The Surfer

My decision making as a 22-year-old probably wasn’t as good... As captain, I trust my gut feelings a lot more now... Today, there’s more conviction in my decision making... Then, for example, I wasn’t sure about giving Polly (Shaun Pollock) an extra over or two or getting (Jacques) Kallis into the attack... Things like that.

However unfair it may appear to a makeshift opener thrust into a specialist’s job. Team India have been on that path many times before. Only on this occasion, it was a strategy born of pragmatism. In Kaarthik, they had a man willing to put up his hand, even as Wasim Jaffer made himself completely at home on a pitch that suits his batting to a T. He may not be the dashing opener who can put his act together on a hostile terrain.

“The Ashes were burned when Britain, ehm when England, lost the 1882 game and it was turned into a trophy which the Australians took back to Australia and I think, and I may be wrong, but I think the MCC may be rewriting history."

I remember we had to answer all the same questions when we got back from our Ashes defeat in 2005. To be honest, I just dismiss all that talk as a load of rubbish.

In places like Adelaide they still have the good sense to leave the cricket as the cricket, with a minimum of music and advertising noise. In this series the Gabba and Sydney Cricket Ground have been by far the worst offenders. Presumably it happens at the instigation of marketing types who rely on research that tells them this is what people want. Test cricket needs nothing of the sort. The people who pay their money to be at the SCG do so to enjoy a loved summer ritual.

Commentators at the Perth Test were giggling that he wanted the ball, even though it wasn't his turn to bowl; that even after been hit for 19 runs he was putting his hand up for more. He would bowl every over in the Sydney Test if they'd let him - and maybe he should.

Irfan, on his first tour to Australia in 2003-04, had his jaw hanging open when he spotted his hero Wasim Akram at breakfast in the hotel where the team and the TV crew were staying, and he wasted no time in approaching the great man through another teammate to talk about swing bowling and all the tricks needed to get batsmen out

In the days that followed Ntini's bouncer, which thundered into Langer's helmet and forced him to retire hurt after just one ball, the opener would shuffle into the breakfast room at the Sandton Sun hotel, head bowed. He would attempt a mouthful of cereal. Maybe some fruit. And then he would retreat to his room, not to be seen for the rest of the day. But none of this sat well with Langer. Despite the vomiting, the sleepless nights the pounding between his temples, Australia's opening batsman felt he was letting his teammates, his country down. So, with a minimum of fuss, he packed his kit bag and headed to the Wanderers.

Privately, Mahmood has complained that he was 'turned over' by his ghost. Unsurprisingly, the paper disagree and since the ghost in question is an excellent young journalist, who would have known the sensitivity of the issue, it is unlikely. The thoughts on Flintoff's captaincy may well have been paraphrased but they would have reflected the gist of the conversation. Being 'turned over' is as easy a get-out clause for a player, as for the journalist who, when confronted by an irate player, blames his editor for manipulating his copy.