The Surfer

Victoria coach Greg Shipperd has revealed Keath will be offered an unprecedented three-year senior contract worth at least $150,000 with the promise of future domestic and international riches to come if he eschews an AFL career. Keath, 18, has already been nominated by Gold Coast Football Club under special dispensation rules giving the club access to the best junior footballers in the country.

Smith committed the horror sin of accepting the captaincy at the age of 22, taking over from the much-loved Shaun Pollock. Mothers wanted their daughters to marry Polly, fathers wanted their sons to bowl like him; then came along this young, brash fellow who took the world head on, dated a super model and was not afraid of confrontation. Smith is resented because he seems so sure of himself, because he scores his runs in such an ugly manner, and at such a rapid rate. This fear of confidence in South Africa is utterly bizarre. The perception of Smith is based more on emotion than the make-up of the man.

So the executive committee decided to replace Arthur and sack the selectors. But who are the committee? What gives them that right? And what are they doing to help the lack of transformation?

Why had Australia's front man bucked popular opinion and chosen one-dayers over cricket's version of Beatlemania? Why turn his back on truckloads of cash, packed crowds, adrenaline rushes, sure-fire ratings hits and even more truckloads of cash? His simple answer: ''World Cup.''

The Samoans named their bespoke version of the sport kilikiti (or kirikiti), a Polynesian transliteration of cricket. The major change was in the number of players per side, which was increased to allow greater participation. "It is nothing unusual to see 30 or 40 opposed to one another," Churchwood wrote, "and I have known them to play as many as 200 odd a side. The fact is, that these matches are of one town against another, in which all insist upon taking a hand. These huge meetings, as may be readily imagined, last a week or more, junketing going on the whole time, and generally wind up with a big feast."

Coaching or captaining this country, with the unique factors and needs that accompany it, is a particularly exhausting responsibility, and this against a universal backdrop which suggests more and more that coaches in professional sport have definite “shelf-lives” anyway.

Arthur perhaps didn't love the stress and tension that came with the job (who would?), but he revelled in being involved in the highs and lows that the national team has romped through since he was appointed in May 2005. If he was hurt by the suggestions that his nickname was Mickey Mouse and he was no more than Smith's puppet, then Arthur didn't show it.

The mere arrival of Wessels would probably quell that swiftly, and it is possible that some of his known non-negotiables – like personal discipline and devotion to conditioning – would help propel Smith and company beyond just sporadic major triumph but also to the ability to bed down emphatically at pinnacles rather than visit them disappointingly fleetingly.

There's a famous photo of a national under-19 carnival in the late 1990s, when Warne was in his prime, containing a group of Warne wannabes – young spinners with blond streaks, ear-rings and big dreams. None of them progressed further than grade cricket. Very few leg-spinners ever do. The message was that Warne was a freak.

But is it too simplistic for cricket's bosses to assume that by flicking on the lights, both the traditional and new-age fans will pour through the gates? Is it even logical? Just playing a game - or a good portion of it - under lights won't change its basic nature. Test cricket is a game of patience, endurance and tactics and sundown won't magically serve as a cue for batsmen to throw it all away and start slogging like madmen.

There has been much talk of the principle that "the umpire's decision is final" and how it represents one of the absolute and inviolable tenets of the game – as if the game was designed for the benefit of the umpires rather than the players or spectators. The notion that the umpire's authority is constantly undermined by the UDRS makes little sense to me.