The Surfer

And what guidance has he in turn given Warne? He grins. Under the severe, grey-streaked beard, the 37-year-old still has an appealingly cherubic face. "He doesn't need my tips, although in 1993 when he was touring for the first time in England and I was playing for Somerset, [the Australian wicketkeeper] Ian Healy asked me to have a chat with Warney, to advise him how to bowl in English conditions. I said to him that in the early summer in England the wickets are slow, so you have to bowl quicker, with less spin but more pace, getting people out with pace not variation." A chuckle.

"We went back to the ground to have a look at it, and cars in the car park were completely submerged and pads and gloves and bats were floating across the ground. We had to enter the dressing rooms through the roof, and we fed the swans from the second deck of the pavilion. I've never seen anything like it."

Cricket and the people of Bangladesh have had a brilliant relationship since the days of the ICC Trophy triumph in 1997. It hit the roof when they beat Pakistan in 1999 and it hit an all-time high this World Cup. Over the last 10 years, the country hasn't had much reason, except cricket, to cheer about.

No one, though - not even the man himself - could have foreseen this week’s extraordinary events. “It was unbelievable,” Gibson said. “Something I never expected to do. I had five at lunch and said to Benky (Dale Benkenstein, the Durham captain) to just let me have three or four overs after the interval as I was quite stiff from a long spell in the morning. I somehow managed to get three more wickets and then the rain came. I was getting really tired so the Gods must have been on my side.”

They bowled as if every ball was important, and got stuck into India's batsmen from the word go. Their intensity and aggression blew India's middle order away. Two of the best players in the world with the best techniques, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, were made to look ordinary.

"I've always said playing for Queensland and my eight years here were the most enjoyable ones of my cricket career," Wessels, 49, said this week. Having spent a lifetime in the game playing, commentating, and now coaching, which included a recent four-year stint with Northamptonshire, Wessels believes that if he is going to take the next step and coach at international level then now is probably the time.

"I used to think about playing for Australia," Ambrose said with a distinctly English accent. "I just thought, well, I've got a pretty good opportunity here. It was a big decision to make."

Whereas most players are apt to tiptoe through the nineties, navigating them as sensitively as a ship passing through the Panama Canal, Pietersen likes to select full throttle.

There has been confusion about Sreesanth since he made his Test debut against England last year in Nagpur. For years he was plain Sreesanth, the name given to him by his parents, or S Sreesanth at a stretch, the initial standing for Shanthakumaran, which was his father's given name.

However, the idea at first took root that he was Sree Sreesanth. He explained this was wrong, and gradually he has become Shantha Sreesanth. But this too is incorrect. He is certainly not Sri Sreesanth as he appeared in the papers last week. He said that he did indeed have two names. "I am called Sree Santh," he said. But this announcement has perplexed Indian journalists whom he told last year that he wished to be known only as Sreesanth (one word).