The Surfer

His was a young man's innings played with a young man's sensibility. The fleeting nature of days like these means nothing to him yet, and nor should it. His mind was as free as his arms, his uncomplicated love of the game lent perfect expression. It was so good partly because it was so unexpected but also because it was a reminder of what it was like to be 19 years old and to believe that anything is possible.

Simply put, young cricketers in India play more cricket than their antipodean peers. At the youth level, India is years ahead of countries like Australia and New Zealand because they play so much more cricket. Also, young athletes in Australasia have multiple sports vying aggressively for their participation and involvement.

Conditioned by short forms more like T-ball, contemporary batsmen are not technically or temperamentally suited to toughing it out on days like this. The pitch was challenging, but not the ogre they made it look. It is not a new theory, but it [is] every year more apparent."

Modern sports stars pretend to know how to objectify hype - to block it out - but few can say they have really mastered the art. The more they say "we have to treat it as just another Test match" the more the other side of the brain is gripped by panic.

Indeed, the Kashmiri identity of Rasool gives him a special resonance, apart from his cricket abilities, vouched for by no less than the great Bishan Singh Bedi. Rasool is no Kashmiri migrant who settled outside the Valley. He grew there, acquired and honed his skills even as the bullets flew around and bombs exploded. The state's cricket infrastructure, from all accounts, is moribund. No doubt, for an individual to overcome these terrifying odds and sneak into the Indian cricket team is laudable. Yet, ironically, his feat holds out contradictory meanings for the people residing in the Valley and those outside it.

Standing at the end of your run with the ball in your hand preparing to bowl the first ball of an Ashes series is an amazing feeling. The umpire calls play. The crowd roars (well, unless you're at Lord's). You let it build up. The opening batsman takes strike, he's looking down the track, waiting for you to run in. I liked to drag it out for another 15 or 20 seconds, just let it build and build. Then off you go …

Over the years, there have been many versions regarding his whereabouts as well as what he's believed to be up to. The most common among those is that Patterson was lost to the bush, as they say in Jamaica, drifting away into the wilderness due to drug abuse and destitution. Some say he's been in a mental asylum, while there are even those who believe that the 51-year-old has now shifted base to the USA.

Above all, old-fashioned village cricket, where what mattered most were beer and fellowship and summer sun and a lingering sense of eternal youth, has gone out of fashion. No more do the likes of Jack Hibberd bustle round the pub and press-gang any half-sober male into making up the numbers, or enlist a kid to field somewhere quiet, bat No. 11 and perhaps save the game. Over the past four decades organised leagues have taken over, overwhelmingly. Most clubs have gone one way or the other: they have become large, serious units with multiple teams and junior sections and girls' teams and coaches. Or they have quietly disappeared.