The Surfer

Harwood is a prime example of a cricketer for whom the Twenty20 explosion could work wonders. Though his Cricket Victoria contract is expected to be renewed next month, its value may be reduced on account of the 34-year-old's propensity to blow a shoulder or tweak a hamstring at any time.

I am a traditionalist when it comes to pitches and I believe that the surface for a Test match should have something for everybody. Some pace and movement for the quick bowlers, good batting conditions in the middle and then help for the spinners on the last two days.

At least the championship has the excuse of being mostly played on working days. So it has a mystifying multitude of hidden fans. They include the scourers of newspaper scorecards on the train to work; the Ceefax addicts ensconced on the sofa at home, and more recently, of course, the internet browsers sneaking a look in the workplace. Cricinfo, the leading cricket website, says that its county cricket site recorded a remarkable 26-million page views during the 2007 season.

With a smile on his face as he caresses the ball before delivering it, Mendis bowls the off-break, he bowls the leg-break, he bowls the googly, he bowls the flipper, he bowls a straight delivery, he bowls them with different grips and different actions, he bowls them with a different trajectory and at a different pace, he disguises them brilliantly. The result is that he mesmerises, or bamboozles, batsmen - as he did Chris Gayle and Daren Sammy on Thursday.

No, he can't bat, and you wouldn't stake your life on him under a steepler, but he's a better fielder than Gillespie and not far behind Mason. Neither of those two are threatening allrounder status with the bat either, though Gillespie will always be remembered after fluking some runs in that epic Chappell-Hadlee run chase last year.

When dusk descends on India this Friday evening, and the lights go on in Bangalore, not only will the Indian Premier League commence. It will also launch the fourth age of cricket.

"I just wanted to hear it officially: you've been named in the squad for the West Indies. I was on edge every time the phone rang. I was like a bear with a sore head until I got that confirmation."

And what does it feel like to be planning and putting our every effort into beating our home country? The truth, for both of us, is that with every part of us we want and are willing India to win. The disappointment of defeat at the hands of the South Africans in the last Test burned us as much as it did the Indians.

Angus Armstrong, born and raised in the United States, has been playing cricket for around three years at Stuyvesant High School, before the league was introduced. He said the experience allows him to gain an insight into cultures of other nations where the sport is popular. "There's an entire international community out there that so many Americans don't know about," he said.