The Surfer

Being dismissed leg-before by Atul Wassan for eight in the first innings was not going to do it for me. Luckily, we were asked to follow on and when Gooch and Mike Atherton had bedded in via their own respective styles, I found myself flat on my back with my eyes closed, listening to the game from inside the dressing room in the final session of the fourth day.

A bawdy but cheerful Boxing Day crowd, a benign pitch, a depleted and callow Pakistan attack and two crucial fumbles all favoured Australia on a sun-kissed MCG, but still two more tons went begging, one each for openers Shane Watson and Simon Katich. It is a flaw rather than a failing, but it has become a frustration. For Australia, the noughties are ending nervously.

The very moment they are challenged they lash out. It is an ugly look and even ardent supporters are unhappy. The Australians need to realise that at a time of evolution they will be challenged more often than ever was the case when Messrs Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist, Hayden, Langer and company were on hand. It is a different time and they must make some accommodation. They need to think and behave differently. It is to be earnestly hoped that Ponting, coach Tim Nielsen and manager Steve Bernard have pointed this out in the strongest possible terms.

With the ridiculous amount of cricket being played, it is probably time to think of best squads rather than best teams. To be able to field your strongest XI is becoming a luxury and the absence of key players has a serious bearing on results. Ask South Africa, who really missed Dale Steyn against England in Centurion.

And it is easier to swiftly condemn, if success is followed by a few failures. Where is Robin Uthappa today? There he was, smashing the fastest bowler over his head into the stands and grinding the ball to pulp. A few failures later, suddenly the world discovered a brash temperament and a back-foot shuffle which was no good at the international level. The superstar in the making vanished from our imagination as swiftly as he had arrived on the horizon.

Kohli needs to look at his teammate Gambhir and learn how to remain sane and focus on the game. Gambhir should be an example to all young talent in India that skill needs to be backed not just by the desire to excel, but also by steadfast concentration in honing them.

The bowlers will be looking forward with greater expectation to the conditions in Durban. A combination of recent rains, high humidity and a pitch — the fabled “green mamba” — that offers more bounce than anywhere in South Africa has encouraged a majority of captains since South Africa were readmitted into international cricket to put in the opposition. The pitch on Christmas Eve looked green, with plentiful cracks underneath the grass, although events in Centurion showed the folly of making your mind up too soon. Things might have changed by today.

England will probably be minded to stick with the team with which they began on the grounds that it did not lose and therefore deserves another shot. It was impossible to see where 20 wickets were coming from then and it has not become any clearer now.

England remain hampered by their inability to produce enough players of really high quality. The top dozen inhabit an exalted sphere which is hard to penetrate and has considerable power. The best players know they are more or less irreplaceable.

So what is it that has kept him going this long? A few years ago, when talking about his first matches in the India cap, he told me: "To be honest, I remember little of my first tour of Pakistan. I was just so excited to be part of the Indian team. I just wanted to go out and play as much as possible." When I suggested that not much had changed, he just smiled.

There, surely, is no going back to the chummy days of yore, when Ian Botham and Allan Lamb felt comfortable popping a mobile phone into the pocket of Dickie Bird's long white coat and getting someone to ring it when Beefy was coming in to bowl.

Those were warm-hearted, innocent times. Cajoling and schmoozing the umpire was part of the art, and players and officials had a rapport built up over seasons of kidding and winking. Most of the umpires had played county cricket themselves; they not only knew the tricks, they had used them.

From the time Kemar Roach hit me just above the left elbow with a short ball during the third Test in Perth I've struggled to hold a bat properly. I haven't batted since the Test ended on Sunday to give the damaged tendon as much time as possible to heal. Instead, I've spent regular sessions in a hyperbaric chamber, which increases oxygen levels, and just about every other waking minute on various ice machines.