The Surfer

It's been wonderful to view Crowe's growth as a person over the last few years. From someone who was deemed to be too critical, too honest and too emotional in his public comments about the national team, he finally appears comfortable in his own skin and more measured in his analysis of the game. Most importantly, to those who he works with, his words are received with the utmost respect given they're coming from a human-being who has fought his share of obstacles in life and prevailed. This latest contest with his 'friend' lymphoma promises to test him. History tells us he thrives on a challenge. Rise again 'Hogan'.

If environments matter more in cricket than in soccer, then this makes cricketing skills look less genetically heritable than footballing ones. In football, most of the differences come from genetic advantages just because there aren't many environmental differences (if you live in a soccer-mad nation, opportunities to play are everywhere). But in cricket, there would still be a wide range of abilities even if everybody had exactly the same genetic endowment, because only some children would get a proper chance to learn the game. In effect, environmental causes are doing a lot more to spread out the children in cricket than they are in football. To sum up, cricket runs in families precisely because the genetic heritability of cricket skills is relatively low.

"When I came in we just had Micky Stewart as head coach - there was no batting coach, no psychologist. I made my Test debut in 1991 and it wasn't until 1998 that I bumped into the sports psychologist Steve Bull. There was a significant shift in my career from that point on. He gave me a way to structure my thoughts and handle my emotions. I had struggled in Test cricket because I worried about too many things. But those personal experiences have made me a better coach."

What would be even bigger news is when the law comes down on a bowler from Australia, England or India. Of those so far caught in the ICC's crackdown, all belong to the nations now designated "second-tier". The big test will come when a bowler with a suspect action plays for one of the big three.

Where cricket has failed on chucking in the past, it hasn't been due to cricketing matters. It's been when politics and power have oozed in to overrule and bully those who are meant to enforce the laws. The ICC seems to be on the right course, finally, but so far it has only gone after the little-guy nations. We'll really fall off our chairs when it is able to successfully prosecute the big guys.

I had played about 30 one-dayers before my Test debut. Everyone was saying that I was a very good one-day player but my technique was not that great so I could not play Test cricket. I was waiting for the chance to prove everybody wrong. I scored a hundred in my debut Test against South Africa, batting at No.6, so that was the message I sent to my critics. I was always convinced I had the technique for Test cricket.

A win in Friday's final match was welcome, but as meaningless as any in the 3,451 ODIs that have followed that long-ago day at Lord's. England's current methodology is from around the mid 2000s of that number; they're still quite excited to score 290, and still quite daunted by the pusuit of it. The rest of cricket, meanwhile, roars on into a future that is being written from the bottom up - through T20 into the 50 over game - rather than the top down.

The thing is, there is no denying that the current India captain is a great leader, in that he leads from the front. But is he a great leader of men? The only way to test that is with a hypothetical question. Had this brooding, grey-haired Dhoni and his younger, long-maned self found themselves in a similar situation to yesterday's game, would current-day captain Dhoni have given the free-spirited slugger Dhoni the strike?

The driver of the Australian team bus in Harare, a man called Kelvin, has thanked Marsh for "making his life."
Kelvin has two children and a third on the way. He earns $US500 ($A540) a month, with 60 per cent of that going to rent.
Sometimes he gets paid on time; sometimes it's a day late, or two, or seven.
Electricity cuts are a regular occurrence at their home, making cooking for his 12-year-old son and five-year-old daughter almost impossible at times.
Marsh heard Kelvin's story and marched straight into town, to buy the children backpacks and shoes for school. He also purchased a new mobile phone for Kelvin and a solar light and gas cooker for his wife.

I don't think, deep down, India and Dhoni like playing Test cricket as much. At Southampton, and that is only one example, India let the game drift along bowling defensive, non-wicket taking lines for a major part. When wickets appeared distant, and that always happens at some point in a Test match, India seemed willing passengers on the tide. Yes, Dhoni tried but Dhoni the one-day captain would have been here, there and everywhere, sniffing an opportunity here, grabbing ten minutes of the game there. Dhoni likes one-day cricket and you can see that in everything he does.

Boycott, Broad. And so it went, night, after night, after night. Not Broad. Brearley. Boycott and Brearley, then Broad. And day, after day, after day. On the bus. During meetings. Watching trailers. Swimming lengths. It became an obsession and, by extension, a curse. Compiling alphabetical XIs is, you see, something of a Sisyphean task, in that by the time you've got to the end of 'W' - you can't wring much mileage out of X, Y, and Z - you've entirely forgotten most of the people you picked for the A side. Butcher, Barrington, some team this. And since you've forgotten, you start all over again, expecting, this time round, that all the names will stick.