The Surfer

It was during the mid-2000s at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore that the whizkid from Chennai began taking his first strides along a unique path not tread previously in the cricketing world. On it, he came across the cream of talent making their way up. "At that time, all the scorecards from every nook and corner of the country would come to me at the NCA. I was very keen to see this Virat Kohli, who had scored three consecutive double-centuries at the U-17 level. When I did, I knew he was India material straight up," recalls Prasanna. "Then I remember a cover drive Rohit played, which I can never forget, against an Australian U-19 team in Dharamshala. It was class."

Well, ''what we need'' more than a quick wicket after drinks is commentary that isn't shameless barracking, that doesn't assume, as the English gaggle did, that everyone's with them. The vast majority of Australians might want the Aussies to win - though David Warner's mindless comments about Jonathan Trott doesn't make this team so loveable - but that doesn't give commentators a license to talk as though, to borrow from Australian ''bodyline'' skipper Bill Woodfull, only one team out there is playing cricket.

"It's like a breath of fresh air for them," Bassett Thomson said, the first Public School Athletic League commissioner of cricket. "They all tell me the same thing - if we didn't play cricket, we wouldn't be doing anything else." One player from John Adams High School told Thompson that the only reason he finished high school was because PSAL eligibility rules require participants to pass all classes. "He wanted to play cricket so badly," Thompson explained, "that he made sure he didn't fail any classes."

Flick over to Channel Nine and you'd be forgiven for thinking women don't give a flying full toss about cricket. The picture presented is one of rotating masculinity - 14 men in a game of musical chairs, all dressed by the same tailor. All wearing the same comfortable grin. If nothing else, it's visually dull in the same way a commentary box made up exclusively of women would be. Mythical, I know, but you get my point.

"My Achilles is feeling really good but every part of my body is reacting to being used again," Vettori said. "I don't want to come back, get injured and go through the roller coaster of being in and out of the team. I really want to be 100 percent fit and have a number of games under my belt before I feel I can put my hand up for selection." Vettori is aware that the sight of him coming in and out of the national team, perhaps unable to perform at his best, would not be a good look, either for the team or himself

He wasn't to know that Trott was torn by personal crisis, but at least the England batsman's departure has shone a light on a thug culture that has nothing to do with competitive spirit. Armed with a forthright sense of what so many believe Aussieness to be, Warner felt it acceptable to belittle and embarrass an opponent on the field with the tacit understanding that this falls within the limits of legitimate behaviour.

Everyone is as bad as each other. Indeed, I do not remember many England supporters showing a great deal of sympathy to Mitchell Johnson when he was going through a difficult period a few years ago. Highlighting his shortcomings in song and humiliating him was viewed as great fun. It was irrelevant that it nearly ended Johnson's career and resulted in him spending lots of time seeing a psychologist.

One rising criticism of Clarke through the past decade is that he has been too conscious of his image. The metrosexual cricketer was thought to spend too long looking in the mirror. Ironically, letting the mask slip in front of the microphone appears to have instantly and inadvertently won him the respect that's been denied by his critics. It was a glimpse of the Sydney western suburbs tracksuit riding up above the Hugo Boss suit. And, if Twitter, Facebook and the like are any guide to the public mind, there's a fair argument that cricket fans prefer an ugly Australian to a pretty one.

The moment Michael Clarke bared his teeth as Australian captain might be the one that finally makes his country appreciate him. The International Cricket Council's decision to fine Clarke for his ''broken arm'' sledge at Jimmy Anderson prompted a wave of public support for a man who hasn't felt a lot of love in his own country despite being the team's best batsman by miles and an intuitive, imaginative on-field strategist.

There is, however, another way of looking at it. Because the image also shows this--common folk kept at bay by a wall of VIPs, a club of the elite, who have co-opted Tendulkar. These are also the celebrities who just picked up a phone and got a ticket to the Test match while the rest of India had to count on a lottery for the fraction of seats reserved for the general public. The men who make up this queue are also the ones who have been asked over the past few days to relentlessly comment on Tendulkar as he bids farewell. The ones who, through their unending superlatives, give the appearance that the world has come to a standstill for the Test.

For musicians, there are times when the musical flow seems boundless, the voice is at its best, when they think that they control music and can command it to do whatever they want. Are these the 'times' when music can be said to not just take place but actually happen? I think not. These are days when artists might be successful and feted by people but, within, they know that the music has, at an essential level, stopped. Sometimes it does not matter how great the voice is or whether the artists are at their fluent best. By letting music sing through them, they come in contact with an essence that is beyond music itself. But for this the musician must remain in the deep acceptance that music exists and he only participates in its life.

This leaves a delicious set-up for the four remaining Test matches. Australia have crossed their psychological Rubicon. No matter what they said, they didn't know they could beat this England team until now.

It is too soon to say that the Ashes are about to change hands again, but it is the moment to note that often the course of Ashes history alters when least expected.

When Clarke was new at the crease, Cook manoeuvred to keep him on strike, twice yielding singles to deep-set fields. It was a curious and even insulting tactic, treating Clarke as a tailender. It didn't work, and you imagine that if anything, it hardened the Australian captain's heart.