The Surfer

"I was surprised when I heard he was looking into getting a German passport, it's hilarious really,” Keith Thompson told AFP. "I don't know if he would even come here, but we will try and get him over.”

PCB seems to be jinxed. The long and tragic history associated with it speaks volumes of how things have been working over many years. The current state of affairs therefore is no surprise.

The former England captain Alec Stewart was one of a number of people surprised by his omission. "Owais can count himself very unlucky," he said. "I would have started with him. He made real progress in the one-day side this summer and improvised well."

Nielsen may have a right to feel as if he is singing the next song after Pavarotti or taking to the dance floor after John Travolta but he is a no-nonsense, strong-willed, self-confessed cricket "nuffy" who sees rich opportunity rather than a bar too high to jump over.

Warne has always been German to his core. So much has been clear from the first day of his Test career. After leaving the field at the end of play, he was asked how he felt. "Sehr gut," he replied. This was misunderstood to be a reference to his gut, and Warne paid the price for being German by having to endure a torrent of humiliating stories about his weight in the 15 years that followed. The signs multiplied. The stump in the air, the battle with nicotine, the incrimination of his mother after it became clear he had taken a diuretic: all were proof of Warne's indisputable Germanness.

"You have to take it in your stride. I could have hung up my boots, said I'd captained for a long time and it's time to do something else, but it's a question of personal satisfaction. I wanted to see if I was good enough to play again. What's past is past and I'm back. Greg has gone back to Australia. I hope he's having a good time."

Once an organisation is incapable of organising itself, let alone governing others, the time has come for it to go. The England and Wales Cricket Board have been unable to elect a new chairman. They should be re-formed so they promote English cricket as a whole, not the interests of the 18 first-class counties.

Ideally, Fleming would probably like to do both but if he had to choose, then recent events are making the ICL seem a more attractive proposition by the day.

"Greater players even than the South African have been omitted, including several distinguished Indians. They, too, serve at the behest, though hopefully not the whim, of their Board.