The Surfer

“I’ve not got a bad voice, believe it or not … with a few singing lessons, who knows? If you’d said to me a few years ago that I’d be spending my winter on a dancing tour, performing in front of 12,000 people, I’d have said you were sick.”

Malik’s insistence on playing the struggling wicket-keeper-batsman Kamran Akmal as opener against the Zimbabweans and his unflinching loyalty with a rather expensive Rao Iftikhar are among the few issues that are being constantly debated over by the selectors.

When the national selectors were searching the country for a replacement for the injured Stuart MacGill last month, Bailey was so far from selection that he rigged up a rope across the practice nets. In a desperate effort to rediscover the flight and turn that had deserted him, he looped the ball over the rope.

If Gilchrist plays through another home summer at age 37, will he still be the right man for the job come the 2009 Ashes series? If not, then New South Wales's Brad Haddin must be handed his baggy green next summer. That's only fair for Haddin, who would then have six Tests at home and a tour of South Africa to ready himself for England. At 30, Haddin - who earns a spot in the Australia one-day team as a specialist batsman - is at his peak. His time is now.

Of course, they all want to play for Australia. Only the cream get there. But the lot of a state cricketer is not shabby. Consider leg-spinner Bryce McGain, who, at 35, cracked his first state contract and has all but had to quit his high-paying IT job with a major bank for the privilege of scraping through as a single dad on a base contract. For him, living the dream of being a professional cricketer has nothing to do with fortune.

... has our time come? An Indian team after the Sydney fiasco was not supposed to fight back against a real champion side, like this one has done. That itself is the stuff dreams are made of.

In short, the Australians were not beaten because they have turned into a bunch of softies. To the contrary, they represented the nation with distinction and after a terrific tussle succumbed to a superbly led and single-minded side that played sturdy cricket for four days. The Australians did not exactly put out a welcome mat for each batsman or blush every time an appeal was rejected. Instead, they shook hands before the match, kept their manners when players collided, did not appeal unless they thought the batsman might be out, did not claim any questionable catches and generally played cricket that the entire world and not just apologists can recognise as hard but fair. As vice-captain and behind the sticks, Adam Gilchrist served with distinction.