The Surfer

The players should not get upset about criticism because hard talk could spur them on to work harder towards proving themselves at international level.

It's been a long and bumpy road for Brendan Taylor since his debut as an 18-year-old schoolboy. As if international cricket wasn't overawing enough for someone so young, he immediately found himself caught in the middle of a political standoff. Zimbabwe's white players were protesting at what they saw as a racist selection policy from Zimbabwe Cricket, and wanted Taylor to take their side. Instead he opted to stay out of it and play for his country, but while that's turned out to be a good decision it hasn't meant the past six years have been easy.

Trott is an atypical modern England batsman because he is happy to stay in second gear for an entire day and more. We prize stiff-upper-lipped captain/openers; middle-order stylists; and the very occasional destroyer (read Kevin Pietersen). But bubble-dwelling run-machines arouse our suspicion. If they happen to have been born elsewhere, so much the worse.

The objections of Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, on the face of it, don’t seem to be very grave, though they do believe him to be racist. Sri Lankans officially say they would prefer a career cricket administrator, though their real grievance is that Howard once called the great Muttiah Muralitharan a ‘chucker’. The Zimbabweans dislike him essentially for his role in that country’s suspension from the Commonwealth in 2002, and his call for boycott of relations with their country.

"Losing my contract didn't hurt me, because of what playing for Australia had become. I wasn't having fun anymore. I wasn't enjoying it. I felt like I was in a cage. Always under the microscope. Once I had got home from England, and everything had settled down, it was a relief."

The film follows the team’s coach, Taj Malik, as he prepares his charges for one of the first rounds of the World Cup qualifiers, division five of the World Cricket League, in Jersey in 2008, against such cricketing minnows as Japan and Nepal. Taj is filmic gold, the same sort of bumbling hero that Hugh Grant has built his career upon — though infinitely more endearing, and with none of the floppy hair. He is an enormous bundle of nervous enthusiasm and perpetual wonder. Like a precocious child he introduces himself to strangers at Dubai airport — having first overcome his nerves to travel down the escalator — and, spotting an elderly Japanese man wearing flip-up sunglasses, he blurts out: “Hello, six eyes!”

People may have an axe to grind with him, but De Mel was a firm believer that once a player was past certain age, he wasn’t good enough for selection for the national team. Indika de Saram and Jeevantha Kulatunga were the casualties. They scored heaps of runs in domestic cricket but hardly got a look in. De Mel argued that making runs in domestic cricket and international cricket were two different things and openly admitted that Sri Lanka’s domestic cricket is extremely weak.

So underpinning everything he did in the first Test was the knowledge that if he failed, he was likely to be cut from the side. His critics will be quick to point out that runs scored against Bangladesh count for less. But this is where it is essential to have a real understanding of the range of difficulties Test cricket throws up. Scoring big against a weak bowling attack has its own problems, especially for a man under pressure for his place in the team. Firstly there is the added expectation. Against Bangladesh a century is not necessarily enough to make a convincing case because it comes with a caveat. The most impressive aspect of Trott's 226 was the way in which he carried on after reaching his hundred. Weaker players would have thought: "Right, that's enough," and switched off.

This was a team meant for the future, as our more senior players had shown a similar lack of vigour and vitality in the Twenty20 World Cup. In the IPL that preceded the World Cup, the players would celebrate each win like a hunter does when he captures his prey. They would mourn each defeat as if they would have to go hungry all their life.

Pride and Miraculous, two of my sons, went to the match and afterwards sent a message that said simply “Kaka!” As far as they were concerned, the chance to see him in the flesh was not to be missed. Could even Sachin Tendulkar have created remotely as much anticipation? And it was not a Test match.