The Surfer

Trevor Gillmeister believes Symonds should work on his technique. "He didn't drive through properly," he said. "He didn't finish the tackle off. And if he's ever going to make it in rugby league, he might want to put a cheap shot in there somewhere, too."

Kishore Biyani, group CEO, Future Group, believes that while Indians wear a T-shirt representing Team India, he doesn’t see any display of pride in rooting for a local team. Overruling any merchandising possibilities, Biyani says: “Prima facie, there’s no emotional affinity for the audience to buy team merchandise. So right now, I don’t see any potential.

Over the past 15 years, cricket enthusiasts have enjoyed many delights but two stand out. Anyone able to follow the careers of Tendulkar and Shane Warne at close quarters has been privileged. They count among the most enchanting and compelling cricketers the game has seen. Both were craftsmen of high calibre but also artists of supreme talent. Warne was a mesmerising tweaker with a fiercely competitive streak. The Indian remains a classical batsman unburdened with ego and capable of exquisite strokeplay.

'All said and done, their (juniors') on-field behaviour was deplorable. Don't confuse this kind of behaviour with aggression; it was absolutely terrible and atrocious. 'There was no finesse, no grace. When you are winning, you should be graceful. It was herd mentality ... And a few of the players did not look under 19 years of age; faces of under-19 boys look different.

Happily for Channel 9, we got what everybody wanted 10 minutes in. "One of the great clashes," Ian Healy announced solemnly. "Sharma and Hayden." Jabbing murderously at his crease Hayden looked, as ever, like an anvil-jawed, gorilla-chested Marvel Comics superhero dressed up in a green nylon leisure suit. Sharma, on the other hand, could pass for a sensitive youth from the scholarship set with a passion for 19th century Romantic poetry and playing the bassoon. On the back of his shirt he had "Ishant", which sounds like the peg for an interminable Two Ronnies sketch. Something along the lines of "Can you tell me the name of this bowler?" "Ishant." "There's no need to be like that." "I'm telling you, Ishant." Repeat until laughter track has hysterics.

Often, as a player, radio interviews - and in particular the more relaxed FM networks - are where the cliches and sportspeak are abandoned as you inadvertently drift off into the spirit of the interview and blurt out something that you wouldn't normally say in a more controlled environment which often leads to a headline and harsh consequences.

Stanford lives in St Croix in the US Virgin Islands, having moved to the Caribbean in the 1980s because of the tax breaks and the warm weather. He has been in the area long enough to know that 'when cricket, which is the glue that binds us all together, comes up, we go up with it, and when it sinks down we all sink with it. My initial thought was just to do anything to give West Indies a shot in the arm. But this thing was a lot more successful than any of us thought.'

Johnson is passionate about cricket. He has been playing longer than he has been married. He has been in the game for the past 75 years, beginning at primary school, he was married in 1962.

"There are other things to worry about going into this Test series, key areas we need to improve in." Which are? "Well, the batters need to go on and get big scores, and the bowlers need to find more consistency." Which sounds a bit like a jockey saying he needs to get a lot better at riding, or a footballer admitting that his kicking needs serious work. Moreover, the challenges facing the Test side must have been brought into sharper focus by defeat in the one-dayers, different XI or not. Has that increased the resolve in the camp?