The Surfer

Whilst many of the "associate" nations are improving, they are not being given enough of an opportunity to do so, and it looks like they will soon hit a ceiling if things are not changed. Ireland have a great chance of becoming a Test nation in 2019. However, a crucial change in the original ICC reforms, made to gain the votes of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, means that the "bigger" (not better) nations will be given too much protection and the "smaller" nations will not be given enough help both financially and competitively.

If the crowds stopped going - to football or cricket - the value of the product to TV would be vastly diminished. When you think about it that way, the public has more power in the game than it realises. Which is a good reason why administrators should treat the paying customer with greater respect than sometimes tends to be the case. For the customer is a vital component in making the product what it ultimately is. In the end, the crowd is nearly as crucial to the optimisation of the product as the performers themselves. For that reason, the public should never be taken for granted.

"It was my lowest moment in cricket and I remember I had more beers in that series than I scored runs. And I didn't have many beers either," he says.

"I was so angry and gutted because I had not scored runs, not because I thought I deserved to play. Then it hit me and I thought I might not get a chance to play for England again. I was a young lad. I had scored two hundreds and a couple of fifties. I had done all right but there are no guarantees you are going to come back. We'd had a terrible tour and I did not know if that would be it for me. I've never wanted to go home as much as I did at the end of that series. We only won one game and I didn't even play in that one. I remember getting my win bonus through at the end of the tour and it was about 10 quid for the whole trip because I was carrying the drinks for the game we won."

A very good example of what difference Zak pa made in my bowling was the 2008 Border-Gavaskar Series. I picked up 15 wickets and was declared the Man of the Series. Why? Because of Zak pa. In India a pace bowler's biggest strength is the reverse swing. At that time, I could only reverse the ball in. Zak pa taught me how to reverse the ball away from the batsman - simple things like how your hand should be and where the seam should face. It was a very small thing but it made a huge difference.

While he gave me such excellent technical inputs, he also kept reminding me that sometimes it is best not to get too much into technicalities and focus on tactics. At times, I tended to worry too much about things like where my right hand is loading and whether my release is right. He used to tell me, 'When you're bowling, just bowl. Just focus on where and how you want the ball to land, don't think about where your foot is landing and hand is going. The only time you need to get technical about your action is when it is causing you any kind of injury. Otherwise, you just work on your tactics'.

"Johnno was spraying them a bit, and he bowled a wide down the leg side," Haddin says. "I was so keen I dived for it. Immediately I thought: 'Oh no, I've broken my finger'. The next ball I took, I knew it." Haddin turned to Mike Hussey at gully and said: "I think I've broken my finger." Hussey's eyes widened. "Don't even think about it. I'm not keeping." Haddin reassured him, saying: "I'm not going off, but I've broken my finger." He took six catches in Australia's win, another ten dismissals in the series, and scored 151 runs in six innings, but his fracture became complicated. The team physiotherapist, Alex Kountouris, contracted deep vein thrombosis and flew home for treatment. In his absence, Haddin visited a West Indian doctor who cut his fingernail off. Haddin's journey had planted him deeply inside the Australian wicketkeeping heritage: a country upbringing, a love of wicketkeeping that grew from unstoppable enthusiasm, mentorship by significant former Test keepers, and a final brew of determination, talent, patience and luck.

"You start to imagine what you'd do if you could never return to the field again, and that's why I've made some strides to look at options outside of cricket during my lay-off.

"...the technology, particularly ball-tracking is shrouded in so much secrecy, that it seems more a nuclear facility than a television tool. It might help if the ICC were to take the veil off the system and explain it to the entire world, so that everyone can understand its mechanics...

The latest wisdom is that, to prevent injury, a bowler must increase their chronic load (number of balls bowled) in training to the level at which they will be bowling in games. A 50% spike over that chronic load in games can be managed, but much over that will put a developing body under strain and it is likely to break.

The important thing to understand about JB Bernstein is that he is no charlatan. Because when this sharply dressed American sports agent says that he is going to turn an aspiring baseball player into the first US citizen to win a contract in cricket's Indian Premier League (IPL), at first it is difficult not to scoff at him.

Last Sunday, on a beautifully soft, dew-drenched south London morning, two Kent District Under-10 teams played their last cricket match of the season. Four hours, 300 runs, one jaw-dropping gully catch and a single huge slapped six into the sunflowers later, the home team had won a high-spirited end-of-season friendly by 35 runs. The players trooped off. Hands were shaken, boundary markers collected, weather-beaten district kit packed away until … well, forever, as it turns out. Stack those chairs. Stow the scorebooks. Let the grass grow. Exeunt omnes. Finis. With apologies in advance for retreading old ground, this week's Spin is the sequel to an ending, a return to a subject that has in itself seemed to demand a follow-up. Welcome to the Death of Inner City Cricket Part Two: the autopsy.