Dino alert: Ishant does his thing © Getty Images

After the sweaty, rustic charm of the Champions League, the resumption of international festivities has brought about a welcome elevation of tone. Wednesday’s clash of continents was full of good things, and whilst Sunday belonged to Australia, India struck back to stir the sediment of our jaded imaginations with the enlivening possibility of a genuinely suspenseful series. Dhoni, of course, was immense but it was the reinvigorated Ishant Sharma whom I most enjoyed watching, his angular, bent-forward lope to the crease putting me in mind of a velociraptor, ball perched between claws, intent on savaging the batsman’s knuckles (battered and swollen metacarpals being the tell-tale sign of an Ishant attack).

And with two of the game’s greatest batsmen on the same field of play, it was an ideal opportunity for the collector of cricket images to acquire more pieces for the memory. The batting displays in the Tendulkar and Ponting wings of my mind’s museum are already pretty crowded, so during the current series I have been on the look out for cameos, intriguing Tendlya or Punter-related items of sentimental or curiosity value.

A good collector has to be patient and wait for the right moment. On Wednesday it came in the 62nd over, when Lord Sachin was called upon to take human form and intervene at square leg. His stooping, tumbling dive was the everything-falling-out-of-pockets scramble across the platform of a portly businessman whose briefcase has become trapped in the door of a departing train. Yet he reached the ball. Returning the offending item to his captain with underarm disdain, he dusted down his suit and reassembled his composure. It was Tendulkar encapsulated: successful yet free of swagger; whole-hearted yet dignified.

Perhaps the same could also be said of the one-day format, still packing them in after forty years. Fifteen overs into the second innings, with the Aussie run-chase beginning to sigh like a yellow dinghy with a slow puncture, the atmosphere had eased from febrile raucousness to contented hubbub. But the double-tiered Vidarbha Cricket Stadium, an immense bowl of light, remained packed throughout. This summer’s Natwest Series, another 50-over bash assailed from all quarters as a motion-going-through exercise was also played out, under autumnal skies, to full houses.

It seems counter-intuitive then, that when cuts in the Future Tours Programme are being contemplated, so many people in the game seem to favour the end of a format that has remained so popular with the public. But then there has always been a perverse streak of anti-populism in our game, going right back to the 19th century. Those Victorian gentlemen of the MCC who reluctantly organised the county championship preferred sparsely attended three-day mid-week cricket to the popular weekend matches of the northern leagues. And a hundred years on, the English cricket establishment looked down its nose at the spectators who flocked to the Gillette Cup and the John Player League. The aristocratic distaste for making a profit may be long gone but the high-handed tendency to overlook the preferences of paying spectators lingers.

	Hauritz: when a man’s gotta celebrate, a man’s gotta celebrate © Getty Images

Punter probably gets a bad press, but sometimes it seems that journalists only need to poke him with a stick and then press “Record”. This week the grumbler’s grumbler has been disgruntled over the late arrival in Vadodara of the Champions League Three: Brett Lee, Doug Bollinger and Nathan Hauritz. The trio were unable to prepare for Sunday’s game of cricket because they had been playing cricket, and apparently there is no worse preparation for a professional cricketer than to be playing cricket.

The Aussie captain was particularly annoyed because whilst they were away playing cricket, they were altogether unavailable for the tactical seminars conducted by Team Australia ahead of the first one-day international. Talk of these tactics intrigued me. Were they so complicated that they couldn’t be explained in an hour or two on the morning of the match? Does Brett Lee really need to attend a workshop on how to bowl at Sachin Tendulkar?

Probably not, I thought. But then I am not an initiate in the Byzantine complexities of the great game. All us plebs need to know is that these “tactics” exist and that they are so fiendishly difficult that they need several days to fully explain. Or perhaps the tactics are fairly simple but the cricketers are relatively dim. Maybe the days leading up to an international are spent in a classroom with a slack-jawed Lee staring uncomprehendingly at a whiteboard upon which General Ponting has drawn a picture of some stumps with the word “stumps” written underneath in large capital letters.

Then there was the stirring tale of Nathan Hauritz and his dash across India to answer his nation’s call. The headlines told it all. Words like, “weary”, “sleep-deprived” and “frenetic schedule” all featured prominently. A little further reading uncovered the details of Hauritz’s horror timetable, beginning after Friday night’s Champions League Final. Left dressing room at 1am. Caught flight at mid-day. Arrived 8:30pm on Saturday night, a mere 12 hours before the toss. Wait a minute, what was that first item again? Left dressing room at 1am?

