The Surfer

There was also a more preventable piece of misfortune, with the ground's Super Sopper breaking down after the first match. Fortunately for the red-faced groundstaff, the second match between the Mumbai Indians and the Rajasthan Royals never got going as sweeping rain, with devilish timing, started up a number of times at just the wrong moment after the covers were on the point of being taken off.

Your views on Sanath Jayasuriya, the cricketer...

It is the greatest gathering of the most of the world's best players outside the World Cup. It should, in the long run, help break down boundaries between sides and, maybe, thaw relations between, say, India and Australia. It is, when you dig beneath the hype, a bonus for South African sports fans. And Modi's regular donations to local education programmes cannot be argued with, even if the ostentatious manner in which the cheques are handed over does not feel entirely right. Modi is to be congratulated on turning around a huge operation at such short notice. Few would have the time, inclination, or drive. But the IPL has to be careful not to over-reach itself. It is a sporting event, possibly a very good one, that has found a temporary home. What it is not is some kind of elixir for the South African nation. That, the politicians tell us, will come on Wednesday.

To argue that the tournament is two years away and therefore the ruling is premature is specious. The venues that will now replace the ones in Pakistan need time to prepare. And it is sensible to decide early enough to avoid endless speculation and lobbying. Lahore busted the myth of the safety of cricket in the subcontinent, the myth that cricket and cricketers would never be harmed by terrorists. And cricket's biggest showpiece cannot afford to take a chance - emotion cannot be allowed to rule over practicality.

Locally, Foot remains a cherished eminence as columnist and champion of causes. His deadlines, too, have been met spot-on as a sharp and perceptive Bristol theatre critic down the years and, on a thousand winter Saturdays, 600 words on-the-whistle from City, Rovers, or his hometown Yeovil, where it all began 64 summers ago in 1945 on the weekly Western Gazette. The trainee 25-shilling-a-week copy-boy, just 16, tremulously cycled in from the family's East Coker cottage in his new broadish-brimmed brown trilby hat and six-guinea brown pinstripe suit fresh-off-the-peg of Yeovil's high-class outfitters, Messrs Bone & Flagg.

In order to do that the IPL needed to leave no stone unturned in their quest to raise extra money. Had they admitted this was the case, and transparently sold the extra advertising spots created by the strategy breaks, there might have been some sympathy. After all, the Indian public’s response seems to suggest that they do want the IPL to go on, no matter what, and the strategy break, just like the shift of venue to South Africa, might have been tolerated.

In public, coaches are talking about making the best strategic use of the interval. Privately, though, they will tell you that their first concern is just keeping players warm. As we move into May, and the start of the South African winter, the backroom staff may well be forced to drape blankets around their shivering charges. And this in a tournament whose go-getting slogan is "Feel the heat".

'We are ready,' Nicholas declared as the first ball was about to be bowled. 'The start of the 2009 DLF IPL, here in South Africa, an extraordinary performance to move it in just three weeks. We have pulled it off.'