The Surfer

Today, the fever of Twenty20 has gripped Hyderabad. Both the Indian Cricket League (ICL) and the Indian Premier League (IPL) have seen fans queuing up at the stadiums. Players such as Shahid Afridi, Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds and Herschelle Gibbs have been recruited as ‘locals’.

The chief value of the MVP is that it factors in a lot of performance indicators (runs scored, strike rate, wickets taken, economy rate, fielding prowess) into a single index. Better still, the MVP value can be looked upon as a simple "run equivalent". If Shane Watson has a MVP of 292, it means that his combined effort as a batsman, bowler and fielder is equivalent to having scored 292 runs.

“The invective has flown thick and fast. Murderers and rapists have escaped with lighter criticism. The world body has been charged with endorsing corruption and racism, of being broken-backed and weak, and by one writer, of being amoral, unprincipled, shallow, self-centred, ill-informed and contemptible. Oh yes, and pathetic.

"On the first day we didn't understand cricket at all. Now we get it a litte," says Evgenia Guseva, who is a trained gymnast, ballet dancer and who's been a cheerleader for four years for football matches in Russia. Currently she's learning hip-hop and salsa in Moscow and plans to open her own dance school soon.

Now they are fully assembled, it is still not a prospect to float many boats. No doubt this is grossly unfair - and it may also play straight into the tourists' hands - but to think of New Zealand cricket is to think of an afternoon in dullsville.

Dennis Lillee, who saw Jordan bowl in Perth last winter, has no doubt he will play Test cricket. The question is, for which country? Like Kevin Pietersen before him, Jordan needs to fulfil the residency qualification, meaning he will not be eligible to play for England until 2010.

Does the IPL spell the end of Test cricket and should England's players be allowed a crack at it next year?
What? Six weeks razzle-dazzle enough to consign over a hundred years of Test cricket to the dump? You must be off your rocker. Twenty20 is here to stay and will energise the game around the world, but players, however grateful for IPL and, in the future, EPL cash, still know that they will be judged by their record as Test players. The ECB might well make some concessions to their contracted players re the IPL, but a lot depends on how plans for an EPL develop. Until those are clear we need to hold fire.

We knew Brendon McCullum was talented. And now we discover he once kept Dan Carter out of a schoolboy rugby representative side. For the South Island secondary schools team McCullum played fly-half (or first five-eighth as New Zealanders prefer) and Carter came off the bench to appear on the wing.

Exhaust fumes rise, mixing with the smoke from a spectacular firework display, but through the haze and smog the floodlights glimmer in the distance, soaring high above the street vendors and crowds of spectators swarming into the stadium. When the cacophony of engine noise and police sirens subsides, the rhythmic beat of traditional Punjabi Dhol drums floats through the night-time air.

Yet there is an air of the ho-hum about this Warne-inspired needle-fest. His grouse(s) against Ganguly may be justified but the blond bad boy has, after all, made his reputation not just as the king of spin but also as the master of the mind game. His late-night press conference in Jaipur where he launched his offensive seemed more theatrical than enraged. As fine a piece of theatre as it was, it hasn’t quite generated the frisson of animosity it would have in another context.