<i>The Spin</i>'s cricket moments of 2011

When my colleague Rob Smyth is really tickled by something he tends to gurgle in amused satisfaction. I, on the other hand, squawk like a strangled parrot. Many of the happiest moments of my cricket-watching life have, oddly enough, come while I've been sitting next to Rob, the two of us gurgling, giggling and squawking as we write over-by-over commentary. We are, as you can imagine, a popular pair with our workmates, who are all trying to get on with the business of producing a newspaper. I'm not sure anything we've seen has ever given Rob and I more delight than the sight of MS Dhoni pacing out his run-up so he could fill in Zaheer Khan's missing overs during the Lord's Test. It epitomised the gulf between the two teams, and presaged the shape of the series to come. But better yet was that it showed, again, the sheer moxie of the man: if something needs doing, best do it yourself.