“Becoming the inaugural champions, you still have to celebrate with your team-mates,” said Hauritz. Do you? When you have an important flight to catch the next day?

“It was tough”, he elaborated. Wouldn’t it have been a little less tough if he hadn’t stayed up till 1am celebrating? And is one-and-a-half games of cricket in 48 hours really such a problem? Does trundling in to send down a few offbreaks, then doing the same thing two days later really warrant such dramatic headlines?

Now I like Hauritz. I enjoyed watching him confound his critics during the Ashes. And he is not entirely to blame for how this “story” was written. Cricket has become a kind of celebrity circus, with its performers surrounded by agents busily spinning and journalists anxious for access, all of them peddling narcissistic claptrap about burnout, fatigue and the weariness of the long-distance spinner.

So in a spirit of philanthropy, I have decided to help out. I am setting up franchises of Hughes’ House of Snacks at airports around the world. Staffed by employees working 12-hour shifts on minimum wages, these outlets of enlightenment will specialise in early-morning coffee and delicious reality sandwiches for those who have recently spent a lot of time with their head in the clouds.

	'Fred?' 'Yes Harmy.' 'I feel a whinge about too much cricket coming on' © Cricinfo Ltd

Regular readers of this blog will find that from time to time I put forward proposals to benefit the game as a whole. Already this week I have launched a petition to persuade Mr T to join the elite panel of umpires (“Don’t give me no howzat, sucker, that was going down leg-side, fool!”) and emailed the BBC to suggest that Test Match Special replace their current theme tune with the one from MASH. So while the relevant bodies mull over those beauties, here’s another corker from the Hughes think tank.

It is high time that we brought back the good old-fashioned gagging order. Under this system, no player will be allowed to talk to anyone, not even their partners, until the end of their playing career. Now I realise that this means fewer interviews, fewer autobiographies and fewer celebrity ghost-written tabloid columns. But these aren’t the only benefits.

We might also get to hear less about "burnout". Burnout is such a dramatic word. It conjures up the image of a spent firework lying smouldering on the grass or a high-performance racing car pulled over to the side of the road with smoke pouring from its engine. Upon investigation, I discovered that my dictionary defines burnout as "to become ineffective through overwork".

Still, it is hard to see how this word could be employed when talking about cricketers. For a start, you would need to define "ineffective". In many cases, it would be fiendishly difficult to tell the difference between a cricketer who was naturally ineffective and one who had ineffectiveness thrust upon him due to the demands of the Future Tours Programme.

Of course, "burnout" is really cricket jargon. It is trade speak, just as much as "arm-ball" or "googly" or "What the f*** was that, Harmison?" As such, cricket being such a high-tech pursuit, far beyond the grasp of the non-cricket-playing mortal, it is difficult to translate "burnout" directly into standard English. I suppose the nearest equivalent would be, "a little bit tired".

Now for most people, being "a little bit tired" is an indication of having completed a reasonably hard day’s work. For the modern cricketer, though, it is a kind of torture to rank alongside having one’s champagne delivered without an ice bucket and finding that the hotel bed sheets are not made from Egyptian cotton. By the sound of it, the most important piece of equipment in the English dressing room at the moment is the team fainting couch onto which incoming players are forever swooning before being revive with a sniff of Dr Strauss’s Patented Smelling Salts for Distressed Ladies.

In times past, such behaviour would have resulted in a severe dressing down from a boardroom full of snugly suited bewhiskered pipe-smokers, a beating from the senior pros and an extra shift or two down the coalmine before breakfast. We can’t bring back the good old days but we can adhere to an important Victorian motto, sadly neglected of late: professional cricketers should be seen and not heard.

	Law enforcement catches up with Brad Hodge for his role in a cartoon cricket match © Cricinfo Ltd

What the Jimmy Anderson was that?

I had cleared my schedule for this clash of the blue Titans. I accumulated several road traffic violations whilst dashing back from my daughter’s school in order not to miss the opening exchanges, and in the face of considerable protest I vetoed her proposal that she be allowed to watch some cartoons. Top-class sport is all about sacrifices, I told her and in any case, the misadventures of Mr Squarepants couldn’t possibly compare with the tough, gristly contest that was about to ensue at 1530 BST on Eurosport UK.

