The Surfer

"Hopefully this will help condition me,” he said. “It's a bit of fun and it's a bit different. You don't realise how skilful and strong these blokes are.''

With all this sledging going on, maybe a toboggan would be a more suitable England crest than three lions, but whenever they do locate a new fielding coach, let's hope he can come up with something a bit less juvenile than planting a jelly bean on the pitch. Now we know why batsmen do all that prodding. They're trying to flatten out all those sugary sweets.

Mr. Hunte has merely advanced an approach by his predecessor, Mr. Ken Gordon, who had named Sir Alister McIntyre, former captain Clive Lloyd and Sir Granville Phillips as directors.

The announcement suggests that Ramnarine named to represent WIPA, was specifically appointed. We would have expected that the offer would have been made to WIPA to name a representative and allow the membership or executive of that organisation to appoint the individual. Or, perhaps it is assumed that Ramnarine is the sum total of WIPA.

Tait, 24, broke 160kph during his second one-day match earlier this year and believes there is more to come. "I'll try and get myself ready and see if I can get a bit quicker," he said. "There's no reason why I can't if I'm fresh.

He is often at his best on flat pitches, where his constant fiddling and manoeuvring of the field works to his advantage. Rightly, he doesn't like to sit back and let things drift but in bowler-friendly conditions it pays not to over-complicate things. Accordingly, it was strange to see Ryan Sidebottom bowling without a short-leg to Wasim Jaffer at the start.

In one particular school match, he [Wasim Jaffer] played a rash stroke and was slapped by his brother. He responded with a quadruple hundred in the second innings, showing the signs of the steely focus that earned him a debut against the South Africans in 2000. A languid strokemaker who is especially fluent through the covers and midwicket, Jaffer is often accused by critics of being too laid-back. His teammates, though, would tell you otherwise, and many in Mumbai still talk of the day when he went out and made a century just hours after his mother had died.

England's in-your-face, tough guy approach has frightened India so much in this Test match that the visitors had to be satisfied with a paltry first innings lead of, er, 283. And it might have been considerably more had it not been for the assistance of umpire Simon Taufel's index finger.

Once, the ball rolled a metre away from his bat. Convention is that the batsman lobs the ball back to the bowler. But Wright stood his ground as the youngster marched all the way down the pitch to pick up his ball. Watching this, Wright's teammates chuckled.

Throughout his career Tendulkar has batted this way, and sometimes he has suffered. Few batsmen of his class have been dismissed LBW and clean bowled as often. Obviously Tendulkar is aware of the problem. The idea that great sportsmen remain instinctive is fanciful. Apparently he believes that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Doubtless, too, he is reluctant to tinker with a tried and trusted game.

The last time we played a Test in Nottingham we were picked to pieces by a little wizard called Muttiah Muralitharan. I didn't play in that game but now there's another world-class spinner in the opposition ranks and I've done as much work as possible to prepare for him. The strange thing about India's Anil Kumble is that he never quite seems to get the recognition he deserves. When people think about the best spin bowlers of the last 15 years they always come up with Murali and Shane Warne but Kumble has taken more than 550 Test wickets. It is pretty mind-blowing really.