The Surfer

Even as Modi finds the going tough with his friend and patron Vasundhara in the opposition, tales of his imperious style and skills in bending the law have become the stuff of contemporary folklore here. It wasn’t just the RCA which reeled under his onslaught—what with his election as president mired in court cases, allegations of financial malfeasance and forgery—but also bureaucrats, police, landowners and anyone else who dared cross his path.

What was Paul Collingwood doing sprinting for a couple of runs when he had been bowled neck and crop by Jerome Taylor? In that moment, there was the reminder of Mark Ramprakash’s suicidal run-out in Trinidad 15 years before, the surest sign that the situation was about to overpower a group of players who were, mentally, not up to the task.

When you are winning no one cares. When you lose everything bar your aftershave gets heavily scrutinised. You sweat over every decision and one of those sounds small but it's a big decision coming up soon – how much access will Australia give players' wives on this year's Ashes tour? It is the most delicate of issues because there was a major catfight on the 2005 Ashes tour which destabilised the side, not simply for the tour but the year after it.

“There were riots in 1983, when a mob burnt the dressing rooms, a section of the stands, and some of the club’s old documents. Since then, they’ve felt threatened. A Tamil player prefers a banner under which he can conveniently camouflage his identity. It’s weird, but it’s a fact of life here.”

He mastered the very difficult art of leg-spin bowling, right-arm leg-spin that is, and I believe, based on what he did with the ball, he is the greatest spin bowler that ever lived. I remember the Ashes series in 2005, how brilliantly he bowled. As a great player, he rose to the occasion while some others who were regarded as great players, their performances went down a notch. You knew, whenever you scored runs against him, that you had to be at the top of the game. Apart from his skills, he worked batsmen out. He was a master. He was he a clever bowler, he was a great cricketer. On top of that, he knew the game. In fact, I believe he would have made a great captain.

They revolutionised the way cricketers trained and were coached in the early 1990s and then enjoyed the unprecedented arrival of three or four 'once in a generation' players - at the same time! But the game has changed forever now and, with three different formats and an international schedule packed to bursting point, I can't see any country being as dominant as Australia were. Although that should not, and will not prevent any of us from striving to achieve world domination!

But don't be fooled: the downturn will bite in sport, too. The IPL is a special case because much of its treasure chest was stashed away before the recession. Among the rank and file professional sports teams, sponsorship is getting harder to come by. And just ask Boris Johnson or Tessa Jowell how it is shaping up for the 2012 London Olympics.

Even for those who hold that cutting down on human error must be in the game’s best interests, there must be something fundamentally disturbing about the sight of a batsman declining to leave the field despite being given out by the umpire. Apart from WG, the only other recorded case of this happening in pre-referral days was in the Lahore Test of 1987, when Stuart Broad’s dad, Chris, took one look at the finger raised before him, and raised, metaphorically speaking, a couple back himself. They were just about to send for a forklift truck when his batting partner, Graham Gooch, finally talked him into leaving.

The Australian cricket team is a shadow of its former self and to rest their key man in Ponting says one of two things. They are either still in arrogant denial or simply do not care for the Chappell-Hadlee trophy and, to them, this series is nothing more than practice on the road to more important matters.

Taylor pitched full, not quite a yorker but up there, allowing the ball time to grab the air and swing away. But it went too late for Pietersen, deceiving even his gimlet eye. Pietersen saw only a leg-side scoring opportunity, but the ball swerved beyond his bat. Then, as Pietersen's body obliterated the wicket from view, we, perched in the press box eyrie high up in the massive Blue Mountain Stand, saw his off stump appear from behind his back and cartwheel gymnastically back towards the keeper. For a split second, before the implication had taken hold, there was silence in the crowd. Then, as the realisation set in and Taylor began his celebratory sprint towards the Red Stripe stand pursued by a phalanx of team-mates, a cacophony erupted.