The Surfer

He [Broad] enjoys goading an opponent and taking them on because he backs himself to get the better of the contest. There have been times when such an approach has not come off, like when he was smacked for six sixes in an over by India's Yuvraj Singh in last year's Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa. Such a mauling would have broken quite a few bowlers but Broad just dusted himself down and went off to the next game. In the one-day series that followed, only two weeks after Singh's fireworks, he showed his character. In five matches Broad took 11 wickets against Sri Lanka at an average of 17.5, conceding just over four runs an over.

A lot of things [changed]. I’ve come out stronger from everything that happened. Even at the worst of times, at the back of my mind I knew that things would change for the better. I felt I would soon make a good comeback, and that’s what happened eventually. But I’ve learnt a lot about myself in the process. Time can teach you a lot of things — be it cricket or your personal life. You come to know who your friends are and, interestingly, this is the phase when you realise that you don’t have too many friends.

Langeveldt's reaction has caught everyone on the wrong foot. He has pulled out of the team, not so much in sympathy with Nel but in protest at the system as a whole.

The International Cricket Council do not have a tune to call their own but if they did it would probably come from the Sondheim songbook: Every Day A Little Death. The game is changing at a mind-boggling rate. From week to week there are developments in what politicians like to call the "narrative", and it is clear that cricket's governing body are hopelessly ill-equipped to provide anything that resembles leadership.

The last time I wrote one of these columns I spoke of how much I was looking forward to playing in the second Test in Wellington. A few hours later I was dropped, which goes to show that you can never take anything for granted. So I have got to make sure that I am physically and mentally prepared to step straight back in for the deciding Test, if required. If not, I will have to make sure that I perform my duties as twelfth man and drinks waiter to the best of my abilities.

The ones I feel really sorry for are my family, who had flown for 26 hours to watch me play in Wellington. I could not help but feel that I had let them down.

Despite a KPMG audit finding "serious financial irregularities" with Zimbabwe, no action was taken against the country or its dubious cricket administrators. Nor was the ICC's cricket committee chairman, Sunil Gavaskar, sanctioned for claiming in a newspaper column during the Harbhajan Singh racial abuse fiasco that white South African match referee Mike Procter was biased against Indian players because of the colour of their skin. The ICC made no mention of Gavaskar in its official comment yesterday and failed to release full findings of the Zimbabwe audit.

With the Pura Cup final four-fifths done, the Bushrangers had already sustained enough damage to recognise what would happen in the worst-case scenario (they'd lose), and what would happen with a last-day inspired effort (they'd lose), and what would happen with the intervention of a minor miracle (they'd lose).