The Surfer

Panesar continues to grab the popular imagination but, as the game moved well beyond its halfway stage towards the climax of today, he started to resemble Henman on semi-finals day. He tried, tried again and then tried harder, but for all the optimistic whoops, balls narrowly missed the edge or fell short of fielders.

The England and Wales Cricket Board created Twenty20 five years ago, to widespread acclaim and profit. But those by-products now threaten to destabilise a game several centuries in the making, a situation the ECB can perhaps best serve by shackling the thing it loves.

Twenty20 is undoubtedly a hot product but the frightening thing for people who prefer progress and change to be considered and gradual is that eight months ago only one of those competitions existed - the Twenty20 Cup. The indecent haste to fill those gaps that still exist in the itinerary seems driven by the need for a fast buck, which in turn suggests that the product is a fad and not especially robust. As some sage pointed out recently, cricket needs to make money to exist but should not exist simply in order to make money.

Call this dour? It was positively frisky compared with the habits of Jackie McGlew, who once entrenched himself for more than nine hours to reach a century against Australia in Durban in 1957-58. McGlew was one of Test cricket's great stonewallers. He was first pictured waving a cricket bat at four years old and it may well be that he never waved it so fearlessly again. South Africa dubbed him "the little general", with memories of Napoleon, and praised his orthodoxy but there were others who would have happily exiled him to Elba.

As a journeyman county cricketer himself, who went on to various jobs in the leisure promotions world before joining the PCA, he certainly feels his members deserve a bit more money: "Players are central to delivering the future of the game. We have to work with the ECB and the BCCI [Board of Control for Cricket in India] in a world market nowadays. As the players' representatives, we must play a more effective role in securing financial rewards, but we've also got to for players coming into the game."

Meanwhile, although he welcomes the "massive opportunity" provided by the short form of the game, Morris is determined to preserve five-day test cricket, which he and 90 per cent of his members regard as the ultimate form of their sport. "We have a responsibility to protect the game we've got. Test matches in this country bring in £50m to £60m per annum. It would be stupid to kill off the skills required for test cricket [which aren't easily acquired in the limited-overs game]. That would be killing the golden goose."

"My knowledge of Israel comes from the 'Exodus' and how tenacious and determined the people here are to have transformed the desert into this thriving economy. It's genius, and the people here are tenacious to be able to make a living in a really harsh environment."

The tournament is two-and-a-half-years away but the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) that reigns, with the army’s boots on the throne, over Calcutta’s most famous patch of green has only a foggy idea of which apple to pluck for the Eden or which snake to let loose. Architects have not been spoken to, a budget is not in place. Prasun Mukherjee, the CAB president who took charge in a blaze of publicity around this time last year, said: “The land belongs to them (the army). We cannot start construction unless the lease is renewed.”

Smith had nowhere to turn, no variety to offer. Jacques Kallis? He often looks a reluctant bowler and it is counter-productive to bowl him into the ground when his runs are so vital. Paul Harris? So far, he gives the impression of a journeyman left-armer who makes Ashley Giles look like Hedley Verity. Even so, it was odd that Smith was not more proactive. Kevin Pietersen dominated all too easily and the South Africans took their punishment all too passively.

I approached the then-BCCI president and asked if the departure to the Caribbean could be delayed. The president flatly refused after I explained the reasons. Instead he said there were 5000 players waiting to play for India.

Is there any point in making an effort if the pursuit of excellence takes away the joy and celebration of living? Watching listless, tired Indian faces running around the field in searing heat and humidity during the Asia Cup in Pakistan could not have been too enjoyable for the spectators.