"Everyone's always saying we don't play enough practice matches. So we did, for the IPL" © AFP

Thursday, 29th March
Every cricket watcher knows that the post-mortem after a Test defeat is far more entertaining than a victory celebration. Who wants to listen to sweaty sportsmen being tediously self-effacing about their success when you can wallow in the angry recrimination and existential despair of the unhappy professional pundit?

These decommissioned pros may spend most of their time on air reminiscing, snoring or talking about their lunch, but at times of national despondency, they really come into their own. When England lose, we connoisseurs of cricket misery have a range of choices from Bob Willis, the high priest of woe, through Nasser Hussain’s disapproving parent to Ian Botham, the angry man’s angry man.

But after this latest defeat, I thought I’d give Geoffrey Boycott a try. His style is straightforward, yet strangely compelling. To begin with, he tries a variety of grumbles on for size: Ian Bell’s sweep shot; the theory that the England players “have got nowt between the ears”; the state of the Greek economy. Soon, however, he settles on the grumble de jour and his oratory really takes flight.

At first, the significance of Ian Bell’s sweep shot is not fully appreciated by the listener. But as Fiery amplifies, repeats and reiterates, Ian Bell’s sweep shot takes on a more sinister meaning. From minor technical quibble to serious character flaw to national disgrace, we begin to see the enormity of Ian Bell’s sweep shot, until, after hammering away at his theme for several minutes, we finally come to understand that Ian Bell’s sweep shot represents everything that is wrong with western civilisation.

It was marvellous stuff. I look forward to his stirring explanation of why Andrew Strauss’ forward defensive is symbolic of the decline in British educational standards and the main reason for England’s seven-wicket defeat in Colombo.

Friday, 30th March
Every journalist has a “too much cricket these days” piece up their sleeve. If a deadline approaches and they find themselves staring helplessly at a blank page, they know that they can always dig out a few paragraphs about stuffed fixture lists and burned out batsmen because they think that everyone agrees with them.

Normally I don’t. How can there be such a thing as “too much cricket?” Burnout can be a problem for the cricket watcher, as can bruising your knee on the coffee table or picking up a nasty paper cut from the TV guide, but we’re a hardy lot and we tend to shrug these things off as the inevitable downside of a demanding, sofa-bound career.

And yet today I find myself contemplating the unthinkable. I may be on the verge of complaining about the amount of cricket. And the reason? Today’s one-off Twenty20 in Johannesburg. It had crept into my consciousness earlier in the week but I shrugged it off as the product of a fevered imagination. Surely such a thing couldn’t happen.

But there it is. As superfluous as a hot chocolate machine in the Sahara; as out of context as two clowns bursting into the reference section at the British Library and enacting the penultimate scene from the Empire Strikes Back. Aside from pumping a few more litres of carbon into the atmosphere, what will it achieve?

There is a charity involved, but the assorted millionaires of India and South Africa could easily dip into their pockets to support that. Alternatively, a successful charity appeal could surely be run on the promise that if sufficient sums are raised, there would not be an entirely pointless Twenty20 game a few days before the start of the IPL.

But since it seems that we can’t stop the thing from going ahead, those of us who have had a bet on Kolkata to win the IPL would appreciate it, Gautam, if you could refrain from diving, jumping, stretching, lunging or in any way risking your more easily ruptured tendons. And the same goes for you, Jacques.

"Don't forget to get cheese for our whines in the Tests" © Getty Images

Saturday, 17th March

Well done to Sachin, but commiserations to ESPNcricinfo. Harsha Bhogle’s piece yesterday asking us to stop going on about Sachin being stuck on 99 centuries was the 99th item about Sachin’s 99 centuries to appear on ESPNcricinfo. On the verge of bringing up a century of century-articles, we’ve been left stranded.

There is the possibility of a century of century-celebratory features, towards which these paragraphs might count as a scrambled single. But it’s a tough ask and I think the gathering bad light of reader intolerance might call time on our word chase.

Over the long months of our vigil, the ranks of the Sachin-century spotters had dwindled somewhat. The eager crowds who had at first gathered to see the lesser spotted century bird make its appearance grew bored of staring at a scoreboard waiting for something to happen, and one by one wandered off to find ice creams, jobs, dye their hair, marry, divorce, emigrate, spend some time finding themselves in a Thai monastery, and generally get on with their lives.