I will admit that there was more at stake than just the chance to watch some all-Aussie action. For many long years I have been boring people senseless with my theories on the inadequacy of the English domestic game versus its Australian counterpart. Aussie cricket is tougher, I would explain to the nearest set of ears, because there are fewer teams, so the talent is more concentrated, you see. I would then elaborate on the Academy, annual rainfall in the Australasian region, the administrative methodology of Cricket Australia, the teachings of Master Langer and so on and so forth until their eyes glazed over and I once more found myself checking the wine list on my own.

So the Champions League was the perfect test and when Somerset and Sussex crashed out while Victoria and New South Wales strolled to the semi-finals, I could savour the warm glow of unbearable smugness. All that was needed for my theory to be proven and my self-satisfaction to be engraved in stone was an epic tussle between these Australian giants, a no-holds-barred, no-mercy sledgefest, a battering of limbs and wills that would have us wincing and hiding behind the sofa at the sheer unrelenting ferocious professionalism of it all.

Part one was bang on. The Bushrangers snarled, scrambled and shouted, but the Hughes blade hummed, Warner walloped the leather off the white ball, and after a spirited 20 overs worth of entertainment, a hefty target was raised for the Victorians to tackle. Looking at their line-up, I thought this was going to be one hell of a run-chase: David Hussey. Cameron White. Brad Hodge. Aiden Blizzard. Some others. Hell, Billy Doctrove was so excited, he started to get a little jiggy on the sidelines (surely those long delays during referrals to the third umpire are crying out for a contemporary dance interlude).

But then something strange happened. Perhaps they were trying to retain the interest of bored five-year-olds or perhaps the Bushrangers just aren’t very good, but they appeared to be acting out a classic Spongebob episode. Specifically, episode seven of series eight, in which our inept invertebrate hero takes up Twenty20 but is hilariously unable to score at faster than three-and-a-half runs an over. They swung. They missed. They lost a wicket. They swung. They missed. And so on. Watching Victoria’s innings was like sitting staring at an acorn, waiting for it to turn into a tree. No, it was worse than that. It was like watching Worcestershire.

So now I have a new theory. Fifty per cent of Australian cricketers are useless under pressure, and Cameron White clearly belongs to the species Felis Catus. Someone email it to the Times and we can call it a dossier.

	It's the banner wavers who make the game possible © Cricinfo Ltd

Who’s the most important person in cricket? I’ll give you a clue. It isn’t His Modiness. It isn’t Freelance Freddie, Lord Sachin or even Jowly Giles Clarke (bless him). Geoffrey Boycott thinks he’s quite important. But he isn’t.

It’s you. And me. And everyone else who spends their spare sofa time gawping at Cape Cobras versus Delhi Daredevils or sitting on a plastic seat in the drizzle, watching Leicestershire’s middle-of-the-table tussle with Glamorgan. Without us, buying our match tickets, cable subscriptions, biographies and IPL-themed underwear (Kolkata’s gold-lamé knickers look particularly alluring), there would be no cricket.

But the game’s upside down right now. Players are at the top of the tree, and then come administrators, franchise owners, television executives, coaches and commentators. We plebs are at the bottom of the heap and we have to like what we’re given. So we get major international tournament finals on a Monday, we get players hiding in the dressing room because it’s a bit wet/chilly/slippery/bee-infested, we get pay-through-the-nose match tickets, we get inane television commentary; and we get adverts, endless bloody adverts on top of exorbitant satellite subscription fees.

And if being treated as a cash machine, a sack of disposable income or an economic unit isn’t bad enough; those above us in the cricket food chain always seem to know what’s best for us. English hacks are the worst for this. Take the Natwest Series between England and Australia. No one cared about it apparently, no one was interested, it was a giant snoozefest. Really? Try telling that to the thousands upon thousands who paid £70 and upwards for a ticket and sat shivering in the stands. Apparently, we need less international one-day cricket. Why? We like it.

But we don’t count. Our job is just to appear in cutaway sequences, to make television producers’ lives easier by turning up in wacky costumes, waving badly spelt banners and sometimes setting fire to effigies. Oh and we just happen to pay for the whole thing. So why do we get treated like peasants? Because no one in the game has taken the time to understand us. Players think it’s them we love. Commentators think we need them to explain the game to us. Journalists think we’re too stupid to do what they do, and administrators think we’re too lazy to climb the greasy pole.

