The Surfer

Over the years, the biggest possible names in Indian cricket with too many things on their plate, and few foreign experts too, have been at the helm of affairs at the NCA. Invariably, a change on the name plate outside the Chairman's chamber at the NCA has coincided with a shift in focus of the institution. The last decade has seen the academy being projected as a finishing school, a centre of excellence for elite cricketers, a monitoring institute for fringe players, a one-stop rehabilitation clinic and even a college for coaches. This has meant confused priorities, muddled planning, detached leadership and, ultimately, the NCA failing to groom talented cricketers.

England have an exciting group of fast bowlers, and if they can leave the most skilful of them, Jimmy Anderson, out of the one-day team, then it shows how much competition there is. I'm really pleased for Steven Finn. England need a tall hit-the-deck bowler, and Finn gives them that. He'll make mistakes, but I hope people are more patient with him than they were with me.

No team could breathe easily after losing three players of the calibre of Vaughan, Trescothick and Simon Jones. But while Strauss must hope he does not have to find out exactly how much strength in depth England possess these days, there is reason to believe that the toughest decisions this winter will concern who to leave out of the XI, rather than who to put in.

Take the batting department, for example. Were Bell to be fit (and he won't be) for Friday's Second Test against Pakistan at Edgbaston, who would miss out? Morgan? What, after that terrific century at Trent Bridge? Jonathan Trott? Hang on, he scored a double hundred two matches ago. Pietersen, then? Some might like to show KP that no one is irreplaceable but the old expression about noses and faces springs to mind. OK then, Alastair Cook. But hold fire, he made three centuries in just five Test matches last winter.

I quizzed him further about his batting style, and he said, “I used to play tennis regularly, and that’s where I learnt shot-making from. My strength in tennis was hitting the ball as hard as I can, because I was gifted with powerful forearms.” That’s where when one of the most ferocious strokeplayers of Ceylon cricket, learnt his trade, unusual yet amazing.

We cannot go on saying Pietersen is a batsman who can change a Test match in a couple of hours. He used to be able to do that but he has not scored a Test hundred in 22 innings since March 2009 in Trinidad.

Counties should do everything possible to help the England team but Hampshire were within their rights to say last week: ‘Sorry Kev, you have never done anything for us when we needed you, why should we put you in our 40-over team now you need us?’

Now, there is a new invitation to prove that English cricket has grown strong again at some extremely broken places. The Pakistanis have new leadership, new talent and apparently a fresh appetite for returning to the mainstream of Test cricket after the ravaging impact of last year's terrorism. It offers the perfect challenge for a team who enjoy plenty of reasons to believe that they will triumph here before going back to Australia to consign to history the memory of an England team that simply fell apart four years ago.

It seems to have robbed him of sleep, though. Sporting a two-day stubble and the after-effects of a siesta, Pandey is slumped in a plush leather chair behind a huge mahogany desk. There’s no trace of polish in his ways, not even an effort to project it. Fiddling with his two BlackBerry’s, eyes constantly wavering to detect incoming activity on them, Pandey, 33, smiles a knowing smile. Next to him, Rhiti’s marketing man, Sangeet Shirodkar, a cherubic 25-year-old, does the same.

Far from being an innovative idea, the principle of bodyline, although not called that of course, had been around and exploited for at least four years previously, and maybe before that. Wyatt himself, and others, were actually on the receiving end of it. Wyatt was to be Jardine's vice-captain in Australia, and although he is generally thought of as being opposed to the use of bodyline, it doesn't quite marry with his own account, which says: "I think Jardine was fully justified in using him [Larwood] as he did."

The caveat was that it only worked because of Larwood's unique combination of extreme pace and accuracy. "The ill-feeling it caused was not good for cricket," Wyatt adds.