The Surfer

"I am not sure anyone quite understands it. What I have learnt is that it appeals most to people who love books first, and cricket second, not the other way round. That collectability is crucial. And that what readers love most is the way, searching for one fact, one gets diverted for hours: it is a reference book double-plus. Plus there is that solid, distinctive name: as Australian writer Murray Hedgcock once pointed out, Wisden would never have worked had the founder been John Smith, Jones or Robinson."

"A few of the young players now like the flashy stuff and are probably more concerned about playing the reverse sweep than batting a long time."

"Coming here I will play alongside top-class players who are in the England set-up and playing in international tournaments. Mick has told me exactly where he wants me to fit into his plans and I'm very happy with that. I'll still bowl aggressively, still try to make things happen, but I want to set the right standard."

"Who knows, maybe, if I'd stayed, I would have gone on to play 70 Tests and perhaps get the monkey off the back and get a century against Australia? But you make what you see as the right decision at the time.

There was everything, in fact, apart from a small tent and the flag of Norway to inform us that Roald Amundsen, Scott's old adversary, had beaten us to it.

IPL is a format that is alive for eight weeks and dead for most of the remaining 44 weeks in a year. This seasonality factor must not be taken as a game holiday period by teams. Teams that do this lose out. Brands that take breaks, break for sure.

Establishing early the interconnection between cricket and race and class divisions opens the way for Beyond a Boundary to fulfil its author's full purpose: to draw out other startling connections - cricket and art, life in ancient Greece, even rewriting English social history with cricket's great WG Grace as a crucial figure. As startling as his connections is the light he sheds on each - not only cricket but every subject benefits from shattering boundaries. We are invited to reject the fragmenting of reality, and to see its diverse interconnections without which we are prevented from ever knowing anything fully - including our own reality. What do they know of cricket, or anything, if it is walled off from every other aspect of life and struggle?

In the developed countries, the structured environments with highly intrusive coaching methods that have replaced those creative learning environments, have reduced batting to an exercise in trying to perfect the imperfectible. This has meant that batting skills have deteriorated to the point where modern players really struggle to survive, let alone make runs, when the pitch is other than a flat road where the odds are overwhelmingly in the batsman's favour. If I had my way, I would change the education of coaches from training them to be the font of all wisdom to becoming managers of a creative learning environment in which young cricketers learn the game with minimal invasion from adults.

Auckland needs a proper cricket venue urgently. Obviously Albany is not the answer; no one goes to watch anything there. So the solution needs to be south of the bridge. The logical options are Colin Maiden Park, the recent home of the Auckland side or a redeveloped Western Springs which will annoy the Speedway fans.

However there are continued murmurings about using Eden Park No2, which is even more ridiculous than the main ground. Take a look at the Ford Trophy final currently underway. It's like some players found a bit of grass out the back of a giant supermarket, except with not quite the atmosphere.