The Surfer

I won't, for example, have to travel to Loughborough quite so often to undergo yet another fitness test or bowl another few hundred balls in the nets. Instead, I can just nip down to Headingley, do my stuff there and be back home for my tea in 20 minutes.

So which one of them [Wasim Akram or Waqar Younis] was more helpful to you?

Don Bradman said that O'Reilly was the best bowler he ever faced, which is all the testimony you need about his quality. They first played each other in 1925 when the 20-year-old O'Reilly, training to be a teacher in Sydney, was suddenly called up (yanked off a train, O'Reilly said) to play for Wingello against Bowral. As was the custom, the match was played for a day and resumed a week later. After Day 1, the 17-year-old Bradman was 234 not out but when the match continued seven days on, O'Reilly bowled him first ball with a leg break that turned from leg stump to hit off. "Suddenly cricket was the best game in the whole wide world," O'Reilly would write years later.

The shocking surrender in Sri Lanka, where only Laxman managed more than 200 runs in the middle order, might have hastened Ganguly's exit, but there's little doubt that previous performances have been considered while shortlisting those capable of tackling the Australian juggernaut. In that regard, Laxman and Tendulkar are fireproof.

It seemed he would now, at least, get a chance to call it quits when he felt like it, with a proper dialogue with the board and the selectors, walking with his bat held high as he took off the helmet to reveal the maroon bandanna that protects his slowly receding hairline at the crease.

... Krishnamurti took one look at my footwear and burst out in a volley of abuse. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” he said to me. “Are you a G Division player, wearing these cheap Bata shoes only rickshawallahs wear? Do you look like someone about to play for an international XI in Moin-ud-Dowla?” ... And Pataudi soon asked me to bowl to him in the nets, where, in my eagerness to impress, I gave him a torrid time on an unplayable drying wicket, a very unprofessional thing to do to a batsman looking for some practice. 'Tiger' was sporting enough not to mind my immature exhibition; he in fact went so far as to tell Habib I was a match winner.

The selectors and Pietersen must now be utterly ruthless because the format leaves them no option. There can be no planning for the future, no experimenting with batting line-ups, no sentiment, no fun - all of which take place even in Test cricket. We will discover which players are considered the big-game cricketers and which the captain regards as flaky.

While young cricketers need to be given a chance to succeed, veterans must be given a chance to fail. Kumble hasn't failed and you cannot bring in a new captain just because he is younger and has signed more endorsements. I doubt if Dhoni himself is hankering after the job, but with friends like Kirsten, he does not need too many enemies.

Of late, vice captains have been tossed around, changed from series to series. Apparently, for the selectors, naming a vice-captain is a gift that can both be handed out and then reclaimed, according to their convenience.

The Sri Lanka vice-captain Kumar Sangakkara and Gilchrist will make passionate appeals to the meeting through video presentations as part of a groundswell of support for the true globalisation of the sport. If Wednesday's meeting looks favourably on the concept the chief executives may recommend that the ICC executive board consider approaching the International Olympic Committee next year with a view to having cricket adopted in 2013 for the 2020 Olympics.

Pointless to ask whether Pietersen has achieved these things (establish a college of senior players, instill a culture of shared responsibility, get Flintoff and Harmison back near their best) in spite of or because of his narcissism. Pietersen is aware that what matters in sport is success and he is prepared to do anything it takes to be successful. And if that involves thinking about other people, well, he's even prepared to go to these extreme lengths.