Rahul Dravid disapproves of the ball's persistent attempts to kiss the stumps as if it will turn into a prince © Getty Images

Thursday, 29th December
Last week, Sri Lanka looked like a contingent of nervous schoolboys who’d just discovered they’d been booked to fight the lions in the Coliseum. But as any Roman Coliseum-goer would tell you, lions are notoriously inconsistent performers; savage powerful beasts one day; harmless sleepy pussycats the next.

And today, the Sri Lankans had the home side lying on their backs with their legs in the air, having their tummies tickled. The defining moment came when Big Jacques, who never gets a double pair, got a double pair; diverting the ball onto his helmet from where it rebounded with the dismal clunk of failure into the palms of short leg.

As the probability of defeat became a certainty, I watched a succession of South Africans miss a succession of straightish ones in a parade of increasing ineptitude until Marchant de Lange’s bails exploded and the Sri Lankans began whooping and screaming like I would do if I’d won the lottery after having been widely ridiculed for my inability to pick a single correct number in the last six months.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the hemisphere, Australia and India were doing their bit to undermine confidence in the batting industry with some shots that were so ugly that if they’d occurred in Victorian times, they would have been featured in a Travelling Show of Hideous Freaks. Apparently responsible batsmen appeared incapable of coping with the hint of a rumour of a suggestion of lateral movement.

Why should this be? It is generally accepted that pitches don’t talk, but if they did, the strip at the MCG would probably say something like this: “Don’t blame me, mate, I didn’t do anything. I’m not even wearing any grass today. And stop spitting on me. You don’t see me expelling unpleasant fluids on Ricky Ponting’s boots, so why’s he got to dribble all over me? Bloody hooligans! Players of today got no respect.”

First, Australia, having pocketed a lead, attempted to commit cricket suicide by inside-edging themselves to death and at 27 for 4 were tottering like a tray of full champagne glasses being carried by a blindfolded waiter on rollerblades down a freshly polished marble staircase. Then Ponting and Hussey slapped the innings vigorously about the face, told it to pull itself together and batted properly for a bit.

They were helped by the fact that India continue to take the lazy angler approach to the business end of Test matches. They may have the opposition on the hook, but they really can’t be bothered to reel them in. Set just about enough to win, Dravid, who never gets bowled twice in a match, was bowled for the second time in the match and India collapsed softly like a sponge cake left out in the rain.

Still, I’m not complaining. This global batting crisis makes for thrilling cricket. Hopefully we’re in for a Great Batting Depression, in which centuries are rarer than cliché-free cricket commentary and wickets always fall at the rate of five a session.

Friday, 30th December
Without David Warner, the Thunderers of Sydney have only Gayle to bring the big hits at the top of the innings. But this is not a problem. Bangalore managed to almost win the Champions League with a team sheet consisting of Gayle and 10 somebody-or-others so there’s no reason to fear for the fate of the fluorescent green team.

And even though I’ve seen it several hundred times before, the Gayle repertoire still causes me to stop and stare. Today he hit a six off Shaun Tait, with no follow-on worth mentioning, that looked like a bored golfer hitting a nine iron onto the green or a retired colonel half-heartedly dead-heading his rose bush with a walking stick.

As is traditional on these occasions, the bowler was pictured trudging back from whence he came looking more rueful than a rue seller returning from a bad day at the market. Other bowlers tried different tactics. Shane Harwood tried swearing in the general direction of the ball, but that didn’t work either. This is the way with Twenty20 Gayle. Either he gets himself out, or you lose the game.

"Will Tendulkar get his 100th? That'll depend on whether he's willing to cut out his off-side shots again" © Getty Images

Wednesday, 21st December
Every year, at around this time, a respected figure addresses the faithful. As two Commonwealth nations prepare to do battle on the cricket field, what better time for a Christmas speech from fast-bowling royalty. It is time, ladies and gentlemen for HRH Glenn McGrath to give us his state of the cricket nation address.