And the truth? Well, when it comes right down to it, I can only speak for me, I suppose. Maybe some of it will strike a chord. But I didn’t borrow a book from our village library and copy the freeze-frame pictures of Richard Hadlee’s bowling action because I wanted to BE Richard Hadlee. I didn’t spend hours every rainy summer day playing tape-ball cricket with my brother in our living room because I hoped some day to earn my county cap. I didn’t catch a bus into town to buy the Playfair annual every April because I wanted a job with the ICC, and I don’t write this paltry blog because I’m hoping to bump into Gideon Haigh at a cocktail party

Millions of us love the game for its own sake, not for what we can get out of it. It’s about time we were listened to, because we ARE cricket.

	The scoop: when it finally came, it didn’t come off © Getty Images

Jimi Hendrix first set light to his guitar at the end of a gig in March 1967. The crowd loved it so much he started to do it regularly. It soon became such a part of his act that if he didn’t take a cigarette lighter to his Stratocaster, the paying public felt short-changed. Now maybe it is the wild hair, the earring or the outrageous talent, but Tillakaratne Dilshan is starting to remind me of Hendrix. Yes, yes, yes, we were all thinking, as he nudged and tapped his first few balls around today, that’s all very well, but when’s he going to do the funny down-on-one-knee scoopy thingy? That’s what we’ve paid our money for. But when he finally pulled out the party piece, it proved his undoing. So is he going to feel obliged to do it every time? Or could he come up with another gimmick to trump the Scoop? Maybe he could set fire to his bat?

Dilshan couldn’t save Delhi yesterday and nor could Virender Sehwag, despite some trademark carnage, which, as ever, was either going to end in a new batting record or a catch on the boundary. After 47 effortless runs, he holed out, and so the sole remaining IPL franchise crashed out of the Champions League.

In fact, the evening game was something of a cricketing Götterdämmerung in which the last two Indian teams failed to do the sensible thing, instead taking one another down like two stubborn elephants squabbling over a bag of peanuts whilst the rope bridge they are both standing on starts to fray.

It may have come as a surprise to the cynically minded, but it appeared that Bangalore really wanted to win, despite having been effectively dumped out of the tournament by Victoria’s defeat earlier in the day. Little Roelof van der Merwe spent most of his time in the field either covering his face with his hands in disbelief or roaring like a 10-year-old doing his fiercest African lion impression. A made-up team? Only in it for the money? Don’t you believe it.

The afternoon match was a more frenetic event. Maybe it was the delayed start, the fewer overs, the doubts over the team line-ups, or the two wickets in the first over, but I soon felt exhausted. It was like one of those mornings when you are late for work, the phone is ringing, you can’t find your keys and everything is a rush. For three-quarters of the 33 overs it was a thunderous, ugly but exhilarating tussle. The Cobras won and were the better team, but somehow Victoria made more of an impression. There is nothing half-hearted about them. They bat like butchers playing golf and in Peter Siddle and Shane Harwood they have two red-blooded and slightly frightening grunters.

And a word about the crowd. The warmth, excitement and sheer noise generated by those attending at the Chinnaswamy Stadium made this the best day’s viewing of the tournament thus far for the armchair cricket connoisseur. The festival exuberance, the fireworks and the chanting for Sehwag and for birthday boy Kumble turned the occasion into an intoxicating blend of carnival and political rally. It was quite a show. Let’s hope next Friday’s final can match it.

Happy Diwali. And Happy Birthday Jumbo.

	Mike Hussey demonstrates a 98%-effort dive © Getty Images

So, the Sharks of Sussex are out of the world’s finest international-club-versus-franchise jamboree. Their elimination on Tuesday night raised many questions. What were they doing there? What time is the flight home? When will they get their money? Additionally, the manner of their exit led some to question the legitimacy of the super over as a method of settling a match. Surely, it was a violation of Rory Hamilton-Brown’s human rights for him to be embarrassed twice in the same match. Isn’t there a better way? Indeed there is. Here, for your thoughtful consideration are four proposals for ensuring a swift and compassionate end to proceedings on those occasions when the participants have been too inept to sort it out for themselves.

The Coin Toss
Before we consider the ridiculous, let us contemplate the sublime. The coin is, in fact, an elegant and unimpeachable arbiter and many of us have made some of our most important life decisions after flinging a bit of currency into the air. Indeed, I know of one particular High Court judge who would simply be unable to dispense justice as efficiently as he does without recourse to the coin toss. If it is good enough to decide upon prison sentences, marriage proposals, job offers and where to go for lunch, it ought to be good enough to settle the outcome of a Twenty20 game.

