The Surfer

The truth is that KP has not been at the top of his game for a while now, especially in one-day cricket, the format he used to confirm his international pedigree with England in spectacular style, when he scored three hundreds in six games against South Africa.

Surely his seniors should have been assuring him that his talent is a thousand times greater than any loathsome parasite who grooms players for a role in a murky trade. Instead, it might turn out, if indeed the allegations are proved, that they merely allowed him to be exploited as grotesquely as if he were a serf chained to a medieval overlord.

The £4,000 cheque that Mohammad Amir picked up at Lord’s on Sunday as Pakistan’s player of the series underlined his country’s status as the poor relations of world cricket. It would be small change for most international cricketers, but is more than three times the £1,300 he earns a month from his Pakistan Cricket Board contract. Although the Pakistanis are thought to pick up around £3,000 per Test, that is still half as much as the English and Australian players.

It is inconceivable to me that anybody would try to throw a game or be involved in fixing. I was completely shocked when I saw it on television and read the papers ...

That Mohammad Amir, a precocious talent, is at the heart of the current allegations is particularly damaging. Cricket must put its house in order fast. Nothing undermines the credibility of any sport more than the suspicion that what you are watching is in fact a fix.

"I got ill with the dengue virus in Malaysia before the 2008 Under-19 World Cup when I was 15," he said. "I was in a very bad condition, it was a death situation, the doctors thought I was going to die – it was very bad. I was in hospital for one week and was on 24 drips a day. The doctors were surprised when I came round. When they sent me home they said that for one month I couldn't do anything and just to rest. That time was very bad for me and for my future. I was really scared."

It's a shame because if there was some real progress to be made, it would have been to see how good young Kane Williamson could be. His performance carried the most interest. Unfortunately we're none the wiser after he got three swinging, seaming deliveries resulting in scores of 0, 0 and 13.

''I've never taken criticism badly or negatively,'' he says. ''Players are always analysed and if you're not performing to expectations you can't expect easy treatment.

''The thing is that in my 11 years of first-class cricket I've never had to deal with that. I've never come close to that sort of scrutiny at state level. It's something I had to learn very quickly and adapt to, especially towards the back end of the Australian summer when the attention on me was growing.''

Some cricketers in particular seem to possess advanced degrees in scowling, and for some reason this is seen as a sign of 'attitude', which by today's yardsticks is a good thing to have. We see a reflection of this unhappy form of arrogance both on the field and off it, in the way they respond to other teams and in their public interaction with the media and their fans.
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We put our cricketers on a pedestal as easily and frequently as we lynch them and in a short period of time we make them immune not only to our reactions but to any outside perspective at all. The cricketer learns very quickly that everyone connected with the game has an angle, and in most cases it is financial in nature.

Test-match bowlers are allowed to make the ball misbehave - and Test match batsmen should be able to deal with it. I've never been the sort to bang on about 'in my day', but this was the kind of challenge we faced more often than not. If it wasn't Shaun Pollock and Allan Donald running in at you, it was Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, or Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie. You had to learn how to score ugly runs when the ball was moving. I may have had my faults as a batsman, but that was something I prided myself on. And I believe it's something this England team should be better at.

Some of the greatest brains in the game have failed to arrest the decline in popularity of one-day cricket, both internationally and domestically. There have been flirtations and dabbling with playing conditions, some of which have been very good and some just plain stupid (substitutes).

But did the ICC's Cricket Committee really slap each other on the back and say "that'll get the crowds flooding back" when they introduced the batting power-play? Now, however, there is a new format for Unions and Boards to consider, and it is so good -- and simple -- that it ranks among the invention of the wheel in cricketing terms. It was created by a man who most certainly does not rank among the greatest brains in cricket -- perhaps that is why it is so successful. Richard Wood is a South African actuary who took a completely dispassionate view of the game and looked at it as only 'numbers men' can. There was no outdated, emotive rubbish to consider about what you 'can' and 'can't' do during an innings or bowling spell.