So when those three cheeky little digits popped on the scoreboard at the Shere Bangla Stadium, it crept up on us, it was a pleasant surprise, although it wasn’t that pleasant for the Bangladeshi players nor was it much of a surprise, as he’d done it to them five times before. We suspect that they didn’t really mind, though, because they won the game anyway. It was a win-win kind of a win.

But that really has to be the end of it. By now many cricket lovers have developed an angry Pavlovian response to sentences built around the words “Tendulkar” and “century”. So I won’t mention it again. Though I should just let you know, purely for your personal reference, that Sachin is currently poised on 195 one-day international sixes and only needs another five Test wickets to bring up his 50…

Monday, 19th March
For a lot of teams, a warm-up game is a relaxing potter around some picturesque provincial field/godforsaken suburban dump; a break from being photographed standing next to architecture, complaining about room service, and trying to identify your socks amongst the hotel laundry. But Team England tend to take everything too seriously and now it seems they’re trying to put the war into warm-up.

As we know, being generally unpleasant and obnoxious on the field of play is a vital part of the modern game. At the moment, Andy Flower’s Angry Boys lead the way in the shouty arts, and so a fixture against a Sri Lanka Board XI was the perfect chance for them to hit their moaning straps. After all, nothing prepares you for Test cricket quite like standing around swearing at someone.

When Dilruwan Perera refused to accept a fielder’s word about a catch and didn’t walk, the England players converged on the offending batsmen in a scrum of arm-waving, pouty indignation. You might think this was just a silly overreaction but I have a weary feeling that Team England will see it as the choicest drop of cream at the very tip of the pedigree cat’s whiskers, and that we are only at the start of several very trying weeks of whingeing, tantrums, foot-stamping and Stuart Broad’s lower lip going all quivery when yet another DRS review request is turned down.

Subtle visual comparison, for your benefit

Tuesday, 13th March
I’m worried about Gautam. His century was very nice, but it’s not as though he hasn’t done it before or was poised on 99 hundreds or had his mortgage on it at 25-1 or anything. His reaction upon securing three figures was a bit of a jolt. I haven’t seen that much unexpected fist-pumping since the Pope received the news that Germany had knocked England out of the World Cup.

And then there were the verbal ejaculations. Traditionally, this kind of thing is left to the chap with the ball. Ryan Sidebottom is a master of the fist-clenched primal roar and Dale Steyn does that thing where all his upper body muscles go taut and he looks like he’s about to turn into some kind of mutant super hero. Or dislocate his jaw.

So what could have provoked mild-mannered Gautam to join the ranks of the screamers and ravers? His frenzied finger-jabbing in the direction of the dressing room suggested that he’d proved a point to someone. “There you go,” he seemed to be saying, “I told you I could score a century on a flat pitch against a toothless bowling attack in a minor tournament. Take that!”

Frankly, if high scores have this kind of effect on him, perhaps it’s just as well he hasn’t had too many of late.

Wednesday, 14th March
A Delhi bookmaker has claimed that English county cricket is a good market for match-fixing because the quaint rural pastime is so low-profile that nobody monitors it. This is a little unfair on the ECB. They have tried to keep tabs on what is going on in the shires but their undercover naughtiness monitors invariably nodded off on the first morning, and when debriefed at ECB HQ, were unable to recall a thing.

Can bookmakers really fix these games? Perhaps. But surely the more important question is what kind of dangerous lunatic would want to bet on county cricket?

A bet should be something to make the pulse quicken, the eyes widen and the wallet twitch. A helter-skelter two-mile steeplechase or a blood-and-thunder game of rugby is worth a wager. But the spectacle of a bunch of has-beens, might-bes and expat South Africans pottering around a field in front of a gaggle of sandwich-munching retired civil servants does not cause the Hughes betting neurons to fire.

Frankly, I fear for the future of illegal bookmaking if their business model depends on encouraging customers to speculate on Slumbershire versus Yawnchester. Give me two cockroaches racing up a wall anytime.

Thursday, 15th March
Traditionally, first-wicket down is usually where you put the star of the show, although there are a couple of accepted variations:

1. If your show doesn’t have a star, you might hand the position to a reserve blocker. Selectors enjoy pulling this trick. Remove one of our dogged openers, they chortle and aha, here comes another dogged opener! England tried this sometimes in the 1990s, although it doesn’t work if none of the batsmen concerned are any good.

2. Occasionally, No. 3 is the place you might choose to blood a talented but fragile young strokemaker, particularly if you don’t like him very much.

