The Surfer

An unassuming and silent servant of the game, even after all his hard-earned achievements — over 350 Test and 400 ODI wickets, an impressive tally of 26 wickets in a 3-Test series against Brian Lara’s Windies in dusty local pitches that were made to suit Murali’s spin, his eight-for in an ODI and the much-hyped ‘first-3-ball hat-trick’ against Bangladesh in the 2003 World Cup —both fantastic world records — never made Vaas a toffee-nosed chap.

If Flintoff pushes back the odds, as he did at Lord's, and makes a match-winning contribution it will be an achievement of a dazzling order, something to put alongside the feats of the man with whom he has been compared for so much of his career, Sir Ian Botham. That is the tantalising prospect as the time of today's action draws near. But of course there is the other one, not tantalising but nightmarish – the possibility of Flintoff the hero becoming the passenger, the man whose dreams eventually, and perhaps inevitably, went beyond any reasonable prospect of further support from an overstretched body.

And for cricketers who want their achievements to be recognised rather than mired in suspicion, they should think about someone such as Mark McGwire, the former Major League home run record-holder who has yet to be inducted into the Hall of Fame because of doubts about his drug taking. By refusing to answer questions about steroid abuse in front of a congressional hearing, McGwire cast doubt on his record and that of everyone else of that era.

Manou, who has probably been more anonymous in England than the team bus driver, didn't have time to be presented with a baggy green cap. Which was just as well because both of the spare baggy greens on tour were back at the team hotel.

I don't think anyone has ever doubted his batting ability, but because he has been that all-rounder type he has probably been looked on as a five, six or seven batter. His technique will stand up against anyone's and when fast bowlers deliver some ordinary balls he jumps on them pretty quickly and puts them away.

Experienced journalists tell me they’ve almost never heard the editor storm the floor of the office yelling “stop press!”, which seems to be a permanent fixture in all movies about newspapers. Wire services do have obituaries of prominent (and ageing) personalities ready to be published in case of any eventuality, but the number of times someone is wrongfully declared dead and has to say, “look at me, I’m clearly alive” are few and far between.

Details of this particular scenario are even more annoying because the WICB shamelessly instructs the hapless young players to invoke the name of Sir Frank Worrell to support their stance, when they know full well that Sir Frank would more likely have supported the idea that the WICB needs to honour agreements, negotiate in good faith and plan its business with acumen and not cunning. Sir Frank as educator would not have wanted to teach young players to disrespect the spirit of the game, nor would he have encouraged them to break solidarity with players like themselves. What happens now to those players after their horrible initiation

“I’m home most days from 7am to 8 am, so that time suits me perfectly,” Bindra said. "Anyway, you’re ready to pee when you get up in the morning and that’s all they would ask for.” Entries made by the athlete are expected to stand for a quarter of the year, unless he/she changes plans, like Bindra did for today. “So I logged on, clicked on the box for August 4, 2009 on the calendar, disabled my usual testing slot, and entered the new evening one,” Bindra said.

Now that he's learned how to hang around at the crease and even play a few shots, he's showing a greater awareness of how to out-think the batters when he has the ball in his hand. That process can take time but the signs are he's getting right. And the exciting thing is, he can get even better.

If he is not fit, a suspect pitch would improve Trott’s chances, cloud cover would improve Sidebottom’s and neither of the above would represent Harmison’s best chance of one last crack at Australia before he, too, heads into the sunset.