The Surfer

The mistake was to describe this as a "good wicket". Prof Edwards, who oversees the ground here, had promised this pitch would be "fast and bouncy" but the groundsman has yet to be born who predicts his beloved surface will be "slow and low". In an age when everything can be scientifically annotated and analysed it is amazing how neglected the art of pitch-making remains. Last week in Karachi there was probably a dreadful cricket wicket, so many runs were scored by the batsmen of Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The balance between bat and ball was all wrong, bad for the game.

Sinking of self into a common cause: this is what team sports are supposed to be all about. But it is not so terribly hard to find examples of players in team sports whose philosophy is based, instead, on the idea of sinking common cause into self. Chelsea's disappointing season can be traced to Didier Drogba's belief that his own sulks were more important than his team's results.

There simply aren't that many people out there with the necessary qualifications, as is plain from the job description taking up large amounts of space on the board's website. A prime motivation for bringing in outsiders to draw up the initial shortlist is, of course, to avoid the accusation - levelled when Peter Moores was appointed - that the appointment might in any way be not thorough, or an "inside job".

Now all eyes will be on the IPL in April, as the second season gets under way. Already the signs are that franchise-holders are finding things tougher in the second year after an average shortfall in revenues of $4million last year. Rajasthan Royals, last year's winners, are without a sponsor, while Kolkata Knight Riders and Deccan Chargers have lost principal sponsors.

Nixon: Beyond the Ashes, playing in the IPL will also set Freddie up for the next World Cup. As our performance in the last tournament showed, England still need to improve when it comes to playing in top-level limited overs matches and there is no better practice environment for this than the IPL, where the best players come up against the best players.

Managing cricket is about preserving value as well as leveraging price. At a time when the ECB is earnestly seeking a replacement for Vodafone, it would be disastrous to give the impression that they will whore their cricket team to anyone with "capacity to pay" – and who would wish to be that sponsor? English cricket has been damaged by association with Stanford; it is now damaged by association with a chairman and chief executive who have such a narrow and technocratic understanding of their duties.

Johannesburg has a reputation as one of the crime capitals of the world, and its famous bullring stadium, the Wanderers, provides no refuge for the timid cricketer. Something always seems to happen here. Good and bad ...