The Surfer

Having waited a decade after his first tour to receive his cap, Swann needed just three balls to make his mark. Gautam Gambhir cut the spinner’s first ball for four, survived a confident appeal off the second then decided, strangely, to let the third ball hit him tamely on the pad in front of off stump without playing a shot — generosity to a debutant of the most extreme kind. Three balls later, Swann had an even bigger feather to adorn his new blue cap when Rahul Dravid was defeated by sharp turn and bounce. Swann’s celebration this time had as much to do with umpiring as a batsman’s generosity.

What does "*also travelling with squad" mean? England's squad for the current Test match tour of India, announced earlier this week, included the bowler Adil Rashid accompanied by, and asterisked with, the mysterious phrase "*also travelling with squad". This was something new, something thrilling, something pointless involving specialist punctuation. At a stroke the England management had introduced its major innovation of the Peter Moores era.

In between books and rehab he has found afternoons and weekends free to watch son Liam play his first season with a junior suburban side. Dad delights in the young fellow's love of the game but winces at every enthusiastic slide toward the ball. "All I can think about is 'how I'm going to get the stains out?"' McGain says.

Rudd lost his first bid for a Federal seat in 1996. Ponting was dropped from the Test team in 1996 after two Tests against the West Indies. Ponting has captained Australia in 20/20 games, a form of the sport many find pointless, distracting and dominated by players not fit for serious contests. Rudd led the 2020 Summit.

In a decision such as Flynn's, I believe the ball needs to hit the pads in line with the inside half of the off stump to allow for the batter to get the benefit of the doubt - but that's not what happened to him. Flynn was struck on the outside half of the off stump - only just in line with the stumps by even the most precise measure. Perhaps the answer may be to only use the referral system to determine if the ball has touched the bat, but leave any other part of lbw decisions to the men in the middle.

He began working at FFBN in 2002 and it was there he was able to put his passion into practice. "Every time I went on air I spoke about sport. So eventually I said, 'This is my passion and I need to get into writing about sport and become a sports analyst."

On the local front, the last two national coaches, Kevin Curran and Robin Brown, meet the requirements… The only former player with the right credentials who has maintained some sort of links with Zimbabwe cricket is Alistair Campbell, the former national team captain. ... But again, the question is: does he want the job or does ZC want him?

If Vettori casts his mind back to the latter part of the Trist reign and through the Aberhart years early in this decade, he'll recall Stephen Fleming demanding a greater say in operations. By that stage he felt confident in his abilities, both as the team's leading batsman but also as a captain growing into the job and backing his judgments.

It was a very talented squad — all were affiliated to counties at the time — and Atherton and Hussain were called into the Test squad later that summer. The strikingly mature Atherton led the team outstandingly: if not a boy among men, he was at least a postgrad among undergrads. "He was such an impressive figure," says the opening bowler Alan Hansford, who picked up the wickets of Alec Stewart, Graeme Hick, Tim Curtis and, er, Courtney Walsh during the tournament. "Even then, his sense of destiny was apparent."