The Surfer

Last year in one of the Ranji Trophy matches, one umpire who was in the ICC panel warned the Gujarat team that he would no-ball Parmar if he bowled. Parmar was dropped. With this history, the Board ought to have closed the chapter, but the selectors seem to be keen on getting him in the side to win matches.

... does he have the physical wherewithal to back up his mind, if indeed it remains as strong as earlier? Three years of constant battle, so to speak - of trying to convince selectors, warding off the threat of juniors, fighting off frustration - can take its toll.

“Binocular vision is quite good for working out where objects are in space,” said Andrew E. Welchman, the lead author of the study and a lecturer at the University of Birmingham in England. “Because you have two eyes, the brain can take signals from each and compare them over time, averaging them. But when you have an object coming toward you, the differences in the information you get from the left and right side are more subtle,” and this makes the decision on location and speed more difficult.

Since then, safety has become a "personal crusade" for Cairns, who established a foundation to teach school pupils of the dangers at New Zealand's often-unmarked rail crossings. The charity walk began in Auckland three weeks ago and Cairns has been walking every day, clocking up 635km so far. He faces a further 366km walk to the site of his sister's death.

“The New York Cricket Club was a splendid idea,” one of the peripheral characters says in Joseph O'Neill's engaging, poignant, subtle novel Netherland, recently nominated for this year's Man Booker prize. “But would the project have worked? No. There's a limit to what Americans understand. The limit is cricket."

'I was stuck in Canada and my plane ticket didn't take me back for another couple of days, so I read for a day and I read a book that really helped me called Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson. She is the sort of person who spends 20 years writing a novel. It was so slow. Nothing really happened and it was so attentive just to sentences. And I suddenly thought, why don't I write exactly what I want to write and to hell with the plot points.'

Both teams went into that Gabba Test with some apprehension over Meckiff’s selection. However, judgment on his action was delayed until well into the second day after Australia, batting first, scored 435.

Umpire Egar was in little doubt after passing the first delivery without comment.

"No b-a-l-l!" came his call from square leg. The crowd went numb and a sick silence swept over them. Egar stood motionless. The Australian fielders, uncertain, looked at each other, unable to believe what was taking place.

Over the years, many cricketers have passed through this stage and they speak about how maintaining a positive attitude is a tall ask during this ‘so-close-yet-so-far’ phase. Ambati Rayudu got the India A break when he was 17 and, considering his rapid rise from the ranks, he thought making the senior team was an eventuality waiting to happen. Soon, the harsh reality about the packed Indian middle-order dawned on him. “There were no vacancies in the senior team. Even someone like VVS Laxman had been left out of the World Cup squad. That is the time when it can get a little frustrating. I’ve been with the India A squad on six occasions and each time that frustration has only increased. With every tour I hope things might turn for the better, but it doesn’t happen,” he says. Such was his state of mind that Rayudu joined the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) and that meant saying a final goodbye to the dreams of wearing an India cap.

... But on his return home from Australia, Vishy’s cricketing graph nosedived. He had problems with some of the seniors in the Karnataka team and his inability to focus more on cricket rather than a life of pleasure, also contributed to his premature exit from the National scene. I vividly remember the many hours I spent with Vishy trying to console him as he opened up to me with dressing room tales and also his off-the-field problems. He was reduced to a nervous wreck, shunned by friends. It took him over a decade to get his life back on track as he took to coaching and then umpiring.

The angry young days of Vishy are over," he says as dusk descends on the Chinnaswamy Stadium. "It has been some rollercoaster ride but it's about finding peace now. I have made my share of mistakes (but) I managed to step out of the whirlpool. Fame does funny things. The adoration from the fans is indescribable. You have to be there to understand it. One should go out on a high and leave the public lingering with a happy memory.

Judging by hundreds of blog postings since Symonds' dismissal from the team camp in Darwin, Clarke has accomplished little to boost his ego. Rather, punters wrote, he needs to explain his actions, describing the 27-year-old as a Cricket Australia clone and ruthlessly ambitious leader-in-the-wings, among other critiques ...