The Surfer

In an ideal world, Jamie How and Ross Taylor would be two of our young stars poised for development. An England tour is an ideal place for them to progress. However, compared to their top- order teammates, they are senior statesmen. And Taylor himself was dropped as recently as the Bangladesh series. Is this the way to develop long-term players?

The SCG Trust has decided that its new stand, currently under construction in the old 'Hill' area, will be named after a cricketer. But the Waughs are out of contention because the trust has decided the player needs to have been retired for at least ten years. Steve Waugh retired in 2004, leaving Test immortal Victor Trumper as the favourite.

Ideally, you want your allrounders to be batting allrounders in the Jacques Kallis mode. Broad, like Flintoff, is a bowling all-rounder and he will find at his young age that it is hard to concentrate properly on both disciplines. But he has serious potential, not just as a bowler whose height is a crucial extra dimension on what might be another flat Lord's pitch, but as a No. 8 capable of scoring fifties. I remember our bowling coach Kevin Shine bringing Broad to my attention, and he wasn't wrong.

The careers of Arnie and Ryan top and tailed my own but it is the cold, overcast days at Headingley in the late Eighties on pitches where the ball nipped around, when Middlesex used to regularly get the better of a grunting, disharmonious Yorkshire, which bring back the fondest memories. A day of hard cricket was followed by a short drive to the Three Horseshoes pub in Headingley, where Bairstow, Sidebottom and Mike Gatting would trade banter next to the bar over a couple of pints of Tetley. Gatting would then lead his Middlesex team next door to Bryan's, a wonderful fish and chip restaurant, where baby haddock, chips and mushy peas were consumed by everyone, washed down by a pot of tea.

For all his talent, Marlon Samuels remains a boy-man; someone who remains arrogantly juvenile, seemingly incapable of either understanding or coming to terms with his own talent. In that regard, he may mirror an image of a generation of politically and culturally estranged West Indians, about whom social scientists ponder so much. For this group, talent is a personal asset, a mere gift possessed by minstrels.

Before everything went up in smoke, perhaps appropriate given their TV commercial, the owner of the Indian Premier League's Royal Challengers lapped up the attention. No matter what the function or the photo-shoot, Vijay Mallya's portly frame would be there, providing stark contrast to the athletic physiques that surrounded him. He even drafted in cheerleaders from the Washington Redskins, missing no opportunity to be photographed with them.

Given the emotional strain Clarke has been under and the marathon two-day trip from Australia and his recent lack of cricket, the Test selectors may be reluctant to play him. If he is unable to play then Noffke, because of his valuable batting ability in a side which would feature a five-man tail, would be the logical inclusion.

The colour of England's new kit further complicates the issue. Historically, cricket whites have always been off-white – a cream colour – but the clothing Vaughan's side will wear for the first time at Lord's is brilliant white. The trousers have red piping down each leg, too.

I still believed, up to a few days ago, that a selector should travel with the West Indies team, that the regional selectors should travel around the islands to see the players in action, and that although he played for the West Indies while living in England, Lloyd, in spite of his greatness and his knowledge of the game, should not be a selector as long as he lives outside the region.