The Surfer

Gayle helped to popularise T20 cricket, then progressively to refine it. The Bash for Cash is the latest and most exciting form yet, known as One-one, or — imaginatively — O1. "One ball each," explained Gayle. "Minimalisation to the max. Takes out all the tedium and dreariness. Game's over in no time. The kids love it." Symonds loved it; all he ever wanted to be growing up was a kid. Brett Lee was not so sure: he bowled a no-ball and went out in the first round.

If the players are not skilful enough – and they are not – what does that say about the original Twenty20 championship? The oldest and not the best. None of this will have much bearing on the Ashes but England have missed the opportunity to captivate a new audience. No heroes have been made so far and two of the so-called T20 specialists Rob Key and Graham Napier, have barely had a look in.

We're halfway through the tournament already with the excitement only set to rise over the second week as we race towards the business end of the event.

"I got to play at Edgbaston, the Oval and Lord's. That's a good thing, you know, we've got five Tests over there and now I have played on three of the grounds. It just gives you a feel for it and it's boosted my confidence a bit."

It would be in keeping with their mercurial character if the Pakistanis now began to play with real magic. They have a good record at Twenty20 and are in much the easier Super Eight group. A semi-final spot is a genuine possibility - and then, who knows what?

One of the things we learnt from the IPL was that great players in the traditional formats put a price on their wicket and consolidate when things go wrong when sadly, there is neither the time nor often a sound reason to consolidate. Maybe that is where a Ponting or a Hussey haven’t allowed the learning curve to set in. In the absence of Symonds, their best T20 batsman is probably David Hussey but he saw six others bat ahead of him.

The theatre surrounding the man here was irresistible as usual. When Ravi Bopara went in the first over, it was almost a surprise to see Pietersen striding to the wicket. Striding? After hearing his own melodramatic versions recently of his injury woes, surely the mighty one would hobble out there on a Zimmer frame.

Still, as he is never slow in letting us know, he is a man who knows no fear and no pain. He’d played before with a damaged back, broken ribs, a broken hand; and, of course, many times with a broken team.

Conventional wisdom is that fielding – especially in context of teams such as India, stereotypically lethargic in the field — has really come into its own only in modern times. Really? Think of a close catching cordon that reads: Syed Abid Ali, Sunil Gavaskar, Ajit Wadekar backed by S Venkatraghavan at gully and Eknath Solkar – that short leg specialists’ specialist – in the leg trap, aided and abetted by Syed Kirmani behind the stumps. Now name me a modern-day Indian equivalent to match that line up. [And since Mark Waugh's name came up in Rob's post, compare contemporary Aussie lineups against one that reads the Chappell brothers, Ian Redpath, Doug Walters, Paul Sheehan and Ashley Mallett, and try to top that cordon for close catching.]

Why was the usually articulate captain so reluctant to comment about the fitness of his deputy and one of the team's proven match-winners? That remark only added to the impression that something was amiss. So several publications, including The Times of India, carried articles saying as much.

It is true that Symonds has, for some time, been on the kind of slippery slope that Paul McGrath (and countless others, such as Tony Adams) described in his memoir of his time as a professional footballer, when booze became not just an enabler of good times but an emasculator of everything else. At Manchester United during Ron Atkinson's time as manager in the 1980s, beer was as much a part of life as pasta is now. “Drink offered escapism,” McGrath wrote, “and in no time I became an expert at escaping everything around me.”