But if, as seems likely, Shane Watson is to take the third position in the Australian batting order, then we need to rewrite the rules. From now on, three is also the place where former big hitting allrounders go when their work experience at the top of the order is over and they find themselves captaining the team.

For many of us, this is bewildering. Once upon a time, the architecture of the Australian batting order was as solid and enduring as an old market town and when changes had to be made, they were subtle, in keeping with the character of the place. But now it seems the developers have been let loose and anything can go anywhere.

Or perhaps this is the equivalent of the Ajax football team’s tactical innovations of the early 1970s. In Australia’s “Total Cricket” philosophy, any player can play anywhere. Personally I’d like to see Xavier Doherty express himself at No. 4, and I reckon that young Ricky Ponting could do a job in the lower middle order.

Ryan Harris: learned how to curb his enthusiasm © Getty Images

Saturday, 10th March
Vacancies in the Indian batting line-up do not occur that often, and now that Rahul has gone, the hopefuls are queuing round the block. Like casting directors for a Bollywood blockbuster, BCCI selectors have been leafing through headshots and resumes for several days, but nothing has yet caught their eye. So today this advert appeared in the Indian batting industry’s trade newspaper, The Bling and Nurdle:

A position has recently become available in our top order. The successful candidate must be good in a crisis, with strong damage limitation skills and considerable firefighting expertise. Experience of working with the elderly an advantage. Some foreign travel necessary but this will be kept to a minimum. Ability to duck essential. Apply to Mr Srinivasan, Super Kings Mansions, Cement Street, Mumbai.

Sunday, 11th March
If you thought that the diabolical debacle in Dubai surely meant the end of England’s spell as head prefects at the Test Cricket Academy, you were wrong. It looks like Strauss and chums will still be hanging on to the shiny mace of supremacy come April Fools Day, thanks to an old ally.

Dampness has long been the English cricketer’s friend, and scientists at the Met Office have now found a way to harness the natural sogginess of the British Isles. With South Africa poised to beat New Zealand last week, a special cumulonimbus task force was despatched to the southern hemisphere and today it drizzled on their parade.

It will only get harder for the challengers. They think they’re coming for a pleasant stroll around the shires this summer, but they’re in for a world of rain. Millions of gallons of water have been stored in the ECB’s underground reservoir, ready to be dumped on Graeme Smith’s head if it looks like his team might be winning.

As Churchill would have put it, we shall fight them in the drizzle, we shall fight them in the showers, we shall fight them in the downpours and in the puddles; we shall never surrender, because we’ll be wearing waterproof trousers.

Tuesday, 13th March
Ryan Harris has put his absence from Australia’s Caribbean holiday down to the fact that he was trying too hard in recent games. This is a timely reminder for all of us. Dabble, dip your toe in the water or languidly go through the motions, but there really is no point in trying hard. It simply isn’t worth it.

Life teaches us this lesson time and again. You try too hard to impress a certain girl but somehow end up falling head first into a duck pond or crashing your penny farthing into a fruit stall. You develop a hunched back and a squint from too much revision, yet the chap who spent his term playing gin rummy strolls to an A.

Not really trying is the way to go. The great thinkers of human civilisation, from Oscar Wilde to Baloo, are all in agreement. That’s why David Gower is one of my favourite players. It’s not that he didn’t try, I’m sure he did. But he didn’t look as though he was trying, and that is immensely encouraging to the rest of us.

So now you know what to do, Ryan. Curb your natural Australian tendency to work hard and ease back a little. Cultivate a bored expression. Saunter to deep fine leg with an air of ennui. Perhaps sip a cup of tea or have a flick through the racing pages whilst leaning on the advertising hoardings. You’ll be back in no time.

"Just rip it off like a bandage" © AFP

Wednesday, 7th March
Once upon a time there lived a poor princess. Her land was so poverty-stricken that she was forced to sell it to television for a paltry £300 million.

“Oh woe is me,” cried the princess, “How am I to compete financially with my peers? Oh how I envy Countess Lalit, who travels everywhere in a diamond-studded carriage pulled by flying unicorns!”

But one day, as she sat in the Lord’s pavilion, weeping over her spreadsheets, a heavily-tanned knight landed his helicopter on her lawn.

“I’ve got a yacht and I live in a make-believe kingdom. Will you marry me?”

“Oh yes!” said the princess, adding, “Show me the money!”

