The Surfer

Through lenses of nostalgia and historical determinism, we easily feel that things could not have been different. Yet how many times did Botham play and miss on what was a horrible pitch for batting, or carve the ball over the slips? What if Rod Marsh had got an eighth of an inch more bat on the hook that Graham Dilley caught a yard inside the fine-leg boundary on that last afternoon, or Mike Gatting and Botham himself not held excellent catches an inch or two off the ground in the over before lunch on the same day? Yet in retrospect it is tempting to see the chain of events as not only inevitable but morally appropriate. We were bound to win; we won because we deserved to, and we deserved to because of some ineffable quality or spirit lacking in other teams at other times.

It was still only 11.00am, an hour after the scheduled start of the New Zealand-Scotland match, but Dads were grimly and determindly sipping their first pint of beer - duty called. The difference to most such occasions was that their children were with them. There were children everywhere, completely unburdened by the weather and unperturbably thrilled by the prospect of seeing international cricket - at some point - while they sat cross-legged under the rafters munching the cheese and pickle sandwiches packed for two hours later.

Where did it all go wrong for England last night? Questions must be asked initially about team selection. With Kevin Pietersen unavailable through injury, the selectors had the perfect opportunity to stiffen an already thin bowling line-up and substitute Pietersen’s firepower by bringing in Graham Napier or Dimitri Mascarenhas. They did neither, replacing Pietersen with Robert Key, who after England’s bright start was demoted in the order and came in late on precisely when a big hitter was needed. Mascarenhas should have played.

This summer his team-mates were told they had to keep a close eye on him. Management told the players that he couldn't be left alone when out drinking, his peers had to tell him when he had had enough and when it was time to go home. Unfortunately for the 33-year-old his peers have left the Australian cricket team.

I'm not writing off the chances of the current side, because they are playing with a lot of confidence at the moment after beating West Indies in all forms of the game over the last month. But I always felt English cricketers were not encouraged to improve their one-day skills by a system that simply presents them with another chance as soon as the previous one has passed.

The public reaction will be interesting. There will inevitably be a school of thought that he placed his chips and must live with that. But there are times when the need to move ahead is paramount. There's one other thing about Bond. Most people are capable of engendering a variety of emotions depending on one's dealings with them.

It may be then that 50-over cricket, the link between the longest and shortest forms of the game, is the format to go, and if this would be a pity – for all its apparent mid-innings flaws, it still has the capacity to produce the sort of enthralling come-back and counter-punches that Twenty20 by its frenetic nature cannot – then for the good of the game, something has to give. Beyond the next World Cup, scheduled in 2011 to be staged goodness knows where, the opportunity is there to rationalise the programme, free the logjam. A World Cup of Twenty20 cricket to be played every two years should be ample.