The Percentometer
Cricketers love statistics but are notoriously unreliable. When Ravi Bopara says he gave it 110%, how can we be sure that this is an accurate estimate? For all we know, he might only have given it 106% or 99%. Fortunately, scientists at the Adelaide Institute of Silly Studies have developed the Percentometer, a device that can measure how hard a team have tried in percentage terms by correlating sweat volumes, profanity output and steely glares. In the event of a tie, the team with the highest Percentometer readings will win the game.

The Bank-Off
These days, business goes with cricket like parasitic green algae with an ornamental pond. So why not bring some of the features of the corporate world into our great sport? In the event of a stalemate, accountants dressed in team colours will make their way to the middle of the pitch, and at specially built desks will proceed to audit the opposition team’s accounts. The franchise with the fewest accounting errors will be declared the winner. The only disadvantage with this suggestion is that it could take several hours, but this will allow plenty of time for television commercials.

The Dance-Off
For reasons that are not immediately apparent, watching people dance badly on television has become very popular in certain parts of the world. What better way to cash in on this trend than by introducing a ballroom-dance competition to settle tied cricket matches? Each team will choose one pair of players to dress up in spangly suits and silly grins and perform in front of a celebrity panel of dance-floor dynamos, including Ravi “Rumba” Shastri and Sunny “Samba” Gavaskar. Watch out for Kolkata’s fabulous couple of captivating captains, Sourav Ganguly and Brendon McCullum. Their foxtrot is something to behold.

	Richie Benaud: “There was only thish much in it” © Getty Images

It all started at breakfast. I had just poured out my customary bowl of chocolate googlies and was about to add a dash of the semi-skimmed when I noticed that the cocoa-flavoured shapes had formed themselves into the image of Richie Benaud gazing sadly into the middle distance.

Now, students of cricket-lore will know that the breakfast-time manifestation of a former Australian cricketer is a portent of some significance. For example, if your egg yolk takes on the shape of David Boon, your health check-up is overdue; if your buttered toast looks a bit like Kim Hughes, you should keep an eye on your work colleagues, and if you see Glenn McGrath in your tea leaves, you are probably Mike Atherton.

But what, I wondered, could Richie be trying to tell me? The answer became clear at a little after 6.45 this evening. As Rory Hamilton-Brown failed utterly to defend his wooden castle, I finally understood. Besides being everyone’s favourite decommissioned Australian captain, retired wrist-swiveller and microphone jockey, Benaud is a betting shaman. He had taken on cereal form in order to warn me.

For I am afraid dear reader, I had succumbed to the gambler’s curse. I couldn’t let a tournament like this go by without a modest wager, and I had chosen to place my money on the Sharks of Sussex. My reasons were plentiful, if not particularly convincing. They are, it must be said, the best hit-and-giggle troupe in England. They wear a particularly fetching shade of sky blue. And they are called the Sharks. Powerful, swift, killing machines, always on the move. How could they lose? Easily, it transpired.

Under the Delhi floodlights, Sussex toyed with the emotions of the desperate gambler as though they didn’t even care that I had backed them at 16-1 in the upstairs back room of a discrete Soho establishment a week last Wednesday. Like a tedious relative who tells the same joke at every family gathering, Luke Wright ran through his usual repertoire of boundary-boundary-boundary-oopsy daisy, and the subsequent exhibition of recklessness by his batting chums was more reminiscent of lemmings than sharks.

But all hope was not extinguished. Piyush Chawla, my favourite promising spinner of the pre-Mendis era, spun a web of silken subtlety to tie the Eagles down. A dozen to get off the last over and a glorious penultimate yorker from Yasir Arafat – surely the game was won? Alas, no. A heartless, clubbing blow from Ryan McLaren and we were into a super-duper-sudden-death-knock-out eliminator. By the time Rory of the Hamilton-Browns failed, I was spent, a limp rag of a man lying stretched out on the chaise longue, with a bottle of gin in my hand and a wet flannel over my face.

The moral of the story should be obvious by now, dear reader. Clearly, the game was fixed. I have already written a letter to Sussex County Council asking them to instigate an immediate enquiry, and I expect to be reading of the resignation of Michael Yardy in Sunday’s Times. In the circumstances, it is the least he could do.

