The Surfer

Very early in life, Jadeja realised cricket was a wise investment and would get him things he yearned for. He would play "winners take all" games where the better team would take home the kitty formed by the equal contribution from all 22 players. Most times, the winning XI would share Rs 22 and Jadeja would double his investment. The dividend would be enough to get him several long polythene flutes filled with iced water. He loved them. "That was our Pepsi," he says with a smile. When he failed to convince his father to part with the one-rupee he needed to be part of the matches, he would rush to the nurse station at the government hospital where his mother worked. "She would never refuse," says Jadeja. From accompanying Jadeja to outstation games, talking to his coaches and asking other team members to keep an eye on her prankster son, the overworked nurse tried her best to be a cricket mom too.

A lynch-mob mentality has always come in handy for men in power in this country -- no matter whether it is politics or sport or whatever. Law may be blind, but in the BCCI's case scapegoating is done with great relish and with eyes wide open. There is absolutely no attempt here to build up a case for Sreesanth & Co. But the law should take its own course. The Board believes it is a private body ... and it cannot pronounce judgments on critically important ethical issues when cases are pending in courts of law.

It's been a frighteningly fast rise for someone not yet 21. His first-class debut was 10 months ago, for Northern Districts in Hamilton. In 12 matches he's taken 22 wickets at 48.The numbers might not tell a story but the experts can. Vettori, recovering from achilles tendon surgery, was a fan from day one. On the eve of New Zealand's test win in Hobart in 2011 he was asked about the country's spin stocks. He listed the usual suspects then his eyes lit up, labelling Sodhi the best New Zealand prospect he'd seen after facing him in the nets. Paul Wiseman, the former test offspinner tasked with bolstering New Zealand's spin stocks, mentored Sodhi as he progressed through the national under-19 side last year. He disputes Sodhi's claim he can't bowl offspin, and says he's so talented he can even bowl the offspinner's variation, the doosra.

While on numbers, I ask him about Richard Hadlee's 300th wicket. Conspiracy theorists reckon Goodall wanted to be part of history when he raised his finger for an eternity to adjudge Allan Border leg before wicket. "Paddles said to me 'I had (Geoff) Marsh out earlier in the morning and you didn't give it'. "I can see now 'that bloody Goodall has put his finger up because he wants to be in on the act of being part of the 300th wicket for Paddles'. "He autographed that photo of me, appealing to me and me doing that. I can see the point you are making. 'Ah bloody Goodall getting in on the act'." Border wasn't his most controversial call. That came years earlier at Hagley Oval when he gave Walter Hadlee out in a club game. "The day I gave Walter Hadlee out on Hagley Oval the whole four matches all stopped. "No umpire had the guts to give him out. I was a West Coaster. Ten minutes later was afternoon tea and all the umpires from all the games gathered together and I got lectured by them. 'You must be 100 percent certain'. I was 100 percent certain."

Ah yes, Trent Bridge. The fourth Test, 2005, when Hoggard, a man who never pretended to be anything other than a tail-ender, led England to that decisive 2-1 lead in the most gut-wrenching of stands with Giles. One sweetly struck, text-book cover drive for four from Hoggard lives long in the memory of all English cricket fans. 'It wasn't really a cover drive. I blocked a full toss!' smiled Hoggard. 'And if it wasn't for 5,000 fans at the Radcliffe Road End sucking the ball over the line it would never have gone for four! I think I got eight off that over! Before we went out I was so nervous. Me and Gilo were at the back of the changing room trying not to watch and pretending we needed treatment from the physio but as soon as I got out there with him with a bat in my hand I felt in charge. It was like 12 or 14 runs needed? I can edge them…' He did more than that and England went on to the draw at the Oval that won them the Ashes. It was never going to get any better than that

We are about to enter the second age of the coach. The professional game is reaching an apex of analysis as science reveals more of the physical realities of batting and bowling. It's not quite golf - yet - but it will be one day. As players become highly priced freelance contractors, why wouldn't they employ a personal coach to micro-manage each aspect of their game? And why would those coaches not become high-earning mini-celebs in their own right? Golf after all has its swing gurus and its putting specialists, its mind-managers and its conditioning champions.

Whenever he bowled an absolute jaffa I would go up to him and say enough of that, get back to the hard work. That sounds harsh but I knew that underneath he was insecure about himself and he enjoyed being the underdog, the one not expected to deliver. He would talk down the game and his chances. That was his way of keeping expectations low, as much to himself as the rest of us.

My memories of cricket (for example when I wrote of this famous day at Old Trafford in 1981) are unreliable, capturing and rejecting detail almost at random. I'm as likely to recall the hardness of the benches on which we sat or the cry of the newspaper vendor with his bag of Manchester Evening Newses as I am to conjure the memory of Botham's blind sixes. Even as strong an impression as that made by my first experience of a live First Class match (this one from 1975) was corrupted by the passage of time, only to be rectified by the unarguable flat data of the web. The match in my mind (with first day centuries for Barry Richards and Gordon Greenidge and a second day riposte in kind by Clive Lloyd) will never be the match on the screen - nor, perhaps, should it be.

It is understood that the contract between Cricket Australia and Carlton & United Breweries, owners of VB, contained an opt-out clause about wearing the alcohol sponsor's logo because of a player's religious belief. Fawad's Australian team shirt was not an after-thought that had led to the logo being ripped off or covered with black tape minutes before he went on to the field. It is part of a larger, constantly evolving picture

Does not the pride and honour of individual achievement naturally supersede that of representing a country? That is, it must feel great to be acknowledged as one of the top individual athletes in the country, more so than the feeling of pride that comes with representing your country. In other words, the identity of the country an athlete represents - or any attachment to it - may not be as important to the athlete as the desire to be among the best at whatever discipline the athlete has chosen and be recognised as such by being selected to represent their country.

Financially, the clubs are poles apart. Surrey, commercially acute and well run, made £800,000 last year. Durham, operating in a depressed region, has been helped enormously by Durham County Council's backing. They came up with £2.6m when the club was facing a bleak future. David Harker, the chief executive who has been instrumental in the development of the county as an international venue, said: "The political leadership sees this club as an important asset to the region." Indeed in a recent survey which asked people what was their first thought when Durham was mentioned, more than half said cricket.

A leg-spinner was on, which made Iles groan. That was the one thing he didn't want to face. "He came up and give it a big rip, and it pitched, but it didn't turn. And he did it again, and it still didn't turn, and I thought: 'Well, this is all right.'" He hit him for four sixes in a row. And that was the start of what Wisden called "the finest innings seen at Lord's in many a day"