The Surfer

Almost 40 South Africans played county cricket during this English summer, and the vast majority of them renounced their country to do so. One happily accepted the money a couple of months ago and remained convinced that South African cricket's health was "okay".

Now, after 10 weeks in an English change room, his views have changed.

"The Kolpak ruling is killing our cricket. Unless we start getting guys to come back and contribute, we'll simply feed the English game. I learned so much -- we had four or five international guys in the team and we discussed techniques and tactics, how to win games and how to behave as professionals.

Star quality among cricketers - most easily defined as the ability to rise above the performance level of mere mortals - is fairly rare. Only a handful of Australian players has had it since cricket was first televised here.

Perhaps Hutton was never quite the happy warrior whom every boy in pads would wish him to be. But in 1946 having adjusted to the short left arm and learned how to play with a bat of a size usually only to be found in youth clubs the whole burden of English cricket was piled on his shoulders. He had to open the batting against Lindwall and Miller. He had to hang on whilst more glamorous batsmen got themselves out with flashy shots.

It's natural to be apprehensive when you are coming back from injury. Did any negative thoughts bother you? That is why I took my time to get back to international cricket. I was very clear that physically there was not going to be much of a problem. To get back into rhythm was the important thing. All I was concerned about was, that. It takes time as it only comes after bowling a number of overs. Playing the Test matches and bowling long spells helped me achieve that. I knew that Sri Lankan conditions would be tough in terms of heat and humidity but I think I coped well during the series.

A team games not involving Hannibal, BA Baracus, Murdock and Face tend to be pretty mundane affairs. Fans weaned on a steady diet of international cricket tend to treat them as a Premier League supporter does a League One game, and the players themselves are motivated by different things. For the young and ambitious teenager, it's a chance to press his claim to be the next Tendulkar, Ponting or Wasim. These days though, with U-19 games and tournaments so common, many of these tyros take the escalator straight to the top, ignoring the A team staircase altogether. For most on the wrong side of 25, unless you're an Australian with the initials MEKH, the A team call-up is usually a sop, a reward for steady domestic performances for those who lack the X-factor that separates the merely good from the exceptional.

By being open about the mediocrity in the English cricket system, often alluded to but rarely taken head-on, he has sent out a message about the kind of players he wants to work with. “I want players who perform day-in-day-out” he said. He is looking for match-winners, not cosy players who do enough to stay in the side. When you apply that condition, it is not difficult to see who he is after ... With the backing of the captain, Flintoff is back to being the nightmare batsman for the opposition ... Next he worked on Harmison, a man of fragile temperament but enormous ability. England, much to everyone’s glee, were ready to give up on him. But sometimes the biggest brutes have soft cores, feel the same need for reassurance as average strugglers.

We will find out about certain individuals' variations after the plane lands in India, where I expect Paul Collingwood and Luke Wright to do more bowling. The key to batting over there is the ability to gauge the pace of the pitch, play the ball late, and manoeuvre it into gaps with flexible wrists. Owais Shah - preferably lower down the order - and Pietersen are key and others will have to learn quickly, because the English tendency is to go hard at the ball. A shot in England that will bring you runs might go straight to a fielder in India because the ball comes off the pitch more slowly. Go too early at the ball on the subcontinent and you don't give yourself time to pick up the variations in pace and bounce.

If I were part of SA's ODI selection committee, one head that would roll is that of long-time wicketkeeper Mark Boucher. Not that he has done any worse than many of the other senior players (or for that matter any of the other players), but now just seems the perfect opportunity to hand the gloves — in the ODI side at first — to AB de Villiers. In an ideal world, De Villiers would give the Proteas something similar to what the dominant Aussies had in Adam Gilchrist — a genuine batsman behind the stumps, effectively opening up the side to play an extra bowler or batsman, depending on the make-up of the rest of the team.

Still the most compelling aspect of the legend is The Average. One hundred is not the maximum possible arithmetic mean score in cricket, but 99.94, with its tincture of human fallibility, its hint of Oulipian constraint, could not have been more exquisitely contrived. To a generation addicted to measurement and saturated in numbers, The Average is monolithic, unassailable, totemic.

The international failure and overseas origins have clouded the underlying truth, which is that Hick was a throwback, one of a perhaps dying breed. He has given 25 years of unstinting, exemplary service to a single club, Worcestershire, playing on long after international ambitions had departed, for the sheer enjoyment of the game and because he is still an asset - averaging 46 runs per innings this season. It will not be only Worcestershire fans who wish him well in retirement.

Not since David Gower has an Englishman so gifted proved so exasperating. Bell will never elicit quite the same level of trust as more mundane, blue-collar batsmen like Paul Collingwood, because the nature of his talent is so unusual to us and more difficult to comprehend, but that does not mean his underachievement is relished. Quite the opposite. It is simply that many feel he does not have the will to go with his grace.