	Here we are now, entertain us © Getty Images

“Make some noise!” screamed the DJ, although from where I was sitting, the Hyderabad crowd needed no instructions in the etiquette of din-making. A raucous, joyful racket seems to come naturally to an Indian cricket audience, as does its counterpart: complete and utter silence. And the passing from one state to the other can be disconcerting to the non-Indian, sofa-bound viewer. In the time it took the white ball bowled by Peter Trego to pass VVS Laxman’s bat and crash into the stripe-y stumps, the deafening nightclub atmosphere of the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium was replaced by a quiet so complete and so eerie that we could have been watching a county game at Taunton. At first, I thought I’d pressed the mute button by mistake.

“I want rainy sixes”, read one banner in the crowd, clearly fashioned by a Somerset fan pining for the dampness of old Blighty. There was no rain, but there were sixes, my favourite ones being those dished up by Venugopal Rao, who for his first effort seemed barely to touch bat on ball but managed to send it crashing into the Deccan-blue plastic chairs beyond the long-on boundary. And, mercy of mercies, these big hits were entirely unsponsored. They were sixes in their natural state, as God intended them, with just a comforting cliché or two (“Oh that’s gone a long way!”) to mark their passing.

Some IPL innovations are hard to shake off, though. For some reason, Marcus Trescothick was miked up, and halfway through the Deccan innings Harsha Bhogle engaged him in a meandering conversation that redefined the word “interminable”. Eventually, poor Trescothick was allowed to concentrate on the game, although not before an edge from Rohit Sharma went flying past his left hand as he stood at slip. Bhogle speculated excitedly what it would have been like if Trescothick had been talking to them as he took the catch. More pertinently, we wondered what it would have been like if the incessant prattling of the studio-jockey had caused him to drop it.

And alongside the irrepressible Harsha was one time fast bowler and Atherton-baiter, Allan Donald, in his new incarnation as commentator-cum-expert. It’s early days but I am pleased to report that he is already showing the skills you need to ascend to the punditry pantheon. For example, as the Somerset run-chase faltered, Craig Kieswetter lofted a ball from Pragyan Ojha high towards long-on. Donald seized his moment. “Shot!” he exclaimed, confidently, “And this could be out as well… it is! Not a good shot!” With such admirable verbal dexterity, Donald could be a fixture in the commentary box for many years to come.

	Jamelia, as not seen by your correspondent (sob) © Getty Images

It has been a trying day, cricket chums.

On the way home to my country estate, I popped into Mr Border’s Newsagent and Tucker Shop for an Evening Standard and a little refreshment. “Good evening, sir, I’d like to purchase a bottle of mineral water,” I offered, politely. The gruff, bearded custodian glowered at me from behind his counter. “Mineral water?” he growled, “What do you think this is, a f***** tea party?” A few minutes later, I emerged, somewhat shaken, with two tins of dog food and a packet of firelighters. I must confess, I do sometimes wonder whether poor old Mr Border is quite cut out for the service industry.

Never mind, I thought, at least I have Jamelia to look forward to. Not being able to witness the opening extravaganza of the Champions League first hand, I had entrusted the task of recording said festival of jollity to an electronic device, a device that, it transpired, was incapable of performing the one task that justified its existence; a device that is currently residing amidst the azaleas in an upside-down position.

As the horror of the situation dawned upon me, I didn’t panic. The modern armchair cricketer must have the mind of a nuclear physicist, the reflexes of a panther and the manual dexterity of a concert pianist. I did some quick mental arithmetic, realised that the broadcast hadn’t quite finished, and after playing a rapid arpeggio on the remote control, managed to catch the last 20 seconds live from Bangalore.

I saw blue-and-yellow-shirted players celebrating (these, I learned, were Cobras). I smiled wistfully as I recognised the tireless enthusiasm of Harsha Bhogle, who always sounds as though he has just discovered the game of cricket that very day and can’t wait to tell everyone about it. I even saw Mr Modi, keeping up his proud record of ensuring not a single televised cricket minute can pass without the benefit of his immaculately coiffured presence.

Then, alas, the credits rolled and it was all gone; a brief glimpse of Bangalore under floodlights snatched away. Life, for an armchair cricket fan with a malfunctioning hard-disk recorder, can be so cruel. I am left with a 40-over-and-opening-ceremony-with-singing-and-dancing-sized hole in the precious-memories section of my brain. An evening that had promised much thwackery and a pulsing Bollywood soundtrack will now be passed solemnly, with only the clink of the port decanter, the polite cough of my butler and the cries of the peacocks on the lawn to break the mournful silence.

