The Surfer

Not long afterwards Brad Hogg had retired from Test cricket. Everyone assumed that he had been offered a deal but it was not so. He’d had enough. It’s been a long time since an accredited Australian cricketer walked so blithely away. Shaun Tait also stepped aside, temporarily in his case. Wounded by exposure and expectation, he lost confidence and yearned for the shadows ... Now Andrew Symonds has been dispatched ... Brett Lee’s personal problems and Ricky Ponting’s injury add to the impression that the Australians are vulnerable. Certainly it seems that the coach and captain have lost their grip.

Where do you begin to tell this man’s story? Perhaps as a boy, a year or so younger than Cowdrey is now, being awoken in the early hours by his father. “Look, Stinker,” his dad said, using the codename that spoke of their closeness. “I’ve got to go. Your mum is a good woman who loves you; look after her and your sister. You’re the boss now.” He understood why his dad left, even empathised with the zest for life that tempted him from their London home. He didn’t hear from him for two years. Though he coped remarkably well, there were times when he needed to work things out and he would head down to nearby Hendon Park with his cricket bat over his shoulder. Tomorrow could wait. Today he would improve his batting. He made it onto the ground staff at Lord’s, played two games for the Middlesex second team, but he didn’t have that touch of greatness. Instead he had a talent for enabling those who did. Eric Clapton and Barry Gibb would soon become two of his favourite people and two of his best mates.

On Sunday 3 August, the day after the Edgbaston Test, this appeared: 'Michael Vaughan will be giving a press conference at Loughborough today at 1pm.' The moment we received that we all knew he was going, but he had taken us by surprise. The text received at 10.15am on Friday 18 July at Headingley seemed even more prosaic. The ECB kindly deliver the final XI to our mobile phones on the morning of a Test match a few minutes before the toss. This particular message seemed routine enough until we alighted upon the name of Darren Pattinson. Both these texts suggested an England regime in disarray, with no idea which direction to take.

A decision has to be made: Either a place is safe enough for everyone to travel to or no one. And that decision must be implemented in action and in spirit. There is no point in humiliating a country or embarrassing a game.

We need 11 match-winners and it’s brilliant that so many people have put their hands up this summer – we have had seven different players of the match.

Do selectors ever receive praise? Oh, I suppose so in a grudging sort of way. But they are more remembered for their foibles rather than any bold choices or hunches that come off. Does anyone remember the selector who pushed 19-year-old Dilip Vengsarkar into the national squad on the basis of one dashing century against Bedi and Prasanna in the Irani Trophy game in 1975? Does anyone remember the selector who had the foresight to pick the relatively unknown Bedi, then only 20, on the basis of one good performance for the Board President's XI against West Indies in 1966? It was under the chairmanship of this much-maligned selector that both Chandrasekhar and Venkatraghavan were first given their India caps when they were still teenagers. Does anyone recall the selector who boldly gave the reigns of captaincy to the young Nawab of Pataudi, then all of 20 years of age, to lead the Board President's XI side against the visiting MCC in 1961? Does anyone recall the chairmen of the selection committees who picked the two most successful one-day teams in Indian cricket history - the 1983 World Cup and the 1985 World Championship of Cricket?

While he has freely offered his own evidence that he's also a bit of a dill - his autobiography contains a chapter devoted to team-mates relating stories about his various faux pas - there is a streak of something more unpleasant, too. Since his elevation to stardom, which was a long time happening, he seems to believe he's a law unto himself. Turning up drunk for a match in England three years ago suggested that, and ignoring last week's meeting underscores it.

A strong and straightforward character and a highly respected umpire, he is best remembered for no-balling Ian Meckiff four times in his opening over on December 7 1963, during the first Test against South Africa in Brisbane, ending Meckiff's career. Conspiracy theories abounded that Meckiff, who had not played a Test for almost three years, was the victim of a set-up involving Donald Bradman, who was ACB chairman at the time.

To invest the pages with more bite and, no doubt, more marketability, the player admits to some previously unrevealed trauma, or, in Trescothick's case, a trauma that had been only half-revealed ... Other than moments of dark humour, such as when Peter Gregory, the England team doctor, tried his hand, unsuccessfully, at acupuncture, and when Trescothick was taken in by a fraudster of a hypnotist, this is a joyless book. There is little of the thrill of playing sport at the highest level, none of the humour, nor the fascinating details or character sketches of dressing-room figures that make a sporting life worthwhile.