And Prince Charmless carried her off in the Ponzicopter to the magical land of Stanfordia where they lived in his giant sandcastle, entertaining themselves by throwing custard pies at people who weren’t billionaires.

But it couldn’t last for ever. One day a wicked federal agent knocked on their door and cast a magic arrest warrant. Prince Pyramid was transformed into a giant rat and ran away. His castle became a pumpkin once more and all his servants turned back into former international cricketers who swore they couldn’t remember a thing.

Yet the princess was unabashed and behaved as though nothing had happened, saying:

“I’m keeping the engagement ring and this £2.2 million and there’s nothing that anyone can do about it so there.”

And they all lived happily ever after apart from a few thousand investors and the citizens of Antigua, but let’s face it, they don’t really count.

Thursday, 8th March
And just like that, Dravid has gone. He could have carried on, seeing off Sharma and Raina and Sharma and Raina’s nephews and Sharma and Raina’s nephew’s sons, batting on with indefatigable rectitude, stiffening the Indian spine long into his senior years.

Let’s face it, the timorous lumberjacks of the BCCI would never have dared to wield their axes against this mighty oak. But now that he has toppled over, he leaves a gaping hole. Which puny sapling can possibly fill it? They still haven’t found anything to put in the space where Ganguly used to stand.

It was the same when Poseidon announced his retirement. Who will regulate the tides now? Who’s going to stop the sharks from eating the mermaids? How will we get the smell of fish out of the carpet? And who’s going to tell Zeus that it might be time for him to hang up his thunderbolt?

Sachin and VVS should contemplate the experience of Mr Gatting and Mr Gooch. A pair of the finest willow-wavers England ever produced, but throughout their 1994 farewell tour they lumbered around Australia like bewildered brontosauruses who had somehow survived the Ice Age.

And 99 centuries isn’t a bad finish. Like 99.94, it has a certain numerical poignancy.

Also available in a Bob Willis stylee © Getty Images

Wednesday, 22nd February
Stung by accusations that they have been a tad complacent in light of their team’s somewhat less than triumphant excursion to the Antipodes, the BCCI has today announced a wide-ranging review. Entitled “What We Did on Our Holidays”, it will be headed by an experienced playground supervisor and will aim to get to the bottom of a number of key concerns raised by players, specifically:

1. The X-Box rotation policy limiting senior players to half an hour each
2. The way Ishant always has the volume of his iPod too high on the bus
3. Gautam’s reluctance to change his socks
4. Praveen’s annoying habit of slurping his tea
5. Viru’s refusal to sit in the front row at team meetings if Mahi is there
6. The amount of time Virat spends in the bathroom

The review will be complete by the time the players land in Delhi and is expected to conclude that after ten weeks of being cooped up in the same coaches, dressing rooms and hotel lifts it would be in the best interests of Indian cricket and the sanity of all concerned if they spent some quality time as far away from each other as possible.

Thursday, 23rd February
England’s fast bowlers may look like nice young men who spend their spare time helping elderly ladies across busy roads and retrieving kittens from high branches, but sometimes they can be grumpier than Bob Willis at a Justin Bieber concert. Today it was Steven Finn who was wearing the angry trousers, heaping abuse on a slightly nonplussed Awais Zia, both before and after he took Zia’s wicket.

To the untrained eye, this carry-on might appear to be the petulance of a schoolboy who can’t cope when things don’t go his way. But Steven is 22, so that couldn’t be it. So what was his problem? Had his ECB underpants shrunk in the wash? Were his bunions playing up? Had he overdosed on the Daily Mail? And then I worked it out. Like me, he must have sat through Sky’s pre-match unpleasantries.

We all know the drill. Every viewer must pass through an initiation ceremony, an ordeal of inanity, in order to get to the thing for which they’ve paid. Today’s theme was KP’s confidence. First the chaps in Dubai informed us that he’d be full of it. They handed back to the studio, whereupon Ian Ward asked his first guest if KP would really be full of confidence. Yes, said Rob Key, Kevin would be full of confidence.

But Ward was leaving nothing to chance and brought in Robert Croft for the Celtic angle on Pietersen’s confidence. He concluded that KP would be full of confidence. At least I think he did. Croftie has a troubled relationship with vowels and his strenuous attempts to elucidate his opinions produced the kind of jaw arrangements you might associate with a snake trying unsuccessfully to regurgitate a mouse.