Of course, I could try to reconstruct the day’s events from the scorecard, but that is rather like trying to relive your wedding by reading the guest list. And how could I possibly recreate the wonders of the opening ceremony? What joys have I been denied? What splendours have passed me by? So I ask you, dear Cricinfo readers, can you come to the aid of a man in distress? Just answer me this: what was Jamelia wearing? And please, tell me, were there men on stilts? At least I could sleep happily tonight knowing that there were men on stilts.

	Deccan: they charge quite bit for their services, you know © Associated Press

So the big one is almost upon us. Over the next day or so, you can expect to be bombarded with Champions League previews, but frankly, you might as well ignore all of them, because this is the only appetite-whetter you’ll need. Armed with the Long Handle Dummies’ Guide to the Champions League, you will be able to bluff your way through those tricky CL conversations that will soon be taking place in offices, nightclubs, brothels and places of worship around the globe.

How Does It Work?
The format is simplicity itself. A dozen teams play one another approximately 117 times in the first Super Eliminator Knock-Out Round. The squad with the most hamstring injuries will then drop out before we enter the Extra Special Decider Mini-League, from which the 10 least exhausted teams will progress, and so on. Eventually, after just 7102 pulsating matches, we will reach the Ultimate Supreme Champion Play-Off World Series Final, at the end of which the Indian team with the highest number of points will be declared the winner and will be named Supreme Overlords and Rulers of the Universe (2009), although they will have to defend their title almost immediately.

What Should We Look Out For?
Some of the world’s finest commentators and Mark Nicholas have been polishing their adjectives in preparation for this feast of cricket, so you can expect some innovative and daring use of sponsors’ names during the long, long days ahead. Viewers should also be on the lookout for the early signs of Twenty20 fatigue, the first symptoms of which are an inability to remember which teams are playing, and a nagging feeling that Ravi Shastri is hiding in your wardrobe.

Teams To Watch

Deccan Chargers
The reigning IPL champions, they got their name thanks to their habit of asking for exorbitant fees for getting out of bed, practising and smiling. In preparation for the Champions League, Deccan recently unveiled their new team logo: an enormous golden wheelbarrow full of currency notes.

Delhi Daredevils
Qualified by virtue of not being the worst semi-finalists at IPL 2009, the Daredevils have been boosted by the absence of Paul Collingwood and have warmed up for this tournament with a team-bonding visit to the Bank of India.

Somerset Peasants/Sussex Nobodies
May struggle to adapt to the heat, the travel and the presence of large numbers of spectators. Although they aren’t very good, all the English lads have brought their bank details with them and are hopeful of getting a result.

New South Wales Meat Pies
The only serious challengers from outside India, the Meat Pies are planning a big celebration if they win the thing. To thank the folks of New South Wales, Simon Katich will be letting fans catch a glimpse of the yacht he hopes to buy with his winnings, and Brett Lee has promised not to sing.

Cape Chokers
The current South African Twenty20 Champions, the Chokers only won their final playoff against the Border Bottlers when the other team got so nervous about the big day that they forgot to turn up. The Chokers still somehow managed to find themselves 10 for 2 after five overs, but then thankfully rain intervened and they scraped through under the Duckworth-Lewis system.

	Bond: stinging sensation © Getty Images

So the conclusion of the ICC Champions Trophy, 2009’s last set-piece occasion, the ultimate chapter of a gripping cricket narrative, when all will finally be revealed to a worldwide audience is to be held on… a Monday. High fives all round for the scheduling committee! Give yourself a pat on the back, Haroon Lorgat (or have one of your people do it), cos you da man! Yes, you’ve gone and done it again, ICC, and if I hadn’t lost my hat in an unfortunate yachting incident at Cowes, I’d be removing it and doffing it in the general direction of Dubai.

Monday. At the precise moment when a sturdy operatic type with a microphone begins to belt out “Advance Australia Fair” or “God Defend New Zealand” at a frighteningly loud volume, I wonder where the cricket populace of the world will be? Well, in South Africa and England they will be at work. In the Caribbean they will be getting ready for work. In Mumbai, Lahore, Colombo and Dhaka they will be coming home from work. And in Sydney and Wellington, they will be slumped bleary-eyed on their sofas or in bed after a day at work. Spot the common theme?

