The Surfer

Anderson is beginning to sound like the old bowler he is, moaning about having to pick up the batsmen's slack. But he does not excuse himself either. "For the bowlers, barring the odd moment, there were too many times between the stand-out performances where we weren't great." They were too reliant on individual match-winning spells, from Stuart Broad at Chester-le-Street, Swann at Lord's and Anderson himself at Trent Bridge, when he would rather they had all been more consistent through the series. He took 10 wickets in the first Test but after that "I wasn't really up to scratch". He felt he was starting to bowl better again by the fifth Test "but I have high standards and I think I can still get better as a bowler, get more consistent. Performances like at Trent Bridge shouldn't just be one-offs. They have to be more regular. That's my job."

The manner in which the grudge match between BCCI-Srinivasan and CSA-Lorgat is being played out is nothing short of embarrassing for both, humiliating to Lorgat and, at a minimum, humiliating to all the cricket tragics of the world. If cricket is played to be enjoyed, surely everybody, including the Indians and Tendulkar, would rather play against South Africa than virtually any other team in the world. Steyn, an up and coming among the greatest bowlers of the world, Kallis, possibly the best all-rounder ever, versus Tendulkar, possibly the greatest batsman India has produced, and one who the greatest batsman, (appropriately named Don), considered to be the closest to his own style and temperament.

Whenever sports try to insulate themselves from change, they self-destruct. So let's imagine that a national symbol, such as the gold shirt Ahmed wears as an Australian one-day cricketer, does not impose a national character. Let's imagine that it's the wearer who changes the character of the shirt. In Ahmed's personal history, is there not the courage and durability we associate with a Hewitt (or a Dawn Fraser, a Herb Elliott, a Dennis Lillee, take your pick)? In his refusal to wear a VB logo, is there not something of that wilfulness that we like to call ''Australian''? In choosing to be here, rather than being born here, has he not already proved something?

Any batsman who has made it as far as the international game clearly knows how to bat. Any player playing at the top level evidently knows how to play. Instead, it's to do with circumstance, the demands of format, the ebb and flow of the red-ball game. The longer the batsman is asked to bat, the more nuanced his batting must become. The task in 50-over cricket is almost rote now, its formula exhausted by repetition, while the blunt challenge of T20 remains brutally simple to compute. By contrast the challenge of the five-day game shifts under the batsman's feet even as he is at the crease. Not knowing how to bat, in context, is not knowing how to tune yourself into the fluid set of circumstances that the game produces. Here, self-knowledge is everything.

The best estimate of the financial exposure taken on to build a 10,000 seater temporary but international standard arena was between €375,000 and €400,000. When the final financial calculations are done they will likely show that a small cash profit was made. In straitened times that is important but the real and invaluable benefit lies in the establishment of the sport in the public eye as a serious endeavour, with the scope for young players to advance, and as a medium for corporate investment that delivers a return.

"The wet and soft pitches definitely helped develop my technique," says former wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit. "The wickets were a bowler's paradise and even after they eased out and got harder, they were usually two-paced. Survival was important. Your shot selection improved drastically. Whenever there were loose balls, you had to put them away, because they didn't come that often."

After I retire, I will write an autobiography with the title 'victimised' or something. There has always been propaganda and a plan to destroy my career. If you carefully study my career, they always wanted me to fail. I have gotten chances but they have not been fair.

Tendulkar deserves better than to be seen as a player chasing a record in the comfort of his home environment. He is the greatest batsman India - perhaps the world of international cricket - has produced, and he needs to be seen as more than a mere statistical curiosity. Poetic justice might see him withdraw from one of the Tests against the West Indies with a common cold. What will the BCCI do then?

"The key thing I learnt is that you have to toss it up, give it flight. If you throw it straight, it just skids on. The faster you run in, the shoulder should rotate as fast, but it's just the fingers and wrist. Some bowlers, when they try to bowl it, psychologically become a bit slower in their run-up, their shoulder rotation is a bit slower and batsmen read it. So you have to do the opposite - the shoulder will go around as fast, but you use the wrist to kind of twist the ball and get that dip."

"I couldn't believe it. The same selector who had sacked me wanted me to be part of the World Cup team. I hadn't played a competitive match since 1999. But he was adamant," he says. Fast forward a couple of months and we meet our protagonist, wearing the green and red in Kingsmead. "There I was, too old to play cricket four years ago. Not only was I here, but Kenya had qualified for the semifinals of the World Cup," says Karim. "In front of me were the mighty Aussies. In a Super Sixes match. And behind me was a scoreboard that read: Karim: 8-6-3-3."