It went on. A quantam of waffle from Nasser Hussain; a light shower of drivel from David Lloyd and Aamer Sohail, including an anecdote about Lloyd having to borrow a tie*; adverts for deodorant, banks and cars; and an exchange of platitudes with a bored-looking Craig Kieswetter wearing a bored-looking baseball cap. After several minutes of this, my nerves were frayed, my mute button broken and my porcelain tea service in peril. No wonder Steven was so cross. Had I been expected to go out and play cricket after that, I might not have been able to restrain myself either.

*Turns out he didn’t have a tie so he had to borrow one

Memo to MS: the calm impassivity thing can only take you so far © Getty Images

Monday, 13th February
In a leap year, strange things happen. February has an extra day, women can propose to men, and most bizarrely of all, England have won a one-day game. The last time they were any good at this stuff was 1992, also a leap year. Coincidence? Yes, probably, given that they mostly sucked in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008.

But the main thing is, they won a game. Pakistan finally collapsed like an exhausted school bully who’d already extracted all the lunch money and sweets he could possibly need.

Alastair Cook scored a one-day century, which is good news for English hacks who get to run the “Alistair Cook silences his critics” story for the hundredth time, despite the fact that even Alastair Cook’s most dedicated critics, including the retired colonel from Barking who used to follow Cook around the world haranguing him via a loud hailer about his substandard strike rate, have long ago admitted he’s not that bad.

But heading in the opposite direction on the career escalator is poor Kevin Pietersen. Today he was back in the role of “pinch hitter”, which in KP’s case means you pinch yourself if he hits it. Alastair Cook was so embarrassed for the man, he tried to play some Pietersen-style shots, just to remind Kevin what he was supposed to do, like flapping your arms vigorously to encourage a goose with amnesia to fly.

Sadly there was no take off for KP. Instead he gave us a painstaking 36-ball deconstruction of his own batting technique, before Shahid put him out of his befuddled misery. A few years ago he was swatting Warne and Murali into the stands. Now he plays spin bowling like a drunken trainee scythe operative tackling a field of hay in a force-nine gale. In the dark.

Tuesday, 14th February
International cricketers are pretty high profile these days, but they still have a lot to learn about how sporting superstars are supposed to conduct themselves in the 21st century. Take today’s game in Adelaide. India’s attempt to chase down Sri Lanka’s total ended in a tie but it turned out that they were a delivery short.

Now this is far from ideal. We don’t expect our crack units of elite umpires to nail every decision, but we do expect that between them, they will be able to count to six.

So what was the response of MS Dhoni, the wronged captain?

“It’s done and dusted…We can create a big fuss out of it, but what’s the point?”

Come on MS, you’re not really trying. I’ve been watching a lot of Premier League football of late, so I can explain to you how it should be done.

First, upon discovering the error, you should have “got all up in the umpire’s face”, as I believe the Americans put it. Convention demands that your team-mates surround the official, jostle him, wave their arms about and generally carry on like five-year-olds at bedtime. Cricketers don’t always get the chance to do this on the pitch, so you may need to stage the jostling at the umpire’s hotel, perhaps when he leaves his room to fetch his dry cleaning, or in the lift on the way down to the breakfast buffet.

You should then explain in your pitch-side interview that the umpire “was an absolute disgrace” before feeding your story to eager tabloid hacks who will regurgitate the half-digested controversy in headline form, perhaps: “Dhoni Blasts Umpire In Adding-Up Storm!” or “You Can’t Count Roars Skipper!”

Still, apart from the missed opportunities for controversy, it was an entertaining game. My highlight was the run out of Angelo Mathews. It is often said that men can’t multi-task, but as Angelo showed, we sometimes struggle with just the one task too. A reproduction of the Mathews thought process might go like this:

“Right, Irfan’s bowling, so focus Angelo, keep your eye on the ball, here it comes, oh it’s a full toss, I should hit that, damn missed it… ooh was that the microwave, my popcorn’s done, better hurry or it’ll go all cold and cardboardy… hang on, what am I doing in the middle of the pitch and why is everyone laughing?”

The man to be consulted if it’s complete honesty about the County Championshop you want © Getty Images

Sunday, 22nd January
Like many cricket watchers, I have whined on incessantly about how boring modern Test pitches are. Who cares if the game lasts five days if we’re asleep for four of them? Well, like a bank that has been recently been bailed out by the government at a time of low economic growth, I should now start giving credit where it’s due. The groundsmen of the world deserve a prolonged hurrah.

