The Surfer

"I'm certainly no saint but the discipline of the Islamic way of life has helped my cricket without a doubt. I don't drink, I pray five times a day, which gives stability to my daily routine and I am generally more disciplined about my game and my life."

If I was an Australian cricketer and I read that my country had just shut down its consulates in Lahore and Karachi, I would be uneasy. You could tell me all you want but if I turned to my wife, or to my mother, or to my son, and they implored me not to go, if they said “must you?” I would be torn. I would ask myself if cricket was that important. And I know what I would do.

The presidential level of security offered does not mean much in a nation where the recent president was lucky to survive three assassination attempts, and the prospective prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in 2007.

If forced to send a team to the tournament, England will likely send a bunch of second stringers. Clearly, Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen are irreplaceable, but I think that if I were one of those getting on the plane, I would be a little disheartened to know that I was, well, so much more expendable than the other players.

And if England's wannabes were to win the Champions Trophy in September, how many would be invited to play against the billionaire Texan Allen Stanford's West Indies all-star team the following month, and possibly pick up a $1m winner's cheque? Very few, I suspect.

Instead of belated if decisive action to save next month's multi-million-dollar Champions Trophy from collapse, the International Cricket Council has called yet more meetings. With the eight-nation tournament due to start on September 12, not even a meeting of new president David Morgan, vice-president Sharad Pawar and chief executive Haroon Lorgat on Wednesday night could act decisively as the cricket world threatens to split.

If it is not moved in the next day or so the tournament will simply collapse amid considerable acrimony and recrimination, costing the game tens of millions of dollars from its $1.1billion broadcast deal with ESPN-Star. While the Machiavellian world of cricket politics means a straight answer is nowhere near as common as a straight drive, teams from Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa will not tour Pakistan.

No doubt there are still some old-timers who shake their heads and tut-tut about the softness of the modern game and its participants. Those, however, who truly remember what it was like may recall times when they, too, trod perilously close to the line. Diagnostics and the better support systems on offer are light years away from what was available to previous generations, but that is not to say that problems did not exist. From my own era, if they were honest with themselves, Graham Thorpe and Phil Tufnell would surely admit that, at times, they were in no fit state to be batting and bowling in the backyard, never mind playing for England.

I would have thought that it would be easier to keep going in some kind of private hell, grinning to the world and playing up to the myth of invincibility that generations of sports writers encouraged, than to admit to their problems. Their speaking out is to be admired, especially since it may convince others in similar circumstances to do the same and to seek help before it is too late.

Gibbs is at an age where "ability" on its own can unpleasantly cease to become a faithful friend, and you need to make some pragmatic allowances both to the disciplines recommended in the coaching manual and arguably to a calmer, more serene lifestyle, to ensure that you stay in the running pack with the Young Turks!

It will help Kevin Pietersen that one-day captaincy is nowhere near as complicated as the Test job. There is a decision to be made about when to take your Powerplays and there is the occasional question about which men to keep in the circle, but otherwise the job runs itself far more easily than in five-day cricket. I also think South Africa have got two huge holes to fill in their bowling attack. Shaun Pollock and Charl Langeveldt are no longer there, and they had this knack of landing the ball on a length in the one-day game.

Pietersen is likely to bring a little enthusiasm for the game and will no doubt put a rocket up those English players who can’t lift themselves for the series. I still don’t think it’ll be enough. South Africa, brimming with confidence and swagger, should take the series with ease. My only real concern is the form of Jacques Kallis.

The famed Indian quartet of spinners, Bishan Bedi, Erapally Prasanna, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar and Srinivas Venkatraghavan ceased to be a force in international cricket, although their careers went on for a bit longer. Zaheer Abbas mainly, and other Pakistani batsmen helped to push over the edge one of the finest combinations of spinners the game had ever seen. Only weeks earlier they had nearly helped India win in Australia, a series they ultimately lost 2-3.