The Surfer

"The burn-out issue is there, but then the player has to be smart about management," Gilchrist said. "The lucrative dollars are there, but you have to be successful for the national team to reap the rewards in tournaments like the IPL and the Champions League.”

Pipe down, Victorians and assorted other non-Blues. NSW have proved themselves as the dominant provincial side in the world, let alone Australia, so the selectors might as well just flood the Test XI with Blues - 10 of them plus captain Ricky Ponting, who lives in Sydney anyway.

On a final note, here’s another interesting stat that might give the BCCI some pause to think before scheduling more and more T20s — the Indian public has been notoriously fickle when it comes to supporting their team and India, despite popular perception, is not a very good T20 unit.

I have long been a huge admirer of Agassi on court but I do hope people do not rally to his support; like with the pathetic attempt to protect Roman Polanski. The more we pardon offenders, either through the law or through public affection, the easier we make it for someone else to cross the line. And here in India we need to take a tough stance too. Our weightlifters are now a joke around the world as indeed are the officials who looked the other way in spite of fairly obvious proof. If the game isn’t strong those that play it need not be strong and you can see that association at work in the build up to the Commonwealth Games.

Pietersen breaks with tradition. Enforced rest usually prompts sportsmen to become depressed and allow problems to fester but he turned this on its head. “Preparation is what I bank on and preparation has definitely been hampered because of external thoughts,” he said. “These last three months have cleared my brain and my thoughts.”

It’s part of the coach’s job to understand the mental make-up of players so that they accept the methods and give their best, but the coaches complain that players refuse to accept the advice of coaches even when their own methods are not successful.

Gone are the days when Ray Illingworth, who was the one-man selection committee and also the coach of the England team, would act like a dictator. Modern players want more of a say in strategy planning.