The Surfer

When 12th Man creator Billy Birmingham was once told by Nine Network cricket commentator Tony Greig that Kerry loved his work, his first response was “Kerry who?”.

Had our first Test celebrations been shown to the world, you might have been surprised by what you saw. Sure, there were a few cold beers being swilled in the dressing room but there were also players drinking Gatorade. Others were drinking water. Others interrupted their celebrations to get ice treatment on their sore spots.

When Border brought the 1989 Australians to England, Ian Chappell had told him to stop being matey with the opposition, and Border soon demonstrated that he'd digested this advice when Robin Smith was incapacitated by a blow to the midriff.

The Gabba resembled Stalag 13, complete with bumbling, over-zealous officials who have turned a day at the cricket for many into a survival test. More than 200 spectators were ejected from the ground and there were nine arrests over the first four days of the Test.

Sehwag was ready and willing to play in the first match at Johannesburg despite the stitches on his finger. So his decision to pull out just three days later has raised more than a few eyebrows.

It was just a shame that one member of the crowd took the verbals too far. I was carrying a drink round the boundary to Harmy when the first thing I heard was a voice from the crowd saying: "You can't be English." You're going to get stuff like that out here and you've just got to learn to ignore it.

They proved themselves utterly inadequate. They lacked even one person, a Benaud, an Arlott, even a Christopher Martin-Jenkins, who could bring journalistic qualities - an inquiring mind, a hunger for information, a desire to explain - to the occasion. They could tell us next to nothing about what was happening behind the closed dressing-room doors. More seriously, they failed to give the events any wider context.

Churlish as it might seem to find flaws with a team that romped home by 277 runs, and 10 wickets, Australia periodically frayed at the edges. Certainly the batting was superb ... Australia's bowling was less convincing. Admittedly, the Gabba surface was slower than usual and Australia had a few hundred runs to spare.

Here's the drum on the new 12th Man album. Richie Benaud is so peeved with Eddie McGuire's cost-cutting decision to sack the entire Channel Nine commentary team - and hire Billy Birmingham to do all their voices and cover the Ashes series himself - that he forms a band called Richie and Da Boyz who do a remake of Birmingham's song Marvellous in a bid to get their own back against a man who has forged a career out of taking the piss out of them.

If Vaughan had been captain here, things would have been done rather differently. Harmison, who was given a rocket by Vaughan during last year’s Oval Test when he needed fire-and-brimstone from his fast bowler on the third afternoon, would not have enjoyed the licence he has.

At present there is a crazy situation since it is obvious that the England selectors disagree fundamentally. There are players chosen by those selectors who know that once they get on the plane they will be dropped. No prizes for guessing who that refers to on this England tour.