The Surfer

Flipping a vintage whiskey bottle around his head, he grabs it near his shoulder in one motion, before the concoction is neatly poured into four shot glasses without a spill. The impressed customers leave a happy lot to their seats, before his bartending skills are put on display yet again with bottles of ale, cider, beer and other hard liquors. As his clients soon growl with hungry stomachs, he switches his apron for a chef’s toque. A few minutes later, he joins the satisfied bunch at their majestic view to watch a game of cricket at Centurion.

NOTE to Michael Clarke and his management. If you want to know why the Australian Test captain-in-waiting has an image problem - and is mostly unloved by cricket fans and the sporting public - look at his Twitter page. At 9.07am on Saturday, with Australia's World Cup plans in chaos after serious injuries to Nathan Hauritz and Shaun Tait in the previous night's one-day international, Clarke was playing romantic matchmaker.

The 10th World Cup, when it finishes its initial month of meandering and approaches a climax, will do so in late March — the end of the cricket season in the Asian subcontinent, when the days are becoming intolerably hot. By then the pitches will be wearing and tearing in the midday sun, and spin will be the best way to counter big-hitting batsmen for whom limited-overs cricket is designed.

Versatility will therefore be the key ingredient. If you bowl first you will need loads of spinners to take advantage of the dry pitches that will prevail at the end of the season; if you bowl second you will need loads of seamers to take advantage of damp pitches, or at least medium-pacers who control a dewy ball, not fast and furious siege-engines like Shaun Tait who could spray it anywhere.

Geoff Howarth, Jeremy Coney and Jeff Crowe had Richard Hadlee and Martin Crowe; Stephen Fleming had Chris Cairns, Dion Nash, Shane Bond, a settled top six and importantly Vettori at a time when his body allowed him to spin the ball. Vettori, however, has never had Bond enough, a top six often in disarray, a lack of penetration and all too often only himself to put the skids on both when batting and bowling.

To How's credit, he didn't bluff. He admitted he hadn't done any keeping since his days at the New Zealand academy at Lincoln. He also did the honourable thing, saying he'd give it his best shot - as you do when the selectors could be listening. Yet he still sounded bemused at the prospect of standing behind the stumps in a tournament-defining encounter with a backyard level of experience.

As debate continues over why Hodge, 36, is overlooked for international honours, this time after missing out on a berth in next month's World Cup, former selection chairman Trevor Hohns has shed light on one of the great cricketing mysteries of the past decade. In an exclusive interview with Hohns says a selection backflip in early 2006 as Australia regrouped with a view to reclaiming the Ashes months later meant Hodge was dumped after five Tests in favour of the recalled Damien Martyn. "Obviously in our mind Marto was a class act,'' Hohns said. ''He was a class player. At that stage we were trying to build the side leading up to the Ashes.'' While Hodge had dominated South Africa's fast bowlers with an unbeaten double-century on a lifeless WACA deck in just his third Test, his first-innings dismissal two matches later at the SCG - caught at bat-pad fending at a short ball from around the wicket by the fiery Andre Nel - sparked concerns.

Border is precariously balanced on the shoulders of flamboyant batsman Dean Jones and paceman Craig McDermott. For good measure, Jones is holding on to Steve Waugh's left hand in order to provide his skipper with greater support on top of the world. While their smiles are broad enough to light the way back to the dressing-room and much, much further, it is their youthfulness which is so striking. Jones is 26 and McDermott and Waugh 22. And savouring the moment somewhere in the background were squad members Tom Moody, 22 and Andrew Zesers, 20. Judging by the decisions reached by the beleaguered chairman of national selectors Andrew Hilditch and his colleagues Greg Chappell, David Boon and Jamie Cox, such youthful resources are no longer available in Australian cricket. Indeed, exciting wicketkeeper-batsman Tim Paine, 26, John Hastings, 25, whose selection is as surprising as was Zesers' 24 years ago, and Steve Smith, 21, are the only players under 27. Border's triumphant team had 10 in this category.

Over the last twelve months, India have never played their first choice all-star batting line-up and as the next cab off the rank, Kohli has got a lot of games. He has not wasted any. He is willing to bat anywhere which is an indicator of how he sees change as an opportunity to prove things. Like Rohit Sharma, he too was asked to open the batting and bat at No. 3 and elsewhere. Each time a solid temperament, not always considered his strongest asset then, marched onto the ground and each time he looked a better player.

Australian sport in general has become a bit of a nanny state – no one can have their own point of view, no one can have their own colour, no one can sledge or make comment in the media unless it’s promoting the next ‘big game’ or goodwill cause. My personal highlights of games are when things get nasty on the field, when feelings come into a game. Finch brings that feeling into every game he plays. He puts the fun back into cricket. After all, isn’t that what we play the game for?

Ignored for the Ashes, he seemed a natural choice for the World Cup in the subcontinent not least for his prodigious efforts there in the IPL.

I don't have the evidence to predict whether Taylor will or won't extract the best out of the players, or whether the captaincy affects his own game either way.

While the team’s players stress that their families and friends support them, they say they often encounter opposition from men who think they should not be taking part. “The men of Afghanistan think sport is bad for the girls. They say they can’t play football, volleyball. We hope to bring hope to other people,” says 16-year-old bowler Tabasom. “When we exercise, cricket or any sport, we’re complete humans, regardless of gender.”

“It never happened. It’s actually a rumour. I don’t remember him saying, ‘Hersch, you just dropped the World Cup mate.’ I asked Gilly about it many years later, during my stint with the Deccan Chargers, and he told me that Waugh was just the kind of guy to go ahead with the rumour. If Australia wouldn’t have won the World Cup, you would have never heard of it, because it isn’t true."