The Surfer

Sodhi is less concerned about focusing on variations because he expects the Caribbean wickets to assist his stock ball. His practice has involved varying his position on the crease to change his angle and trajectory, as well as preparing to bowl at a left-hand heavy West Indies top order. He has also been actioning tips gleaned from his tutorial with Warne during the Boxing Day Ashes test which he described as "the best leg-spin session of my life".

"Once you're in that network of [match-fixing], you're screwed. Lou had everything to lose - a wife and two kids - and they do whatever it takes. They'll take photos of you in compromising positions, they'll threaten to release them to the media, they'll ruin your life. Now Lou's life has been tainted by these people he may as well be the one releasing the information. Over here [Adams is playing for Nottinghamshire] he's been made to look like a greedy bastard but I don't think there's anyone I've played with who was more obsessed with making the team happy."

All of a sudden, I am playing for the Proteas, then suddenly I have this big IPL contract where the pressures are of a different kind; there are these huge crowds cheering for you and expecting you to do well every time. I enjoy those moments because I visualised myself in these situations from a very young age. I used to hit a lot of tennis balls against the wall, just playing by myself and imagined I was playing a Wimbledon game. I could feel the crowd cheering for me, could hear the noise and I created that pressure inside my head. I talked to myself while hitting the balls, almost giving running commentary. It was more like day-dreaming than serious visualisation. But I think doing those sorts of things and expecting pressure at a very young age meant that I was prepared when I was actually faced with these moments.

There were also suggestions in favour of reducing the 30-yard circle to make the game pacier and give batsmen and fielders something else to think about. Eventually, though, that idea was scrapped because I didn't want to tamper with the fabric of the sport. Then there was the idea of giving online viewers an option to choose from 12 different camera angles on YouTube. I remember the meeting in San Francisco with YouTube's top bosses ...

But to further defang a body that has fairly limited powers anyway? Criticising the ACSU has always felt like having a pop at a boxer for not throwing punches and ignoring that his hands have been tied behind his back. Greater threats should mean greater, not reduced, powers. If the Big Three has their way and what little power the ACSU has goes to individual ACUs, that hacks away at one of the central tenets of the ACSU - its independence.

It took nine years to reach a majority vote on the latter, a process that Heyhoe Flint says required diplomacy and wit. "It was no use going in with a strident attitude saying: 'I'm a woman, I demand the right that after 204 years you have a woman member.' I just chat to people, get them on my side, with a light-hearted sense of humour - even though it's a very serious matter you're dealing with - and eventually you have people like Richie Benaud, Colin Cowdrey and Sir Jack Hayward supporting the concept of women members."

The first few months as a woman in what is often a man's world were not difficult but not a walk in the park, either.
"At the beginning there were some challenges in getting used to it. There were big things like not necessarily talking the same language - men follow sport more closely so it was just trying to figure out how to fit in."
It also boiled down to little practicalities like the expectation that the management and board of sporting organisations will wear ties.
"That doesn't work for a woman. So what do you do for a woman?"

I am not a born fast bowler. One has to find ways to be successful. I don't agree that your physique has to be good to bowl fast. I am working on my pace. I was bowling around 125 kmph last year but now I am consistently hitting the 130 mark. My pace has increased and I will continue to work in this direction. My pace will definitely increase as I have age on my side. The bones and muscles will only get stronger. In my interactions with the coaches, I have learnt that no matter how good the batsman is, he will struggle against the swinging ball. Even my captain George Bailey said this. So if the ball is swinging nicely, the batsman will find it hard to hit.

I must confess to being a little disappointed watching him at the Under-19 World Cup. He should have dominated that, he should have had other teams wondering what he would do to them. A Tendulkar, who played Under-19 cricket after a first-class hundred, would have been hungry, would have hit a couple of centuries. Samson played attractive cameos there too. In one game he fooled around with the bowling, hit the ball out of the stadium, then just kept slogging, was dropped a few times and got out. It was almost as he if was bored. As a young man bred on bright cameos, will he sustain the hunger to play long innings? Yes, he has a double century for Kerala, and that is a good sign, but keep your eyes open for the long innings.

Players and teams have to be hit where it hurts most and I am afraid the Pollard-Starc affair now makes it mandatory to have red cards on a field. If the Mumbai Indians were to lose the services of Pollard and the Royal Challengers were to see Starc sent off at that point in the game, you would never see what you did. And what about the terrible antics of the Chahals and the Bumrahs, the next gen cricketers who are learning bad behaviour as quickly as they are learning cricket.

I am not asking for a genteel tea party, I am asking for a ban on boorish behaviour. The Dravids, the Tendulkars and the Laras became world class, feared cricketers without disrespecting the game; Malinga and Dhoni don't feel the need to put on boxing gloves either.

While he was on holiday in Sri Lanka this summer, Fountain went to watch a match between a local side and a touring team from, you'll never guess, South Korea. This year's Asian Games are being held in Incheon this September, and, as with the 2010 edition, the 2014 Asiad will include a T20 cricket competition. As hosts, the South Koreans have decided to enter a team. Trouble being that outside of the ex-pat scene, the country isn't well stocked with cricketers. But what they do have, of course, are plenty of baseballers. They won the Olympic gold in 2008, and silver at the 2009 World Classic. Well, you can see where this is going.

Fountain is now the head coach of South Korea. He is trying to create a T20 team out of a bunch of baseballers. He remembers that match in Sri Lanka, he told Al Jazeera, because "the funny thing was that they made a lot of basic mistakes but they still posted 165 in 20 overs. And they even had 59 dot balls. It's monstrous - they just hit." Fountain says: "They're beginners but it's cheating to call them that. Show me a beginner cricketer who can hit the ball 110 metres. I've got an opening batsman who hit 90 runs last week. He took the opposition apart."