The Surfer

WAG, of course, a term coined during the football World Cup finals in Germany in 2006, does not really stand for wife and girlfriend; it stands for someone who is noteworthy only for the movements and actions of someone else; someone who is unthinkingly and uncritically admiring. An appendage, in other words. And from the moment Stanford landed his helicopter at Lord's in June, trailing his cash, with the ECB's officials fawning all over him, English cricket has been reduced to WAG status.

A dry pitch has been prepared, besides which the dreaded "Bhaji" is not scared of the Australians and never has been. After all he took 30 wickets against them in their first meeting in 2001. The sight of an Australian cricketer sparks something in him, a mixture of competitive fervour and national pride. He tells friends that he does not like the way the Australian team walks about like it's the best thing since buttered naan. Asked to name his favourite Australian players he mentions Steve Waugh and Glenn McGrath and then grinds to a halt. Adam Gilchrist is dismissed as a "sweet knife".

Hayden, who has made 0, 13, 0, and 29, has said that he believes he has Zaheer Khan on the back foot. For the record the Australian opener has made 17 fewer runs than Zaheer...Hayden's diagnosis that Zaheer is on the point of a nervous breakdown is based on the bowler's abuse of him when the Australian was dismissed for 29 in the second innings of the second Test. Hayden apparently had brought Zaheer to this brink when he charged his first ball of the second innings. That the ball was mis-hit and looped dangerously close to mid-off was, it seems, a victory for Hayden and not the bowler.

The current series, unfortunately, has been too much about failing individuals and not enough about the big picture. You don't need great players to play great cricket; perhaps the rival captains should have a chat before the third Test and work out how they can make their sport more attractive, where victory and defeat are merely by-products of five days of intense, hard-fought but appealing cricket. Test cricket is on trial, and if it fails to excite the public even in India, the spiritual home of the game, then the trial can go only one way.

So far, the response of administrators has been to recite cliches from long-ago commerce and business degrees. Cricket, they insist, is splendidly positioned, with all these interesting varieties, each appealing to a different demographic. Because, you see, transport companies that prospered a century ago spread their investment evenly between automobiles, landaus and velocipedes, while the airlines that did well 50 years ago maintained an interest in Montgolfier balloons and Bleriot monoplanes as well as jumbo jets. Well, now you put it that way ...

The days of domination are over. That was the message out of the Mohali Test match. Not that Australia cannot win matches and even retain a high position in the rankings, but the era of crushing all and sundry has passed. Quite simply, the Australian bowling is not strong enough to run through proficient batting orders. Hereafter, it will be a struggle, with tight series, long Test matches and captains constantly under pressure. It is not an easy adjustment to make. The West Indies did not survive it. Inflated players continued strutting around long after the wins had dried up. Australia must not allow its cricket culture to weaken.

The refusal of Cricket Australia to consider selecting Symonds, referring to mysterious "medical and related issues", has polarised the country. Newspapers and talk radio have been filled to the hyperbolic brim with debate on the issue, with Tom Moody, the West Australian coach and recent Sri Lankan boss, speaking for many fans this week when he argued: "Australia must send an immediate SOS to Andrew Symonds if they want to pick their best team. India is the toughest place in world cricket to come from behind and when the Australian team is struggling for balance, form and cohesion, we simply can't afford to leave him out."

The pitch at the Stanford Cricket Ground (referred to by its proprietor as the SCG for goodness sake) is an odd one: from a good length it carried through to the keeper only sluggishly; for the spinners it offered sharp turn (enough for Pietersen himself to bowl his offbreaks commendably well to Middlesex's plethora of left- handers); and, most significantly, for the tall bowlers Stuart Broad and Flintoff it gave some quite heady bounce when the ball was banged into the middle ...

A TV grab of the state of the balls after an equal number of overs bowled by both teams proved the Indians have the art of keeping the shine on one side of the ball, the Australians lack it. No wonder some Aussie batsmen looked like outdated spare parts on the crease. "We got the ball to swing, especially reverse-swing when it was nice and hard," Dhoni said. "We pitched it in the right areas, and the spinners also bowled well.

The pressure on the players will be huge ... would you like to be the man who dropped the catch that cost your buddies a house? The amount of money the players will earn has become such a focal point that the Times newspaper of London is cynically running The Pietersen index, a stock market-style reading which giving hourly updates of the size of the kitty depending on the fluctuations of the British pound.