The Surfer

So it was I read that on the cover of the Sunday Book Review there was a review of Netherland by Joseph O'Neill, by Dwight Gardner. It described O'Neill's book as 'the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we've yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell.'

A profile on Cricinfo that divides his England career into five distinct phases: adhesive beginner (1991), nervous wreck capable of shining only as a stand-in (1992-97), solid achiever lacking only a top gear (1997-99), blatant scapegoat (1999-2000) and seasoned spare part (200102).

The only time I was inside the stadium was during the opening ceremony of the 1996 World Cup, and I spent exactly a day-and-a-half in Calcutta then on that occasion. Having played at venues such as the MCG and Lord’s, I am no stranger to cricket history, which makes it all the more satisfying to finally get a game at Eden Gardens.

His 97 in the first innings of this current test was a fine example of Brendon McCullum in total equilibrium and an innings from which he should grow more comfortable, confident and clear in his test game. Where I do have reservations is in the possible discharging of the wicketkeeping duties simply because he is batting in the top six. Having your keeper in the top six provides for options in balance.

Its famed Nursery is transformed into a veritable theme park of food stalls, liquor outlets and merchandising caravans. It is here the Lord's proletariat gather, dressed in their newly purchased MCC polo shirts - a snip at just $63, down from $140 - munching $17 burgers and quaffing Foster's ($9 per pint), Pimms ($11 per glass), or, if you're in the mood, a little Veuve Clicquot.

Sidebottom joked that his colleagues had ribbed him for "burgling a few wickets" at the end of the New Zealand innings, but the best seamers earn these salad spells by doing the chips-and-gravy graft in less favourable conditions over a long period of time: in Sri Lanka during the winter Sidebottom bowled far better than his figures suggested. You do not need to see the world rankings - Sidebottom is currently 10th in the Test table - to tell you that "best seamers" is a category in which he now very much belongs. These are early days, but his 57 Test wickets have cost just 25.70 each. To dip under the 25-mark would be to enter the realms of Fred Trueman, Brian Statham and Alec Bedser in the pantheon of English seamers.

New York cricket is “bush cricket,” one of the characters in the book complains, played on wickets of cocoa mat instead of grass and on weedy, substandard pitches, where to score a run you need to bat the ball in the air instead of elegantly along the fast ground of a proper pitch. But it has a charm of its own and is played with unusual devotion, in remote corners of the city, by a surprisingly large number of people unable or unwilling to shed their cricketing heritage.

The one big difference between the sides Ganguly has led in the past and Knight Riders is Akhtar. During his days as India captain, Ganguly had one big regret - the absence of an express quick in his line-up. "I think I'm destined only to face real fast bowlers. I never get a real quick in my side," he had said.

Akhtar provides him with the fire-power that he so desperately wanted. At Kolkata the other day, as Akhtar was running through the Delhi top-order, Ganguly jumped around like a child who had finally got what he had always dreamed of And the big smile on Akhtar's face on Tuesday had not faded at Wankhede today, providing an interesting off-shoot to the story: If Ganguly has never got a pacer like Akhtar in his line-up, some experts say the Rawalpindi Express has never quite got a skipper who backed him to the hilt.