What does Glenn think of it so far? Well, he’s quite upbeat. He thinks Ricky has got a big score not far away (I assume he means not far away in the future). He reckons the Aussie batting line-up will “do the business” (presumably a different kind of business to the business they did in Hobart, which was the sort of business that Lehman brothers were doing in 2008). And he thinks the Indian team will be surprised by Nathan Lyon (because nothing terrifies those veteran Indian batsmen like an inexperienced spinner).

But that is the beauty of the annual McGrath Oration. It doesn’t have to make sense, and unlike the mealy-mouthed bias that you get from a lot of ex-pros, it is unashamedly and gloriously partisan. And it always makes me smile. Sadly, the interviewer did not press Glenn for his series score prediction, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say there was a strong chance of it ending in nil.

Thursday, 22nd December
Congratulations to Shakib Al Hasan, who is now officially the world’s No. 1 Test allrounder. He always struck me as the responsible adult in the Bangladesh team, the supervising teacher on a school outing. Tamim goes racing ahead on his bicycle, then gets a flat tyre; Mushfiqur and Junaid wander off and get lost; Shahadat forgets his packed lunch and everyone picks on Ashraful.

Then, along comes uncle Shakib to sort it all out.

He was at it again in Mirpur, gathering 144 first-innings runs, the highlights of which were the late cuts he played off the bowling of Umar Gul, deft as a brushstroke, the kind of shots that produce a contented sigh from the neutral viewer. And then he whipped out six Pakistani batsmen with those deceptive left-arm deliveries that rear and spit out of the dust like angry cobras.

Well done, Shakib. But this isn’t over. And if you’re a Sri Lankan batsman, be afraid. For even as you read this, Jacques Kallis is standing somewhere in the South African veldt, bare-chested, roaring to the heavens, like the Incredible Hulk, swearing to the cricket gods that he will have vengeance and regain his rightful crown. Probably.

Friday, 23rd December
The cricket watcher often has to wrestle with ethical dilemmas. Should I disturb my family by getting up at 3am to creep downstairs and watch live Caribbean Twenty20? Should you risk being late for your wedding in order to catch the end of the morning session at Lord’s? When you’re watching cricket on TV and someone scores a century, should you stand and applaud? *

Well here’s another one. When you have no connection whatsoever with a tournament that is being played in a foreign country, how do you choose which team to support? This is particularly tricky in the case of franchise cricket, where there is no history to go on, just a logo, a mission statement and a theme tune.

You could choose the team with the best name. But this isn’t quite shallow enough. These days I find I tend to gravitate towards the team with the most purple in their shirts. Hence my love of all things Kochi, my flirtation with Kolkata (was that really purple or had their black shirts faded in the wash?) and my new-found loyalty to the Hobart Hurricanes, the purplest team in the world.

Due to an administrative error, I had been supporting the Scorchers, but then I remembered that they were wearing orange and so I lost interest. Naturally they won immediately, although I did notice that the boundaries for their game yesterday had been downscaled to the proportions of a medium-sized bowling green. Clearly the tournament needs more sixes. Every day is Christmas Day for batsmen in the BBL.

On that note, Merry Christmas to all Page 2 readers.

* Obviously, the answer to all of these questions is yes.

Shahid goes bananas. Again. How dreary © Getty Images

Saturday, 17th December
I enjoy a good batting collapse. It’s like the final act of a Jacobean play, when the bodies start piling up and the plot gallops on. But like the eye-gouging scene in King Lear, it can be brutal, and I bet there are a few Sri Lankan fans who watched the denouement in Centurion through the gaps between their fingers.

Paranavitana’s plight was particularly sad. Having witnessed the demise of his captain, he spent most of his 32 minutes at the crease attempting to play at an imaginary ball that was always two inches away from the real ball. In the end he was out to an edge that was almost impossible for human senses to detect.

