The Surfer

That they did it so shamelessly and without a skerrick of panache took it from scheming to the bleeding obvious. Ham-fisted yes, but hardly cheating or in poor spirit. That is what worried the England commentators - not the motive but the method. To be critical of England for not playing in the spirit of the game is to be precious.

Each bowler let England down in his own way. Jimmy Anderson forgot that he is at his best pitching the ball up. Stuart Broad unaccountably spoon-fed Phillip Hughes. Andrew Flintoff briefly rode a wave of popular raucousness, then reverted to unpenetrative type and is now injured once more. Graeme Swann overpitched; Monty Panesar lacked verve - and both spinners bowled too fast. They probably didn't go into this game thinking they would learn anything off Hauritz, but Ashes cricket evidently retains its capacity to surprise.

Strauss's field placings, meanwhile, ranged between unimaginative and puzzling and his bowling changes asked few hard questions. He was not helped by some ordinary bowling and idiot batting, but there was none the less a palpable sense of drift. Occasionally Strauss looked to the skies for the promised rain, the equivalent of a beaten boxer going to the ropes with his gloves around his head hoping the referee will rescue him from his torment. Muhammad Ali, as fine a boxer as he was, won many a bout with what might best be described as the power of his intellect, an intangible magic that drained his opponents of rational response. Vaughan did it to Ponting in 2005. If Strauss is to have even a chance of emulating him, he has to find sorcery from somewhere.

Like a second-hand car with plenty of miles on the clock, Flintoff's body has become unreliable. You can give it as many MOTs as you like - and an MOT for Flintoff is another bout of rehabilitation with his physiotherapist and great friend, Dave Roberts - but it is a truism that when you set off on a long journey, you are just not quite sure whether you will reach the destination.

How confident are you of meeting the fans’ expectations?

Border averaged 50 in a side which went three years without winning a series – in an era in which every team seemed to have at least one outstanding bowler – was quite special at a time where boundaries were longer, wickets spicier, bats inferior and attacks better credentialled than they are today.

Does anyone believe the line that Franklin is better off playing English county cricket rather than turning out for New Zealand A? Better off in terms of pounds earned for Gloucestershire, certainly (and good on him), but it looks as if Franklin has been axed and told he wouldn't be close to being on the next flight into Sri Lanka even if he was in India with the A team.

The West Indies Cricket Board, not content with having the worst cricket team in the world, last week sent a second string worst team in the world to play Bangladesh. That’s like deciding to send Salman Rushdie on a goodwill tour of Iran but, at the last minute, replacing him with George Dubya Bush.

Here, on a pitch that emasculated pace bowlers and spinners alike once the ball had lost its hardness, England were given a batting lesson by Australia's four centurions, one absorbed only by Paul Collingwood among the top order. They need to think long and hard about the disciplines required, the selection of shots according to the conditions and the bowling.

Take their hairy-chested batting on the opening day. Here was an attempt to recapture the epic spirit. To that end, the batsmen played a wider range of shots than the pitch permitted. Sophia Gardens had provided an all-too familiar pitch, slow and low and hardly changing as the days went by. It was a time for application, even attrition. Yet the locals batted in a gung-ho style, with vivid drives, edges onto the stumps and so forth. The focus on Kevin Pietersen's dismissal was overdone. Was his ill-advised sweep the only poor shot of the innings?