The Surfer

Seen in that light, the prosecution of the Pakistani cricketers looks less like a vindication of cricket's capacity to self-police than a ruffle of the hair for tabloid journalism. What if the News of the World train their sights elsewhere next time? Who will shine the light in dark corners then? There is no definitive answer - and that, for cricket, is the scariest aspect of this sorry saga.

Had Pandey played for India, he would have been entitled to greed, to a higher price and a nationally televised salary scheme. His IPL record, his first-class record and his status as the first Indian to score a century in the IPL count for nothing.

Like cholesterol, can there be good greed and bad greed?

The Governing Council, so eager to put the younger place in their place, might like to investigate just how easily their rules allowed the richer teams to break the ceiling on payment for their star players.

It's nonsensical that overworked players are expected to attend such a grandiose function at any time let alone after a gruelling campaign. Half these blokes finished the match in Perth, with a three-hour time difference, jumped bleary-eyed onto a plane and next day were obliged to attend a long-winded dinner. On Wednesday they leave for a World Cup due to last another two months. Players are human.

Try standing still and, in one hand, flicking a cricket ball 180 degrees. Asif could do that when running in, in his delivery stride, an astonishing sleight of hand that only a handful of pace bowlers — at most — have mastered. The purpose is to reveal to the batsman the ball’s shiny side, then to deceive him by flicking the seam over.

By the end of the series against England, after six Tests in two months, Asif was fading — and we now know he had other things on his mind at Lord’s.

Playing with a Twenty20 mindset, with 20 overs a side, can damage your technique in longer versions of the game. Test matches can last as long as five days, while one-day Internationals are up to 50 overs a side. If smaller nations' main experience is of games that last three hours rather than five days, the possibility of them ever attaining Test status recedes even further into the distance.

The dichotomy even Sehwag finds hard to explain. "Yes, I have played Test cricket where I have gone on and batted for a day and a half. If you look back in the last one year, that's exactly what I have tried to achieve in the one-day game. I have scored big hundreds and I have indeed gone on to play as much as 30 overs in an innings. So it is something I have realised, and something that is showing in my batting but I am not going to get into a match there looking to play long or survive. I have matured now to pick the balls on which I want to play my shots, and also know what shots to play on them," says Sehwag.

Would you have to perform a Hannibal Lecter and eat a rival's liver with "fava beans and a nice chianti"? Hannibal would have been an even-money chance of getting a suspended sentence (perhaps losing 10 per cent of his match fee) had he been put on trial by the International Cricket Council.

The response to the infractions of sportsmen is out of proportion and smacks of hypocrisy. It's as if sport was treated as a separate world, a legendary place populated by heroes and villains. In fact it is merely part of the wider world.

The World Cup has 49 matches spread over 43 days. That’s 8 hours of cricket daily over a month—a tad less than the 51 matches played over 47 days in the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. No sooner does it end, that the IPL begins. With 10 teams playing 74 matches over 51 days, that’s another 222 hours of cricket.

Take cricket, for example. It too has had to adapt to the local rhythm. So the ground sits between twin vineyards and a World War II airstrip, old wine barrels double up as scoreboards, the game starts only after the day’s fifth cup of coffee, and a six means yet another ball lost in the neighbour’s vineyard. Yes, things are different, but that’s half the fun.

The left-hander has used the dash-down-the-wicket routine against the seamers to break early shackles, but his nimble, risk-free leap against the slower bowlers was met with awe during the Sri Lanka series. It was here that he effortlessly carted Muralitharan with the turn over the cover region and dished out more of the same for the then-unreadable Mendis.