would be Bradmanesque. Bradman averaged a third more than his best contemporaries, a differential that, regardless of the changing nature of the game and the improvement in standards, marks him out as one of the greatest sportsmen to have lived.

Blow away the smoke and the situation becomes clear. Ponting is 36 years old, has been struggling for runs all season and his team has been losing. It is not and has never been a reassuring combination. Meanwhile, his proposed successor looks more like the next leader with every passing week. Meanwhile, the next generation of batsmen have been scoring heavily, not least in the recent shield final.

He is no Stephen Fleming and never will be. Fleming operated with limited resources but out- thought opposition with his field placement and tactics. It would be extremely tough to compare the two. I would regard Fleming as not just New Zealand cricket's greatest leader but one of the world's best as well. However, that aside, we should have seen more from this New Zealand team under Vettori's guidance than has been delivered. If New Zealand are beaten by South Africa and exit the World Cup in the early hours of Saturday morning then Vettori's one-day captaincy career will probably go down as a bit of a flop.

Like this year's England, we went into the World Cup almost immediately after a long winter tour of Tests and one-day internationals (South Africa, in our case). And, similarly again, we had some good individual players with the likes of Neil Fairbrother and Robin Smith on board. But, unlike this lot, I don't think we believed in ourselves as a team – and that is perhaps the greatest strength of Andrew Strauss's squad.

Sri Lanka will be tough opponents: a good side, playing in their own conditions and with a full house behind them. But, unlike 15 years ago when their attacking style of play stunned many people, there will not be any surprises for Strauss's men … In 1996 Muttiah Muralitharan was still very much a mystery bowler … We did not have all the video technology, or the analysts, to help batsmen work out how bowlers bowled different deliveries.