The Surfer

The blowtorch has been on the team after some poor performances against South Africa and New Zealand and, as a "new" player, the expectation to perform has been intensified. I don't really get affected by outside pressure. My focus has been on proving to my team-mates and the coaching staff that I can be consistent at this level.

While Hughes may look very organised at the crease, he's a little less organised off the field and had lost his phone a fortnight earlier - not an uncommon occurrence for him. His new phone had few numbers in it, so he was left wondering who all these people [congratulating him] were.

Chris Gayle, who was strolling around like a millionaire anyway, long before he became captain, is significantly less flamboyant, unless you count the gold earring, designer jeans and skimpy vest that reveal his bulging, tattooed forearms. What he has done with his money is personal, he says, but he revealed on his website that his priority was to provide medical treatment for his father and one of his three brothers, who has a heart condition similar to the one for which he had surgery a few years ago.

To a fault, Ricky Ponting defended the old guard, but repeated setbacks reduced his influence and now the selectors have produced a bolder side lacking power but containing plenty of energy and spirit. Simon Katich and Phil Hughes will open the batting. Last week, I watched Hughes score 151 and 82 not out in the last Shield match before selection. Clearly he is not scared of the spotlight. A small, sturdy left-hander hungry for runs, Hughes has a homespun technique reliant on eye and hands.

Captain Ricky Ponting doesn't insist on too much from his charges, but he insists they celebrate a win and Australia's win over South Africa was a big thing. It had been a tough summer, the team had already lost the series and it had been a great Test that had gone down to the wire.

The IPL, as its administrators like to boast, is a classic example of the free market … It is just that, in the free market, no one has a clue any more what anything – or anyone – is really worth.

The paceman was showered with greetings once the news broke and his parents even broke into tears of joy at their beloved son's amazing success: "My father was just crying while talking over phone from my home district (Narail)"

So you open the sports section of one of Melbourne's two morning newspapers to check out the state of play ahead of the game. Big splash on the back page? Nope. Turn inside for a double-page spread on the whys and wherefores that lie ahead on the day? Forget it. The first eight pages are devoted to the coming AFL season. The next one is all about the A-League finals series. Then comes the cricket, a couple of pages primarily on the Australian squad named on Thursday to tour South Africa. The ODI yesterday gets one sentence.

The money in Indian cricket has not been earned by thuggery and its colour is the same as that from other respectable enterprises around the world. It amused me no end that last year it was pooh-poohed by players who thought this was another form of beach and beer cricket. The auction was ridiculed and it still is but one of the great advantages of sitting on a distant couch is that you don’t always have to present an alternative. In course of time the auction will cease to be important but in the first year it was essential. Already there are fewer players up for grabs since teams are more or less settled and we will slowly move towards a trading system as exists in the more established football leagues. Just as those who ridiculed Kerry Packer were the ones who looked stupid in the end, those that choose to ignore, or choose not to understand, the Indian consumer and Indian markets will become irrelevant. Those that close their eyes can only see darkness.