The Surfer

The last time South Africans took wrist- spin bowling seriously, Guglielmo Marconi was months away from sending radio waves across the Atlantic. The year was 1907, and the wrist-spinners concerned were Bert Vogler, Reggie Schwarz, Aubrey Faulkner and Gordon White, who went to England with Percy Sherwell’s SA team. That’s right: a Test team from this country that included four leg-spinners. Better than that, they were the stars of the attack, taking 40 of the 51 wickets that SA claimed in the three Tests. Vogler and Faulkner alone accounted for 29 wickets.

No sooner had he taken guard than his innings was under way. Spell-bound, many batsmen record ducks in their first Test innings. Khawaja's worries lasted a single ball. All morning he had watched the openers battling to survive as the ball moved about. Now he found his opening salvo ball arriving on his pads and politely tucked it away for two runs.

What to do with the rest of the batting order? Clarke stays at number four even though he's been a failure in that position, averaging just 20, and 19 this series. There is no one else. Given Mike Hussey's revival this summer he stays and Ponting could slot in at number six, pushing Steve Smith down the order or out of the side. Much will depend on whether Australia is prepared to play Smith as its front-line spinner. The other debutant, left-arm tweaker Michael Beer, could have a fair say in that later in the match if the weather dries out and Australia can give him a reasonable last innings total to bowl at.

Steve Finn, Chris Tremlett and Bresnan have all shone at different times during the first four Tests. And although he had little opportunity to stake a case, Ajmal Shahzad impressed in a couple of warm-up games. On top of those already named, you can add Graham Onions, who played a big part in the 2009 Ashes victory and hopefully will re-emerge as a real force once he has recovered from injury, giving England seven front-line seamers deserving of regular Test cricket.

The timing of Khawaja's selection could not be more poignant. He joins his country's team, so Anglo-white for so long, at a time when cricket is struggling to retain its prominence in a cultural landscape that shifts by the year. Rooted in a colonial past that is foreign to many post-war Australians, cricket desperately wants to embrace those ethnic and religious communities that traditionally have had little or no voice in the game.

Given what captain Andrew Strauss’s team had just achieved – a thumping of the old enemy by an innings and 157 runs – the celebrations were understandable. Yet even as the dance became an internet sensation, it raised the question of whether our appreciation of sport is helped by the growing vogue for schmaltz and showiness

When you are winning, it is the ideal time to take tough decisions and build on what has gone before. For England, that means having a fresh look at county cricket. It is time to cut county cricket from its traditional base of 18 teams back to 10. It is hard but, if they want to be No 1, they have to do it now

Not only did he become the second Australian to score a century on debut overseas, but he did it in the hardest place possible. He saluted his family in the stands and kissed the Australian flag sticker on his bat.

In truth it was an easy mistake to make, and I was not alone in doing so. Trott is quite simply the most underestimated and understated batsman in international cricket. His Test record is now astoundingly good; an average of 64 after 17 Tests, with five centuries and five fifties. He’s as good a converter as Dan Carter. But he’ll never grab the same sort of headlines

Inescapably, Khawaja's background is relevant. Indeed it is a cause for celebration. It is not so long ago that a youngster of his colour and conviction might have found his path to the top blocked. Even now tensions endure as caricatures persist. Simply by attending to his own affairs, Khawaja will help to break them down.

Like Joseph Conrad's enigmatic yet heroic fictional character, Lord Jim, VVS Laxman too is "an inch, perhaps two under six feet, powerfully built and he advances straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward and a fixed from-under stare", except that he does not remind you of a "charging bull" but of a man who is a little apologetic about his intimidating physique.

"In 1990, we heard that maybe South Africa will be allowed to return to the arena. The hope brought me back from Scotland, who I was representing at that time, and I started playing in Free State under a 19-year old boy called Hansie Cronje, who inspired me to do well. Two years later, in our very first Test match, I was in the playing XI,” Henry says, before adding, “After baking a cake for 18 years, I finally got the cherry on top.”