The Surfer

As recently as last March, the unpretentious blue-collar boy from the township of Ulverstone on Tasmania's north-west coast supplemented his modest cricket earnings by working as a brickie's labourer ... Touted as a bolter for Australia's Cricket World Cup squad, he is set to snare a Cricket Australia contract that will guarantee him around $200,000 earnings next year.

Any old-timers in the Members Stand who had returned after the fifth Test may have mused that it was Australia versus England, but not as we know it ... Gone were the white shirts of the 130-year-old form of the game. In came the brightly coloured uniforms of the three-hour version, with the players' nicknames on the back. Also gone were the subtleties, guile and tactics of the longer game. In came biff, bash, thump and wallop.

If I was Duncan Fletcher I would have told him to go back to Yorkshire, play a bit of first-class cricket, or said: "If you're coming to Australia, play some club cricket out here, get some runs, make a couple of centuries and you'll get back in in the summer. But under no circumstances are you going anywhere near this England squad."

While it is unlikely he will be truly fit for international cricket at this stage, things are so bad in the England camp at the moment that he had to get back and help the team out.

There is something inherently dark, borderline masochistic, about quick bowlers. Courtney Walsh cloaked it with a raised, philosophical brow; Andy Roberts rarely spoke — his choice of expression was the sadistic smile; Ray Lindwall, a man of great charm by most accounts, had his ugly moments; others, Jeff Thomson and Sarfaraz Nawaz among them, unabashedly chose to let it all hang out.

We may have to play players like Sachin or Sehwag in the middle order. We cannot throw in a new player in the team before the World Cup. Because team that does well in the World Cup will certainly have experienced players.

The combined drawing power of Asha and Lee ensured the single surged to No. 4 inside the first week, and all but sealed plans for Lee to complete a studio album for release in India within the next year.