This was a recurring theme in the second innings; some of the dismissals were the nickiest nicks I’ve ever seen. Only just making contact like that takes real skill. Perhaps now that the ICC is going to pay the Sri Lankan players 46% of their wages, they might manage to get 46% of the bat on the ball.

Sunday, 18th December
Although cricket coverage is pretty comprehensive these days, sometimes even the most dedicated fan is forced to rely on highlights. Better than nothing, of course, but they still leave you unsatisfied. It’s like being shown photographs of the best bits of a Rembrandt, or in the case of the BBL, half a Jackson Pollock.

This weekend I’ve seen seven minutes of Aussie action and I’m left with memories of fleeting and unconnected images of games I haven’t actually watched, some of them vaguely hallucinatory. Did I really see the ball for the Scorchers game being delivered by helicopter and carried out by a man in uniform? Has the credit crunch hit the Australian sports industry so hard that a ball needs an armed escort?

I’m sure I saw Afridi play one shot, but it was the one that goes straight up in the air, not the one that sails over long-on. And though Australian scientists have worked miracles to get Shaun Tait, or at least a cyborg constructed from parts of Shaun Tait, onto the field, his limb-flailing run-up is more ungainly than ever. If he were a racehorse, you’d say he definitely didn’t act on the going.

Naturally there were a lot of sixes, but frankly, after you’ve seen David Warner launch the ball over long-off once, you’ve seen it a thousand times. The Little Farmer brings the fireworks, for sure, but you can only crane your neck, peer into the sky and say, “Wow, look that!” so many times before you start looking at your watch.

And this is the sole drawback to Twenty20. A six should be as surprising as a slap in the face with a wet fish; it should be as shocking as a swear word in the middle of a church sermon. But now every player worth his salt is clearing his leg out of the way and sending everything aerial into that straight-of-midwicket corridor of predictability.

Watch too much Twenty20 and you begin to yearn for a half-timed cover drive or a carefully placed leg glance for a well-run two; anything but another full length ball launched back over the sight screen.

The penultimate delivery on the final highlights package I saw was Glenn Maxwell’s dismissal. After clubbing six boundaries, he had a half-hearted waft at Johan Botha and holed out lazily at mid-on. It was the weary swing of a man who had slogged and slogged but could slog no more.

"Yes, I have just been smashed on the nose by a leather ball. Yes, it hurts like hell. Yes, I do feel a bit light-headed, but really, it's just a scratch" © Getty Images

Thursday, 15th December
Ouch! I’ve never faced Steyn and Philander on a green wicket but I imagine it’s not the most congenial way to spend a Thursday afternoon. After an hour or two of watching hard leathery ball smack repeatedly into Sri Lankan rib cage I was starting to wince, and I’m 3000 miles away. I expect tomorrow I’ll wake up covered in sympathy bruises with an overactive duck reflex.

Still, I do think it’s time for Sri Lankan cricket to have a rethink. In this day and age, you simply can’t expect unpaid amateurs to hold their own against professionals.

Friday, 16th December
I haven’t yet been able to find a place to watch the Big Bash League so I don’t know what the opening ceremony was like. I’m guessing cheerleaders, fireworks, enormous papier mâché Richie Benaud heads parading around the outfield on stilts, a hologram of Donald Bradman giving the whole thing his blessing and James Sutherland wearing an Australian flag skydiving onto the pitch from a Martian spacecraft.

The usual kind of stuff.

I did manage to find highlights of the game on the tournament website, although I was a little disappointed to find that the entire three-hour experience had been boiled down to 2:58 minutes. And then my teeth began to itch as I was forced to watch two excessively hair-gelled presenters throwing away 25 seconds of valuable highlight time by giving us a précis of the already edited action.

And what did we see through this tiny window on BBL World?

Well, I saw Brett Lee looking mean, followed by Brendon McCullum bleeding casually in that manly way that men who can’t see themselves bleeding can pull off. Had the physio brought out a mirror along with his sponge, I reckon Brendon would have been swooning onto the turf faster than a Victorian lady who has just found out that her daughter is eloping with the chimney-sweep.

