The Surfer

The significant, blindingly obvious difference is that in cricket the England side is paramount. Increasingly the county game revolves around Andy Flower, the team director, like the planets orbit the sun. The opposite happens in football, where clubs are serious, multi-million pounds businesses and take priority over the national team. Supporters have their allegiances too. Even those who fork out hundreds of pounds to follow England abroad weave the name of their club team into the red and white flag.

Whether limited overs matches in England can have much empirical bearing on an Ashes series in Australia remains a matter for conjecture. Nonetheless, there is no doubt Ricky Ponting's tourists have fallen prey to the sort of patterns that can only raise English chances of retaining the urn they won at the Oval in 2009.

England had won World Twenty20 and one-day fashions were designed on slicker, brasher lines. Strauss, it was suggested, was stuck in the world of the gentleman's outfitters. But it was Strauss who held England together with a restrained 87 from 121 balls, a judicious one-day innings, as traditional as a pin-stripe suit.

Under Strauss and Andy Flower, the coach, England have changed. Their fielding now fairly bristles with genuine purpose. And the same applies to their batting and to their bowling. It is not about being gung-ho, going in with bats blazing and letting slip the forces of bowling hell, but there is a purposeful, hard-eyed method based on controlled attack, bellig-erent strokeplay and rapid, roughing-up bouncers, rather than attrition.

Among those coaching in Jaffna is Ravindra Pushpakumara, a former fast bowler and member of the Sri Lankan 1996 World Cup winning team, who is the provincial coach. As many as 18 schools play cricket in Jaffna — St John’s and St Patrick being the major ones — and the district is playing the Under-15, Under-16 and Under-19 matches. They will then be grouped along with other provinces in the north and north east to play provincial cricket.

What could quite possibly be more important than official squads? Why, the gameplay, of course. Real squads don't mean squat if the gameplay experience is sub-par. Fortunately , IC 2010 does not disappoint on this front. While still based on the engine that powered its previous two efforts, refined gameplay mechanics and new additions such as the `action cam' m and `power stick' control have enhanced ed the way one experiences a cricket game. e. Action-cam puts the perspective right t over the shoulder of the batsman or bowler, à la Gears of War. This third-person cam guarantees a lot more immersion and is great if you're playing the game by yourself. When you're batting, you can look around and the field like in real life, pick your spot and place the ball in gaps or smash it over the head of a fielder.

So, is Younis right to be taking this stance or is the PCB being too fussy and childish? What is it that Younis has supposedly done and will be apologising for anyway? Many would argue that he should apologise for the sake of it as it is obvious how much his country needs him. But if ’sorry’ is a hard word to say for the likes of us, then it is near enough impossible, not only for a Pathan, but one that thinks he is innocent.

While he was about it, Morgan also confirmed that within little more than a year he has become one of the most accomplished limited-overs batsmen in the world. What made it truly outstanding, as England beat Australia by four wickets in the first match of the NatWest Series, was Morgan's serenity.

He came in when England were in trouble which, at 97 for four in pursuit of 268, was in danger of becoming deep trouble. But his patience as he felt himself into the match was consummate. The innings spanned only 85 balls but it was not until the 19th of them that he struck the first of his 16 fours. The pace and timing, embellished by the bravura quality of his strokes, were impeccable.

If fault there is in 50-over cricket, it lies not, for example, in the so-called boring middle overs, but in the number of ODIs that have been played over the past two decades, with little or no context, and the negative impression created by the continual quest for innovations: we are not happy with our product, seems to be the message, so why should you be? Add in a few ICC-manufactured matches that left dear old Bill Frindall and his fellow stattos shaking their heads, and the number of one-day internationals surged through the 3,000 barrier at the Rose Bowl.

Ahead of an epoch-defining match against a country with a population less than that of East London, those that follow English football are familiar with all of these. Yet, in eight months time, we could write exactly the same things and they would be equally relevant to Indian cricket. Come February and March 2011, a hundred TV channels and newspapers and blogs in more than a dozen languages will indulge in a navel-gazing frenzy as India's finest attempt to emulate the improbable events of June 1983, when a team rated a 66-1 chance by some bookies beat the overwhelming favourites in a contest that was cricket's answer to Rumble in the Jungle and rope-a-dope.

Even Ponting, in slightly more grudging mood than usual, conceded Morgan was difficult to set fields to, although his caveat – “against the spinners” – again overlooked Morgan’s efforts against an admittedly second-string Australian seam attack. “There’s not too many guys in international cricket if you bowl them a half-volley they won’t put it away,” said Ponting. True. Neither are there too many who will help a bouncer to very fine third man with no more than a contemptuous flick of the wrist.