The Surfer

Perhaps some counties, as Surrey have argued, would have been able to fill their grounds and their coffers. But has it comes to this? That we are willing to shuffle around an entire Ashes summer in order to appease an Indian entrepreneur who has shown little or no interest in the health of English cricket? It is worth adding that I am not an opponent of the IPL. I wish it every success. But I am more concerned with the state of English cricket and of world cricket. To my mind, though apparently not in the minds of those who count, the success of the IPL's second season is a peripheral matter.

When Shane Warne bowled legspinners to motor racing ace Lewis Hamilton in a promotion this week it was enough to moisten the eyes of Australian cricket fans. That's because apart from the Indian Premier League it will be the last time Warne bowls to an Englishman all year. It's been just over two years since he retired and the six spinners chosen in his place have suffered all sorts of physical and psychological damage.

All the West Indian pace bowlers had to do was bang the ball in short and watch England’s batsmen spoon a succession of catches. Five of England’s top eight batsmen were out hooking, while Matt Prior steered a short ball on the offside to point. At least lemmings don’t hook before they leap.

Mr Chidambaram, like a bowler does, used his prerogative to set the field. Now that was given. He wasn’t going to provide central forces (and what a sad moment in itself that the availability of anti-terror forces should be the deciding factor in our game!), and he wasn’t going to allow state governments to take policemen away from election duty. Now faced with this, the IPL could either have conceded defeat or played a shot, which is the prerogative of the batsman. They have chosen to play an unconventional shot, a switch hit if you choose, having used up other options. So now, Mr Chidambaram has what he wants, which is the forces he needs to conduct an election and Mr Modi has a sub-optimal result, not a boundary maybe but a three, but at least he is batting.

England's best player was never going to rock the boat despite the fears of those who do not know him. He has retained his dignity and moved on but the pain remains barely concealed beneath the surface. Now, in his first in-depth interview since losing the England captaincy so controversially, he is telling his tale.

We meet in one of the finest restaurants in Barbados at the request of Pietersen. The setting is the millionaires' playground of the west coast of this most affluent and attractive of West Indian islands. He is at home here, enjoying the success he has achieved since serving a long qualification period to play for England.

... it should not be beyond the wit of manufacturers, backed by the pocket of ICC, to make a series of prototypes using larger cores, artificially made if necessary, with tighter winding and a leather that will suit all conditions. Something that will deteriorate gradually but not to excess, offering orthodox swing at the start, reverse later and grip for the spinner.

Translate this principle into the cricket field and it means that a player should only be a player, a captain should only be captain. A violation of this rule results in pressure on individuals and the consequent decline in performance. A player-captain combination also produces prima donnas, which create major problems in any organizational structure. Let the players do the batting, bowling and fielding and the thinker do the planning off the field. All this may appear as too alien to the cricket purist (or even to those who are lamenting Sourav Ganguly’s loss of captaincy), but the winds of change are blowing over the cricket fields. That wind will make the ball of cricket swing in various unexpected ways. Twenty20, and its popularity, are products of the change affecting cricket. Others will follow. Refashioning the definition of a cricket captain is another radical change. Mr Buchanan has taken a step in the right direction. Pioneers never make a virtue of patience.

Sufiyan Shaikh will play cricket for India, but he just can't talk to his father about it. Shaikh's journey from the labyrinthine lanes of Crawford Market to wicketkeeper of the India under-19 squad that will tour Australia next month speaks of rare grit and a whole lot of pain.

Some reckon it looks as easy as shelling peas. You stand in the slips, the ball comes your way, you generally don't have to move, you make the catch and the batsman begins the long, slow march to the dressing room. While few who've ever stood in a slips cordon for a Test match would rate it easy, Cricket Australia fielding coach Mike Young has the bar up much, much higher. "I truly believe slips catching in Test cricket, mentally, is the hardest thing I've ever seen in sport, when you consider you're out there all day and that you've got to be ready every ball.”

A tournament that was in danger of collapse because of Indian security issues has been rescued by Modi's foresight, decisiveness and staggering self-belief. It is one thing to recognise a solution, it is quite another to make it happen. England may talk at times of his arrogance, but his dynamism has lessons for us all.