The Surfer

Too many people, most with little idea of the technicalities of what he does, offer opinions and miss the essence of what he is as a bowler. His head bursts with information overload, when what is required is his game being stripped back to the bare essentials. And they are these: he has a strong action, and big hands which allow him to spin the ball prodigiously at times; he has a natural pace which is faster than many; he is capable of sustained spells of accuracy. That is a solid base of skills from which to work and expand, but first he should be encouraged to understand that essentially he is an attritional bowler, who gets wickets by persistence rather than magic deliveries. He suffers from an imperative to "make things happen" when his strength lies in the build-up of pressure.

That glorious day — June 25, 1983 — remains close to my heart the most. There have been some other great deeds too, but nothing to match the feeling of holding the World Cup in my hands. Sometimes I feel it is yet to sink in even today. That day will always be the most important day of my cricket life.

The only time a team should go with five bowlers is when one of them is a genuine all-rounder. By that I mean a “Freddie” Flintoff, although he was more of a No 7 than a 6 in the order. If England don’t want to play Adil Rashid in South Africa, they have to go with Paul Collingwood at 6, Matt Prior at 7 and Broad at 8. That line-up, with Graeme Swann at 9, has depth. Moving Broad and Swann up a place alters things dramatically. For Broad, there is a massive difference between having to score runs because that is what is expected from a No 7 and supporting the others or having a hit without too much responsibility a place lower. England should look at Shaun Pollock and Wasim Akram from the recent past. They had the potential to bat at No 7, but spent a lot of their careers at 8 because they recognised bowling as their more important skill. I would put Mitchell Johnson in that category — he can really hit a clean ball — and Broad as well.

Neither had he scotched the rumours of a move elsewhere, the classic signs of someone wanting to keep their options open. Though they may want to do exactly that, players cannot bleat about loyalty and then play the field. Player power, especially those with international reputations, has been on the rise in recent years, but you become vulnerable once your options are reduced.

"You Google the operation and get all these examples. A lot of basketball players have had it and they're much bigger and heavier and they jump higher than me. And they've made full recoveries. So I'm confident."Did he find any nightmare hits on Google – where the operation clearly failed? Flintoff chuckles: "I didn't look at them ones." The parlous state of his knee provides a constant reminder of all the injuries Flintoff has endured. He tells a quietly affecting story of how he has sometimes been reduced to sitting on the edge of his bed and calling his wife, Rachael, so that she can help him pull on his socks and shoes. For a big man, so often described in heroic terms, he has been terribly debilitated.

After him, there was a deluge—Zaheer Khan, Mohammed Kaif, the Pathan brothers, Munaf Patel. Indeed, the Azhar phenomenon helped instil confidence among Muslims, enabling them to brush aside taunts from Hindu chauvinists. It worked equally on non-Muslims—Azhar’s performance undercut the appeal of, say, Bal Thackeray to Hindus susceptible to the Muslims-support-Pakistan rhetoric.

The simple fact is that, with the bat, Shah does everything England don’t do in one-day cricket. He hits sixes, huge ones too. He has a force that, at its strongest, cannot be contained, which was demonstrated only three innings ago with his match winning 98 against South Africa, when he creamed 45 from his final 20 deliveries. He milks spinners effortlessly, a traditional failing of England (If you compare the 55 matches since Shah’s recall in 2007 with the 55 matches before, opposition spinners have conceded 0.44 runs per over and 6.30 runs per wicket more), and has the confidence to confront them, as he famously did on his Test debut in Mumbai. He looks the opponent in the eye and ask them what they’ve got.

Does he anticipate a hostile reception when, wherever it might be, he strides out for the first time? After all, in 2005 he was abused loudly and mercilessly. He smiles. "Well, Strauss is South African, [Matt] Prior is South African, so is Jonathan Trott, so it won't just be me." But he is the man those Afrikaaners in particular love to hate, isn't he? "Yeah, but I take that as a compliment, the same as Ricky Ponting does when he comes here. I enjoy it, actually. But you're right, in 2005 it was extremely abusive, and my mum and dad were very upset. Especially my mum. That doesn't bring fond memories, even though I scored three hundreds and was man of the series. But I don't expect it to be as bad this time. I think people in South Africa respect me now for what I've done."

"I'd been watching the TV and thought 'I've had enough of this'," Vermmeulen recalls. "I went off in my brother's Chevrolet, which had a South African number plate, and set fire to the building's thatched roof with a lighter. I watched it catch hold and then I drove away."

Once an umpire feels that a few pointed comments have become an attempt to undermine a batsman’s concentration, he is provided with a clear course of action. The preamble, no less clear and concise, also leaves little room for doubt about what is and is not acceptable. It is true that it is pretentious in referring to the game’s “unique” appeal because its beauty is in the eye of the beholder and not everyone reveres it. Nor is cricket different to any other sport in needing honourable conduct as well as a set of regulations.