The Surfer

Whenever a New Zealand team heads to Australia, they board the plane armed with a strong dose of optimism. There's invariably a feeling that this will be a tour when they will put one over the big boys. Partly that's down to a natural relish at tackling our nearest cricket neighbour, at wanting to prove we can mix it successfully with them, and partly because they have always been New Zealand's biggest, and favourite, challenge.

Naturally, Botha's performances have stirred the debate about whether he is a better bowler than the present Test incumbent Paul Harris.

What is good news for South Africa is that we now have two spinners to call in in the different formats of the game. Now that would really be something for a country known almost exclusively as a fast bowler's paradise.

Hughes faces the five most important days of his young career, with Australian selector Jamie Cox travelling more than 1600 kilometres to see whether the youngster is good enough for the Test team. And Cox has revealed Hughes and fellow Blues opener Phil Jaques could both earn selection for the tour.

In the first warm-up match of this tour, Owais Shah scored a studious unbeaten century, Ian Bell compiled pleasing innings of 36 and 52 and was dismissed both times offering daft catches. In the one-day series in India at the fag end of last year, Bell made 84 runs in four innings, Shah made 236, more than any other Englishman. In his last 10 Tests, Bell has made 188 runs. Shah has made none simply because he has not played …

We listened to it online here in St Kitts and it was breathtaking in the way it unfolded. The interview, with Roy & HG of Sydney Olympics fame, had been arranged to publicise Symonds' work for the Leukaemia Foundation and was conducted down the line from his Gold Coast home. He had been to the pub beforehand but denies being drunk, something at odds with the perception. Clearly he was shedded, despite the early hour, and even more clearly he walked into a trap from which he was unable to extricate himself.

So, yet another edition of the Ranji Trophy concluded with Mumbai re-emerging champions. The long drawn season produced some outstanding performances but the worrying factor is that not many new players have announced themselves barring a few such as Abhinav Mukund and Dhawal Kulkarni. The bench strength is derived from this premier championship and hence it is of paramount importance that new names crop up and gain attention ...

'Cricket is the only thing that brings us together. People from islands that never produce a West Indies cricketer, identify with the West Indies team because it's the region. And whenever that dies we have lost a great deal.

Of course, this may all be a very English debate. More ruthless sides would have dispensed with Bell some time ago and ensured their most obviously wristy player was in the side, hitting the ball to parts of the ground the opposition had never even thought of defending. But, as Pietersen has discovered, unorthodoxy takes longer to be accepted in English cricket. Shah's greatest crime may have been to neglect the game that needs playing off the field, as well as the one on it.

Under the influence of alcohol during a radio interview, and maybe having a bad day, the Brendon McCullum subject might simply have got in his way. However, the issue itself shouldn't be wantonly filed away just because it was raised in a hopelessly inadequate manner.