The Surfer

As for the hue and cry raised by players’ association in Australia and South Africa, it is too flimsy to be taken seriously. Just recently, many of these players were taking part in the Indian Premier League when seven blasts left some 80 dead in Jaipur, which was the base camp, among others, of South African captain Graeme Smith as well as a couple of Australian stars. Besides, there were quite a few big names in other teams that also visited Jaipur without so much as making a noise. They all stayed back and fulfilled their commitments even though they were not on national duty and could have taken their own decisions. Certainly, IPL mega bucks were the only deciding factor. When it comes to national duty, however, their reaction is reflective of an entirely different mindset. If this does not constitute double standards, what else does.

Initially his counter was to employ his long reach, lengthen his open stance and slog the ball through the fielder-packed covers or, dangerously, over long-on.

Zimbabwe, a country effectively outlawed from international participation, and one not involved in the eight-team Champions Trophy even if it were not, has retained an equal say on matters as the other nine countries. As it happens, a non-vote from them would have made no difference. So England will trawl the country looking for willing participants, but will force no one to go against their wishes, and may even risk a fine of $10m by sending no side at all.

Those watching live at a venue will no longer have the best seat in the house, they will be left in the dark every time a referral is sent to the third umpire. It can take a minute or two for the third umpire to get the images he is looking for from the television broadcaster, with an over containing two or three referrals taking seven or eight minutes. After a while punters will question whether it is worth paying £75 for such a view when a better one can be obtained on a sofa at home.

The thing to understand about a day at Lord's is that it is as much about the cricket as it is about the sybaritic senses. No one would go to watch a Test match there without calculating in advance precisely what to eat and drink. Old Etonian (OE), a sublime host, had undertaken to fulfil the role of victualer. And here, I must digress again, to note that nowhere is England's class structure more visible than in the rules governing spectators at sporting events.

I can go so far as to understand one body not picking players who have played for another set-up. But not to take the field in the company of those that have played the ICL, in a third country, seems cruel and unfair. Even at the height of South Africa’s isolation, Bishan Bedi bowled to Barry Richards in county cricket, Sunil Gavaskar batted with Graeme Pollock in a world eleven and nobody raised a hue and cry over it.

Jonathan Agnew, the BBC's Cricket Correspondent, was incandescent. Trying to gather some last-minute information on the internet about Pattinson, he was redirected to the Cricket Australia website. Then, interviewing Pattinson shortly after he received his cap, Agnew was taken aback when, in response to a question that asked of Pattinson whether this was a moment he had dreamt of all his life, he simply said, with disarming honesty: “No.”

With his strong, repeatable action he did not look out of place and if he was trying any less hard than the others, it was not apparent to me. But for most this was irrelevant. Because he had not spent his formative years drinking warm beer in a village pub, somehow he was not as worthy.

No one, though, has taken longer than Walter Hammond, and he could play. His 99th hundred came early in 1935 for MCC in what was then British Guiana, but thereafter he entered a slump. Twenty-three innings came and went and just three times past 50 and none more than 71. He was, according to his biographer David Foot, ill, with recurrent sore throats and permanent tonsillitis. When Somerset arrived at Bristol on June 12, he took his colleague Reg Sinfield to one side. "I'm feeling rotten, Reg, and my confidence is going out there. Should I give it a miss for a few weeks?" Sinfield told him to go out and give it a blast instead.

McCague's Test record (three Tests, six wickets at a cost of 65 runs apiece) is clearly mediocre, but he is barely alone in that. Others from that 90s group who were even further out of their depth, such as Gavin Hamilton, Min Patel, Aftab Habib and Richard Blakey, were allowed to slide peacefully into anonymity. What makes McCague different? There's his Australian upbringing, although this is barely relevant in view of what has gone before and since, his perceived lack of fibre (he pulled up lame in two of his three Tests), his fuller figure, but most of all the fact that, like Pattinson, he was picked ahead of a hugely popular English workhorse who was controversially perceived by the selectors to have lost his nip.