No doubt, in ICC world, where every day is a cocktail party, one day of the week is much the same as another. There may also be the odd weirdo out there for whom the dawn of another Monday is joy incarnate. However, I am with Bob Geldof on the subject of Mondays. It is not a day for finals. It is a day for weary soberness, for 10 cups of coffee before your lunch break, for hauling yourself out of bed and yawning at the futility of another working week. Let us hope those poor souls staying up in Melbourne and Auckland get a decent final, because they deserve it.

If they were watching Saturday’s game, they would have been thoroughly entertained. I found the second semi-final memorable for a couple of reasons. Firstly there was the wince-inducing but compelling fast bowling of Shane Bond, who twice made Kamran Akmal snatch his hand away from the bat in the manner of someone who has been stung by a wasp, and then dismissed Imran Nazir with a delivery that appeared to be heading straight up his left nostril until he wisely got his bat in the way.

Then there was the battle between the Mighty D and baby-faced Umar Akmal. In the 25th over Vettori had already offered up three identical teasers, one of which Akmal had audaciously tickled to fine leg. The next delivery from the bearded one’s left hand fizzed through so quickly that it verged on the impolite. Undaunted, the youngster’s response was to wallop the fifth ball of the over through midwicket with an ungainly lunging sweep. From the other end, Uncle Mohammad Yousuf had clearly had enough. He came down to explain to the rookie the perils of recklessness and the virtues of patience. A smiling and entirely oblivious Akmal nodded at the old man’s advice, then aimed a wild slash at the next one, sending it curving through the air just out of the reach of short third man and away for four. Cricket needs all the teenagers it can get.

	Thanks, I’ll pass © Getty Images

I don’t like the English cricket team. There, I said it. I feel no attachment whatsoever to this particular collection of blue-clad gym-botherers. It may be traitors’ talk, but I am entirely indifferent to the outcome of Friday’s semi-final. The match itself, I am looking forward to. The result is irrelevant.

So why don’t I care?

First of all, I’m not a natural patriot. The merest sight of a St George Cross and I begin to mumble angrily into my cocoa and feel an urge to whistle the “Marseillaise” or set fire to some Morris dancers’ handkerchiefs.

Ah, you might say, once a traitor, always a traitor. You may be right.

But ‘twas not always thus. Even though I grew up watching an inept bunch of no-hopers struggle desperately every summer, I took it for granted that I wanted England to win, and I took these losers to my heart. If I were asked to name my cricket hero, I would first lecture the interrogator on the inanity of the question, and then mutter something about Mike Atherton.

My levels of Englishness peaked in 2005. Watching reruns of that Ashes series, I realise that at the time I must have been blind to the drunken morons on the terraces, oblivious to the mindless, draining partiality of that summer’s prevailing mood and to the manner in which the subtle complexities of the great game were overwhelmed by a torrent of red-and-white jingoism. Australia were the cruel tormentors, the heartless tyrants, and we were finally overthrowing them. It was a victory for justice and freedom. Cry God for Freddie, England and St George!

But something happened during the post-Ashes hangover. You know what it’s like. A big night out, you wake up feeling depressed and you can’t remember where you left your shoes. Well, for me, it was my patriotism. I know I had it at the Oval. I’m sure it was around during the Trafalgar Square parade. But it had gone. And I haven’t found it yet. This summer, as England were being embarrassed by the Netherlands at Lord’s, I joined the worldwide club of neutrals and cheered the men in orange.

How did this happen? To be honest, I don’t know. There has been any number of disillusionments, disenchantments and irritations in recent years. There was Alastair Cook’s biography, Monty Panesar’s biography, the continued selection of Steve Harmison, the Stanford debacle, the canonisation of Andrew Flintoff, the total lack of anything approaching a global perspective on the part of the English press.

Or perhaps I just became bored of looking at the same old surly, unshaven, unsmiling bunch of really quite ordinary sportsmen. I grew tired of hearing how they were all very, very talented – despite all the evidence to the contrary. I began instead to take an interest in other, frankly more exciting teams. I began to enjoy the game for its own sake, without being tensed up in a clench of patriotic desperation.

And that is what I shall be doing on Friday, with a gin and tonic to hand. You are welcome to join me at Hughes Towers, providing you leave your flags in the foyer and don’t spill your lager on the Axminster.