The Surfer

“I am happy with today’s silver. It means a lot to all our people back home, who are badly affected with the war,” Nabi said. “Even though we lost the gold today, this silver medal will give enough inspiration to our administrators to start building playing facilities so that more and more young players could be attracted toward this game.”

Afghanistan has never hosted an international match. It has only one ground with a proper turf pitch in Kabul, but there are some concrete pitches in Jalalabad. According to coach Rashid Latif, a former international cricketer from Pakistan, the cities of Khost, Kunar, Kabul and Jalalabad attract thousands of players. But there are no proper, established clubs due to a lack of facilities.

England's off-spinner no longer looked serene. We could sense that Swann, who has glided effortlessly through the last year, was now paddling furiously and only just beneath the surface. Hussey's aggression was serving a dual purpose. At a stroke he was resuscitating his own career, but he was also threatening the received wisdom. England's joker was being well and truly trumped.

At first it might seem odd to include Mike Hussey among those with little to lose. After all he has been under severe scrutiny for a year. Eventually, though, the time comes to stop sandbagging. Clearly, Hussey had reached that conclusion. Perhaps his last-gasp hundred for Western Australia at the MCG was the turning point. A duck in the first dig proved that crabbing was not working.

The crowd were roused from their somnolence and Stuart Broad from his repose in the dressing room. Late and unprepared, he was beaten by the swing and intensity of a leg-stump yorker and was lbw. A hat-trick, which even the umpire review system could not deny. Three moments of straightforward endeavour had turned potential solidarity into adversity. It was back-to-basics cricket. They miss, I hit. Siddle, picked as much for his perseverance and willingness to rough up the tail as anything else, had done his captain proud.

A complete reconstruction of his shoulder, a stress fracture to his foot and even a tooth abscess have caused him to take time out. His most recent absence, a 10-month lay-off because of a stress fracture of the back, was the wake-up call players sometimes need in their mid-twenties. In order to recuperate, Siddle spent time training with Australian rules football team Carlton and former Olympic champion cyclist Scott McGrory. It was this exposure to different sporting cultures he thinks has brought about a lasting change.

Somehow, Kirsten has found a way to work with the Board of Control for Cricket in India's administrators when all others, Indian and foreign, had endured far more conflict than cooperation. His "secret" is very simple and an old strategy. He sells his best ideas to the "big men" in the boardroom as being theirs and then allows them to take the credit when they succeed.

"I was called by [Pakistan coach] Waqar Younis - who gave me the title of Tagray Pathan (strong pathan) - to bowl to his batsmen. I felt honoured and extremely encouraged when the batsmen seemed to struggle against my bowling," Haq said. "Younis and [bowling coach] Aqib Javed really appreciated me and later, team manager Intikhab Alam took down my contact details and invited me to the NCA." Haq has played with frontline Pakistan bowler Umar Gul in Peshawar but complained that due to the situation in North Waziristan, he never got proper guidance.

The radio ritual has been a quadrennial winter-warming rite for solemn Ashes observance. Crucial to me is that the richest flavours of remembrance need the BBC box to be full of Oz commentators' ripe vernacular as the ball hits "the pickets", not the boundary fence; that extras are always "sundries"; and that the scorecard numbering is forever eccentrically reversed, as in that inaugural score back in 1946 when it was eight for 659 and not the other way around.

There are two very nervous teams in Brisbane right now. But it is when you drive to the ground on the first morning of the match that the stress of the Ashes really starts to show. As I remember it no one seemed too worried in the team meeting on the evening before the first Test in 2006. It was only when we were on the bus that it became clear how anxious the players were feeling. The atmosphere was so quiet. Nerves affect different people in different ways. Most players tend to go into their shells, though the odd one or two will become perky and try to crack jokes to lift the mood. What is obvious is that people are not being themselves.

Last time, I saw the first day's play in a sports bar in central London that was jammed with about 500 people watching Harmison's opening ball in which he bowled it almost sideways, causing a world record for the largest number of people to yell the words "Oh for fuck's sake," in perfect synchronicity.

Eleven years ago Duncan Fletcher had just taken charge of England. One of his first jobs was to pick a squad to tour South Africa that winter. Among the 17 players Fletcher selected was a whippersnapper named Graeme Swann. Fletcher had never met Swann but had heard good things about his off-breaks. Before the squad boarded the plane at Heathrow, he took Swann to one side in the departure lounge for a quick get-to-know-you chat. "Where do you see yourself in five years' time?" asked Fletcher. Swann, Fletcher remembers, turned around and said: "I am going to be the best spin bowler in the world."

"I've always remembered that conversation," says Fletcher. "I hardly knew the boy. 'Sheesh!' I thought. 'That's good, I like that.' But when we got to South Africa and I saw his attitude I thought: 'Boy, you're going nowhere.'" Fletcher, as every English cricket fan now knows, never picked Swann again.

Hauritz has not been dropped because he has done anything wrong, or let the side down. He has been ditched because he is serviceable, not special. The selectors have decided that is no longer enough. He might be the best spinner around but he cannot fly. Plainly, the selectors intend to prune and plant with the ruthlessness missing in recent years but often observed in the past. Players not quite up to the task will be told as much. Genuinely gifted players will be identified and promoted quickly, dropped after a poor patch and recalled as soon as they have sorted out their games. Let the moderate beware.