The Surfer

Could such an ill-balanced team carry off the big prize? As Sri Lanka showed in '96, it's not impossible. But unless Zaheer, Ishant and the rest improve dramatically over the coming months, the pressure on the batsmen will be huge. One bad game, like South Africa had against West Indies in '96, and the cherished dream will become a grisly nightmare.

...He is revered by many who follow the game – especially in Yorkshire – as a great batsman, perhaps the best Englishman of that calling since the Second World War. For others – many of them in Yorkshire – he will never rank alongside Herbert Sutcliffe and Sir Leonard Hutton and will forever carry the stigma of being the individual who brought a great county cricket club to its knees.

To sum up assessing Geoffrey Boycott is like – and this comes from several good sources – batting with him.

If no English cricketer can bowl the doosra then does that mean that no other bowler can do it with a legal action? If an English bowler was bowling the doosra then it would be considered a world class delivery. The same things were said about reverse swing. Reverse swing was introduced by Pakistani bowlers, the googly was introduced by Abdul Qadir, and the doosra was introduced by Saqlain Mushtaq. They will never accept it unless an English bowler can bowl it. The English have been playing cricket for more than a 100 years, why can't they come up with such variation? Our country is small but we've been blessed with great talent. We don't have the resources that other countries have but we make up for it with talent and hard work.

Beginning from the standard, pay structure and right down to the culture attached to the game, it is blemished. When the national cricketers miss Premier League matches or National Cricket League (NCL), the standard goes down a few notches. And it's not just the standard of cricket that is poor but grounds, pitches, dressing-rooms, etc leave a lot to be desired.

“I’m pretty grounded anyway,” he [Morgan] said, sipping weak tea in a simple Finchley cafe. He does not live in a swish apartment – just an anonymous block of flats off the North Circular Road – or wear loud T-shirts or gallivant around at sponsors’ launches or celebrity parties. “We didn’t have anything as kids, just sport and each other [he has five brothers and sisters], so I take nothing for granted. I didn’t need to spend four days sleeping on the ground in a leaking tent to remind me how lucky I am to do what I’m doing.

Give Mark Greatbatch the reins rather than leaving him in no-man's land. Get John Wright involved to inject some passion into proceedings. Let us ask Stephen Fleming to help Daniel Vettori get up to speed as a captain. Let us ask Ian Smith to stabilise Brendon McCullum. Let us prepare better. The side was sent away to Bangladesh in the monsoon season and seemed surprised when its warm-up games were washed out.

Consider this: Brendon McCullum swung hard and sent his fifth ball straight up in the air; Jesse "Cement Feet" Ryder went nowhere on the crease to be lbw; BJ Watling was hopelessly run out in schoolboy fashion (forget that the decision was probably wrong, the outcome was deserved), Ross Taylor played all around a straight ball with a bat coming down from third slip; and Kane Williamson pushed out to edge to slip. Some batting had that "bags are packed" look to it. Not good enough.

The rupture was not as bad as the hamstring injury I suffered in Australia last time around. It took me 17 days to get back to the gym, this injury is relatively milder, Yes, you are spot on when you state that I was saved by the bell and like I made mention the recovery period was quick thanks to the guidance of the physiotherapist who ensured that I followed his instructions every step of the way.

There is comedy, pathos and violence in the imagery of English batsmen like Greig and the stubborn, bald-headed, 45-year-old Yorkshireman Brian Close facing up to the fast-bowling attack led by Michael Holding, Joel Garner and Andy Roberts. It is cinematic too. Certain archive scenes here play like sequences from a Mack Sennett comedy. All seems calm during the long, elegant run-up of Holding and then, a moment after the ball is released, an Englishman is down – poleaxed by one of Holding's bouncers

While the film deals with some heavy subject matter, you never feel that you're being lectured to. The players exude warmth and ultimately, Fire In Babylon is an uplifting documentary. You'll walk out of the cinema feeling energized, educated and enlightened

It's certainly one of the darkest periods in our country's brief history. In almost every walk of life, we as a nation are sinking towards rock bottom. Cricket is no exception. But the thing is that we can't afford to let it get destroyed. Cricket is not just a game in our part of the world. It's a passion, perhaps the only one which is shared by the entire nation -- from the rugged tribal areas to the shores of the Arabian Sea. If there is anything that can unite us, even in these troubled times, its cricket. It's the heartbeat, even the soul of our nation. And it needs to be saved.

The unsurprising, yet concerning, revelation from these graphs is that Pakistan’s prowess in international has been eroded during the past decade. The dip is marginal in ODIs, but alarming in Tests. Pakistan has spent the 2000s near the bottom of the Test table, ranked sixth out of eight, ahead of only New Zealand and West Indies.