The Surfer

In an indication of how far Hair has fallen from grace, the 76-Test veteran - the third most experienced umpire in world cricket - is listed to stand alongside Roger Dill, a 49-year-old Bermudan firefighter.

“There were nine days between the two matches. And Raj Singh Dungarpur, who was the team manager, even had my residence numbers. They could have called up my home (in Mumbai) and got my number in England.”

Cricket, despite its genteel image of bucolic charm, is not immune from oiks, so we are not talking about the end of innocence here. But part of Twenty20's mission statement was to attract a new audience and many reckon that, along with the rise in the number of women and children at matches, there is a growing boorish element.

Mr Caborn was a noted campaigner against apartheid in South Africa and an advocate of the sporting boycott. He should now join all those in Zimbabwe, including the trade unions, calling for a similar sporting boycott of Zimbabwe. It is time for an end to double standards.

Considering the way in which Mr Chingoka was appointed to his job, its is frankly ridiculous to argue that cricket has not become a political tool of this deplorable regime.

So why was the series held? The reason, as Sarwan discovered through his damaged shoulder, was money. Well, I hear you say, all professional sport is about raising money in the end, isn’t it? Ah yes, but it’s a question of priorities. When raising money is more important than the pursuit and occasional capture of excellence, sport itself is destroyed.

The man who has turned the tide has been Rahul Dravid, an urbane south Indian who has played for Kent and Scotland and become a cricketer of the world as well as India's captain. Modest, too, he is not one to behave like a film star. Last Friday in Belfast I asked him about India's away record and his reply was perfectly correct in what he said, but even more remarkable in what was unsaid.

"These were the saddest days of my cricketing life. We lost a great man who spent 3 years with us. It was a bad blow. Sad and shocking. Dark days. The players spent 24 hours a day together in groups. We hardly spoke."

This was colder, more familiar, more fundamentally an old-fashioned struggle against a world-class team than their Caribbean odyssey. Shorn of nearly half of that team, through injury and the demands of the County Championship, Ireland have been reacquainted with the realities of trying to master a summer game on an often wet island with limited resources. In that context, they did well again in grinding out 193 runs and using up all their wickets and all the deliveries sent down by India on a two-paced pitch before the rain came. They are never found wanting for effort.

As expected, and generally advocated, Paul Collingwood was confirmed yesterday as England's captain for the forthcoming one-day internationals and Twenty20 matches against West Indies. Collingwood has little experience of captaincy - and none at this level - and the England selectors, including the coach, Peter Moores, are offering him the chance to learn the skills on the hoof so that by the 2011 World Cup, England having played around 80 matches in that time, he will be by a distance their most experienced leader ever in limited-overs cricket