The Surfer

In white go-go boots, yellow spangled short shorts and bikini tops, they pompomed their way onto the field, bursting right through local notions of modesty. The result was something that few in this cricket-obsessed nation thought possible: tens of thousands of male cricket fans finding it hard to keep their eyes on the game.

The Redskins cheer choreographer, Donald Wells, said the Indian cheerleaders he's working with are already adept at shaking their hips and staying on the beat. He noticed that Indian cheerleaders were very expressive with their hands -- Indian classical dance has countless hand motions -- and joked that they probably wouldn't need pompoms.

In the inaugural week of the Indian Premier League - a competition many believe will revolutionise the way the game is played, marketed and distributed worldwide - participants have formed a united front to express their belief that, unless the ICC installs an IPL window in the Future Tours Program, cricket could be torn apart.

It will be hard not to say something to someone, but I think the pace of the game will help as there will be no time to sledge. Well, maybe a little sneaky one here or there.

Although I am pulling up a little sore in the mornings, it's hard to know if I have lost any zing until we start playing. To be honest, I have not done lots of batting and bowling until this last week and, surprisingly, I feel in a pretty good space and am looking forward to testing myself in the Twenty20 format.

A journalist is preparing to sit down for dinner with his family when the phone rings. It's the agent of a player who wants the journalist to write his biography. "I’m on a yacht in the harbour, with four bottles of champagne by my side," he says cockily. "Our man just sold for close to a million." His jubilation is understandable. After all, he is Mr 15 Per Cent.

Another day, another hallowed cricket tradition falls. After matches that can be completed in three hours, cheerleaders, players auctioned to the highest bidder and pink balls, a further piece of iconoclasm occurred at Lord’s yesterday when the last rites were read for the cable-knit cricket sweater.

The Chinnaswamy Stadium is a hub of activity a day before the so-called revolution. There are huge stacks of speakers lying at various corners of the outfield. At short mid-wicket, a drum-kit takes pride of place on a tailor-made platform. Deep third-man has a troupe of young performers walking on stilts. At long-on, there are Washington Redskins cheerleaders in tank tops and bridal veils practicing an expansive jig.

This is more like a brand launch, to be assessed at the end of the season, for commitments are in place for much longer. Few brands get it right the first time; and when the horizon is ten years, the first year becomes a learning phase rather than a do-or-die shootout.

"This is just the beginning," said Buchanan, prior to the Indian Premier League's first match between Kolkata and Bangalore tonight. "Administrators need to make very good decisions over the next few years. I believe all three versions of the game can coexist, but I think this particular form of the game has the potential to take off round the world.

I think the challenge is to respond to the IPL. We invented this game, it's our game and we should be leading," said Bransgrove. "Hopefully the chairman and the board will found a vibrant, exciting Twenty20 competition in this country that will decide our players to stay, as well as attracting the best players from around the world to come here."

if the players don't like the idea of missing half the IPL, the ECB have one big ace in the pack. They can come back and say: "You don't have to have a central contract at all. And we don't have to pick you." Once these lads stop getting international exposure, all their endorsement deals are worthless, no matter how many Indians are watching them in the IPL.

Kilikiti is an interesting exercise in what happens when you take a sport and drop it in the middle of the Pacific and let it evolve without the guidance of wealthy guardians seated in plush chairs in north London.

Played between two villages on a cricket-sized ground — or any-sized ground that's mostly clear of coconut trees and ocean — kilikiti has a pitch running down the middle, with three stumps just off each end made from skinny, bark-stripped branches, that go all the way up to your armpits.

As does the bat — an unwieldy, 1.2-metre-long weapon carved from a single piece of the Fau tree, said to be a cross between an old cricket bat and a war club. And yes, "death by kilikiti bat" has occurred. A note for the weary traveller: if you're invited to bowl in a game, always agree with the Samoan wielding half a tree.

You do not have to spend long in Stanford's company to realise that he is not used to hearing the word "no". The island of Antigua is his personal fiefdom. Stanford owns Antigua's national bank, runs the hospitals, built the biggest hotel, and owns the island's airline. You half expect to see his picture on the east Caribbean dollar notes.