The Surfer

Look at the figures – if you can bear it – since the end of apartheid. In South Africa on three tours England have played 15 Tests; they have won three, lost four and drawn eight; in Australia during that period England have played 20 matches, winning three, losing 15 and drawing two. The scars from the antipodes have not healed yet.

But one man will have to pull all these strands together when the talking stops. That is Strauss, who is as tough as teak but does not have machismo emblazoned on his clothing. "The word people use a lot with Strauss is impressive," Giles said, "and I think that is as a bloke and as a cricketer. He has a lot of respect from the people around him, he leads very much from the front, is a good leader of men and stays very level.

The queues were longest on the third day, when Sehwag was on the verge of becoming the first batsman ever to score three Test triple hundreds, with Sachin yet to bat. That explained why wickets in India are flat. Nothing sells like entertaining batting. The line started opposite the Ambassador Hotel, went around the Asiatic corner and to the gates of the Brabourne on the other side. At times, some teenaged boys got carried away with their language and were censured by elders. Near Gaylords restaurant, a lady in her 40s couldn’t take the f-words anymore. She turned around and snapped at the guilty party, a gangly youth with acne. “Continuous bad words”, “Is this how you speak in front of your mother?” were among the snatches of the tirade I overheard. The boy looked sheepish.

Chris Gayle had a mischievous grin on his face on Sunday when he likened facing Nathan Hauritz to facing himself. Clearly he does not rate either. Australian fans probably thought they would never see the day when West Indies would deride Australia's spin bowlers because they felt they have someone more threatening. But it's happened with the lanky Sulieman Benn and you can't hide from the truth ... Australia's spin bowlers don't scare people any more.

Skipper Ashok Meenaria, for example, is one of the first people from Udaipur's community of temple priests to take up sport as a career, while the team's premier spinner - left-armer Harmeet Singh - is the son of a Mumbai-based property dealer and an exception in his own family for his choice of vocation ... At the opposite end of that spectrum, perhaps, is wicketkeeper Sufiyan Shaikh. Sufiyan used to either get snubbed or slapped by his father if he walked into the house lugging a kit bag.

In bowling do we have a regular combination that could hold sway? In medium pace in one occasion it is the combination of Nuwan Kulasekera and Thilan Thushara, the next it is Welagedera and Dammika Prasad along with Angelo Mathew as the third seamer. But, out of the lot the only bowler who is somewhat sure of his place in the team is the most ineffective Mathews than the others. In the spin department the very limbs that helped Muralitharan who did wonders in the past is not giving him that same freedom.

Before the third test, the opening pair had failed to last more than 11 balls. This leads to a more devastating statistic that compounds on the remainder of the team. In the 16 innings prior to this one, New Zealand has got through the first eight overs just four times, the maximum being 12.1, before losing a wicket.

Is Clarke a natural leader?
He is. He's done a great job as captain of the Twenty20 team, and in my absence from the one-dayers he's done a good job and led the team well. He's got a different mindset as well when he has the role, which is a good sign as a leader.

Attention should always be drawn to December 7, 1984 when Border succeeded his mate Kim Hughes as skipper against the West Indies in Adelaide. It is a date of the utmost significance for it marks the beginning of what is best termed "the age of stability" in Australian cricket.