The Surfer

''I came back to a very foreign world of psychedelia, Jimi Hendrix, miniskirts and anti-Vietnam fever,'' he recalled. ''Had I wasted the last year of my life? In the space of a few weeks I went from a botched-up night ambush outside of Nui Dat to being paid up at Enoggera [Barracks in Brisbane] and then back to my civilian job. They teach you to kill, but they don't unteach you.''

But it can't be just Imran because that doesn't even touch on the impact of tape ball cricket, itself rising as forcibly as a phenomenon as Imran at around the same time. Because to bowl fast with a taped-up tennis ball is to have power and emancipation. At the lowest - and thus most critical - developmental stage a tape ball is an uncomplicated weapon. Its bounce is not reactive and apologetic like that of a simple tennis or rubber ball. It means something. It is a threat, zipping off the road.

Our Antipodean friends keep reminding us of the difficulties of rebuilding. They explain that there is bound to be a dip in form now that Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey have moved on. Well, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan have moved on - or been moved on - and the upshot is that India are a significantly improved one-day side.

"Sadly it's a bit like [US televised] wrestling. Everyone knows that it is fixed, but you don't know the actual result, and so it's still exciting. And while some wrestling is 100 per cent fixed, maybe the IPL is just 1 per cent fixed. So people will still go, that's how it is."

With a deteriorating infrastructure that was failing to produce quality cricketing talent, mired in controversies and allegations of nepotism and sexual misconduct, a very capable and seasoned pair of hands was needed to steer the ship back into steady waters.

Boof is not really a coach. Yes, sure he can tell you about technique but he will be speaking to players about how they approach the game and prepare. He is a mentor. He has been there, done it and endured all the ups and downs over a lifetime in cricket. He has a great rapport with players, a good understanding of how to balance the old school and new.

How will his traditional way of doing things collide with CA's modern matrix for running the team? What will happen when Lehmann needs a big effort from Ryan Harris, but the sports science says the injury-prone paceman is in the red zone? Can the old and new school work together, or will something have to give?

His bat is straight, his ability to leave the ball around off stump is without fault - as you might expect of a lad raised on testing Yorkshire pitches - and a natural-born opener and he is so calm that he ought to be renamed Joe Cool.

In the 2007 ICC World Twenty20 he asked Joginder Sharma, the least known and experienced of the Indian bowlers, to bowl the last over in the nerve-wracking final against Pakistan. Nobody was convinced, but they all had to swallow their cynicism within minutes as Joginder got the dangerous Misbah-ul-Haq and India won the title by a whisker. This was his first assignment as captain, which is when most prefer to stick to the straight and narrow. But Dhoni had shown a penchant for the offbeat

His work ethic has always been immaculate, but his thought process has changed and we both feel that credit should be given to his yoga guru -- Manoj Kumar -- for this," Madan Sharma, Dhawan's coach, told Mail Today . " Earlier, he used to be very impulsive which didn't help his cause as he would play a rash shot at the wrong time. But now, he is ready to grind it out in the middle. Yoga has helped him focus his aggression in a positive direction and he has become far more controlled in his approach."

I cherish a picture of the two of us in the Bangalore Test during the 1974-75 West Indies tour (later carried in Wisden), Dicky's face wreathed in the typically impish smile that signaled he was holding forth with some yarn or the other. He made friends, and admirers, easily. Wherever his career took him, he had the respect of cricketers of all generations. The tributes that have followed his death confirm that impression.

He was to cricket what Zubin Mehta was to music. He conducted himself as the quintessential professional. Not for him the literary flourishes of a K.N. Prabhu or an N.S. Ramaswami. Dicky Rutnagur was first a reporter, only then an opinion moulder. His smooth narrative style held you spellbound. This was reflected in the absorption with which his Editorial Musings and his day-to-day account of Test matches were read -- months after the events took place.