The Surfer

Who would you like to invite to dinner, and why? Tiger Woods. I would love to talk about the excellence of his game and book a few lessons with him. Nelson Mandela - he has an interesting life story to tell. Don Bradman would be good, as would Sir Anthony Hopkins, whose films I enjoy.

"India is a forbidding place in which to play cricket and was the final frontier on Australia's way to world domination.

Ponting has learnt to be civilised, yet a part of him yearns for the old days when he could play his shots and speak his mind. Symonds has heard about tact and discretion but tends to regard them much as children view vegetables. Both men yearn for the blowing of the bugle, the ringing of the bell, the sounds of battle in their ears.

Cricket fans were dumbfounded when Australia's most dynamic opening batsman played at Caringbah Oval in front of a handful of people … This is the same batsman who has scored four ING Cup one-day centuries for NSW this summer and a sensational 94 off 112 balls in his limited-overs debut for Australia.

Otago provincial representatives Greg Todd, Aaron Redmond, James McMillan, Neil Broom and South African Jonathan Trott have all suffered injuries while living in the former hospice, now converted into a five-bedroom town house.

He had stopped bowling; he was skylarking in the leagues in New York and was just waiting on failure with the bat to say "right, that's it." But his natural gift as a cricketer didn't allow that to happen, even as he paid little or no attention to his game.

Forget that Tufnell's rave was well scripted, funny and delivered with a devilish glint in the eye. When a to-and-from dares to remind our boys that the year's real cricket highlight came at their expense, suddenly they start to take themselves very seriously. Then we see the humourless side of Australian cricket. The side that says winners are grinners. And if you beat us? Just shut the hell up. We get to see Ricky Ponting make pointed reference to Tufnell's remarks as he accepts the Allan Border Medal, warning the comments would be motivation for the next Ashes series.

Sadly, the reaction to his comedy instead said more about the nation we're becoming: triumphant in victory, precious, thin-skinned and defensive in defeat. One radio news bulletin described the light-hearted routine as a "spiteful send-up". Talkback callers lamented how such un-Australian sentiments could be uttered on this sacred night of nights.

Warne slapped his world record 93-Test wicket year on the table, but, almost inevitably because he is a Test match specialist, he managed nothing more than a distant fifth in the medal voting. Warne's chances of winning the medal are effectively gone forever because surely he will never have a better year than his last.

Jason Gillespie, discarded from the Australian squad after a poor tour of England, has announced his candidacy as a replacement for Glenn McGrath, should he withdraw from the early stages of the South African tour. And former England batsman Graham Thorpe is favoured to return to the first-class ranks before the end of the summer, albeit for his adopted state of NSW rather than his old county side Surrey.