I saw grey-haired Stuart MacGill roaring like a whiskery old lion who has just outrun all the younger cubs in the pride to haul down a wildebeest (although to be honest, Matthew was straggling badly at the back of the herd and is a bit long in the hoof these days.) I saw some evil-looking slogs that were so scandalously wrong I had to pop into church for extra confession afterwards.

And I was pleased to note a raising of the quality bar from the men in the booth. One commentator specified that a particular six had gone straight into row 15. Not 14 or 16, you’ll note, but 15. That’s precision commentary and a challenge to Mr Shastri, who can’t be bothered to count the rows but instead tries to convince us of the existence of a mythical “Row Z”.

So to summarise: bleeding, slogging, sixes and oldies. Not a bad 2:35 minutes worth of entertainment. Keep it up, Mr Sutherland and I might even be persuaded to buy a Perth Scorchers tea cosy. (“Keeps your teapot Scorching hot!”)

Mike Brearley: a mastermind in cricketing strategy and making razors redundant © Getty Images

Monday, 7th November
Like dragging a piano up the north face of the Eiger or trying to remove a recalcitrant hippo from a swimming pool full of blancmange, building a successful Test team depends on everyone pulling together. Take Sri Lanka. They’ve lost another Test series but chairman of selectors, Duleep Mendis, sees the bigger picture:

"It is not easy replacing players of the calibre of Murali, Sanath, Vaas and Marvan. It will take some time and we will hit some rough patches while in the process.”

Quite so. You’re rebuilding so the last thing you want is for people to start laying into the team just because they lose the odd series along the way. Am I right, Mr M?

“The performance of our cricketers is way below what we expected of them… See the number of players who are injured. I don’t know what our physios and masseurs are doing with the players for them to get constantly injured…”

It seems that Duleep has a Big List of Blame which includes batsmen, bowlers, coaches, backroom staff, cleaners and even the team cook whose biriyani too often lacked bite and whose rice was insufficiently fluffy on the big occasion. Calm down, Mr Mendis! If the chief architect is going to keep panicking like this, that rebuild project could take a while. Oh and it might help if you paid the builders occasionally.

Tuesday, 8th November
With just 39 days left until the Sydney Sausages take on the Brisbane Ribs, the marketing people are working overtime to persuade us that the Big Barbeque League is the most exciting thing in cricket since Mike Brearley started to grow a beard.

We’ve seen these Twenty20 launches before and we know the drill by now: Power Rangers style logos, randomly alliterative team names and some really, really awful shirts. But how can the organisers establish identities for eight teams that don’t yet exist? Simple. With a healthy dose of IPL-style gibberish.

For example, the website of the Perth Scorchers tells us that they are “proudly, defiantly Perth”. I don’t know what this means. I was happy to accept that they were from Perth when I read that they were called the Perth Scorchers, and I didn’t really require any further clarification. Or are they saying that Perth is a state of being, not a city. Are you Perth? Are you feeling Perthy today? Or is that just wind?

Elsewhere, we learn that Melbourne Renegades are vibrant, diverse and progressive, that the Hobart Hurricanes have a passion that is both rugged and yet at the same time purple, whilst The Heat, who rather oddly will be wearing icy blue, are loyal, forward thinking and energetic. By contrast, poor old Sydney Sixers are letting the side down with just the one adjective, a rather paltry “vibrant”.

And is it just me or do the Melbourne Stars seem rather light on stars (with due apologies to Luke Wright)? I suppose they have signed up Liz Hurley’s fiancé and he is most definitely box office, although I am a bit worried about the old boy. It’s not his age, it’s his weight. In my experience people who shed that many pounds are never quite the same. I fear that a lean and slender Warne will be a man much reduced in his powers; like Samson after Delilah had been at him with the scissors.