The Surfer

So what has happened to the millions of dollars given to Zimbabwe Cricket by the ICC? If only we knew. On the ICC's website there is a mission statement of values, one of which, under the heading “Openness, honesty and integrity”, reads: “We work to the highest ethical standards. We do what we say we are going to do, in the way we say we are going to do it.” Presumably, because the ICC is simply an amalgam of its constituent parts, these constituent parts sign up to such mission statements, too. But Zimbabwe Cricket has issued no accounts for public consumption since 2005.

One of the reasons why the Australian Institute of Sport has been phenomenally successful is that it insists on its athletes studying properly alongside their training regimes. They have no difficulty ensuring athletes study because it is a captive market; all the athlete wants to do is play sport and they are prepared to do whatever is required of them; including reading books.

“To be fair, my mum's been the one who watched most of my cricket when I was younger. She is the one who carted me around the country. She'd be sat there in a deckchair all day watching and then drive me home. So she's the one who has always watched my development.”

This direct intervention in the affairs of a sporting body was not one I took lightly. I firmly believe that sport should operate autonomously from government, and intervention is a last resort. The government had previously called on the International Cricket Council to reconsider their rules to allow teams to forfeit tours to countries, such as Zimbabwe, where serious human rights abuses are occurring. Unfortunately, the ICC have declined to do so

If NZC decide to bite the hand that feeds and pull the pin on the tour for an unacceptable reason along the lines of: “Sorry chaps, we find Zimbabwe a morally reprehensible place to play”, they will be staring down the barrel at an initial fine of US$2m from the ICC. Then there will be a killer blow: an obligation to pay Zimbabwe Cricket millions more as reimbursement for any losses incurred as a result of our no-show. If you sucked US$10m out of NZC, that would cripple the organisation and the sport of cricket in New Zealand. Hardly a practical option.

Everybody can bowl the ball 135kmh and put it in the right areas. You can go and get a school kid nowadays to do that. But if anyone can run in and bowl 145 or 150k’s is something special especially if you can swing the ball at the same time. Pace is definitely my biggest weapon but pace combined with the swing is deadly. And we have a few guys who can do that like Makhaya (Ntini) and Morne Morkel. It’s important to me that I am always outwitting the guy next to me and staying a step above those guys because it raises the bar all the time. It’s healthy competition within the team. The more they are pushing the better I have to become so it doesn’t allow you to relax, it means I am always fighting for a spot. I have always got to be better than the guy next to me.

Kevin Pietersen will probably not agree, but both he and England cricket could benefit from losing his first game as England captain. Players possessed of great natural gifts need to be reminded occasionally that the world does not always march to their beat, and losing to New Zealand on Saturday should prove a powerful mnemonic.

Should Marsh find himself short of inspiration, he need only glance at his batting gloves. There, scrawled in black marker pen, is the word "Chemo" - a reference to the bond he has forged with several young cancer patients in Perth.

How beautifully Donald bowled that summer. The bare bones reveal that he took 33 wickets at 19. They do not tell you how fast he bowled, for so long, in all conditions. His performance at Old Trafford, where Shaun Pollock was absent, and where injuries robbed him at different times of the support of Lance Klusener and Jacques Kallis, was one of the great feats of fast bowling in the modern age.