They deserve all three cheers and more, for letting the grass grow, leaving the hose pipe on, inserting mattress springs below the top soil or whatever it is that they do to make things more interesting, whilst all the time under pressure to do precisely the opposite. In what other sport would the phrase “result pitch” cause widespread administrative frowning and monocles to pop from the eyes of officials?

So when Gautam Gambhir today said Indian pitches should be spin-friendly, I was almost entirely in agreement. Dry, dusty, cracked surfaces on which spinners can cause the ball to move sideways to a preposterous degree is precisely what you should expect when you go to India, just as you should look forward to soggy ankles in England and broken noses in the Caribbean. That’s how it should be.

There’s nothing wrong with what he said. The problem, sadly not for the first time this winter, is his timing. Talking boldly about what may happen in several months’ time on a different continent creates the unfortunate impression that he’s already thinking of going home. Rather than reassuring Indian fans that their team will be hard to beat in Kanpur, could he give them some reason to be optimistic about Adelaide?

Tuesday, 24th January
A few years ago it was conventional wisdom to regard the County Championship as a chuckleworthy remnant of bumbling amateurism, a repository of mediocrity, the nasty damp patch that was the source of English cricket’s rot. It belonged in the wheelie bin of history, like fox-hunting, the Conservative party, and putting offal in pies.

But now that England are No. 1, we realise that the Championship is in fact the attractive flowery tattoo on the bee’s knee, and civilisation’s greatest achievement since the invention of the sherry trifle. In just six seasons this fine nursery of talent has, in exchange for around £150 million, produced literally two new Test-match ready batsmen, only one of whom was born and raised in South Africa.

There are some dissenters, but they are mostly extremists; obscure bloggers, England internationals, you know the type. Take this comment from someone called “Alastair Cook”. Asked recently whether he felt the success of the England team was directly linked to the county system, he said, “I don’t think it is, to be totally honest.”

But what does he know?

Still, we shouldn’t be complacent, because the Championship is under serious threat. A sinister cabal of 18 troublemakers in boring ties, known simply as “The Chairmen” are plotting to replace it with three months of Twenty20 and three months of Forty40, whilst siphoning millions into unnecessary seating and hideous hospitality blocks in a grandiose scheme to make every county ground an international venue.

In this conspiracy, David Morgan is just a patsy. Behind the grassy knoll, you’ll find the chairmen of Bankruptshire, Kolpackchestershire and Subsidyshire waiting for the Championship to drive past in an open-top limo, passing the time by colouring in the dollars in their official 2012 Champions League colouring books.

Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman contemplate saving the board money on farewell-party cake © Getty Images

Sunday, 1st January
Hobart’s purpley heroes continue to sweep all before them. Today they overcame the Sydney Gayle and they were steered home by Owais Shah, one of my favourite batsmen. I liked him when he was the future of English batting, and I still like him now that he’s a footnote to an earlier chapter in the history of English batting.

He is fascinating because he has two distinct batting personalities, between which he alternates in phases, as though his technique is affected by high tides or the position of the stars. Perhaps in a desperate attempt to relaunch his England career, he once purchased a magic potion from a mad scientist, an elixir guaranteed to render any man invincible at the crease, but only for three overs at a time.

One moment he’s a harmless nudger and pusher, always in peril of tripping over his bootlaces whilst going for an easy single, and then, kapow! He is transformed into a biffing machine, despatching the ball with an angry snarl and a Pietersen strut, before reverting without warning to mild-mannered Owais, unable to say boo to the proverbial goose or even to the goose’s timid little gosling, Gary.

The setting for Owais’ triumph is now called the Blundstone Arena, which is overselling it slightly; the Blundstone Enclosure or the Blundstone Grassy Area would have been more accurate. But it’s a pleasant setting for a game of cricket and it was fun watching Chris Gayle attempt to bounce sixes off the tractor parked near the boundary, for which presumably he’d win a BBL Big Tractor Bashing Bonus.

Monday, 2nd January
India’s batting order is like Stonehenge or Mount Rushmore. No matter how crumbly it gets, people still flock to see it in their thousands whilst these towering figures continue to weather poor form, creeping age and internet abuse, just as statues have to endure howling winds, lashing rain and the unwanted attentions of pigeons.

It can’t last for ever, but the question is, how to manage the decline? The Indian selectors need to bear in mind the Fire Drill Theory of Transition, which states that an orderly and controlled procession is better than a desperate rush for the exits.

For one thing, just think of the consequences for the Indian microphone-bothering industry if the famous four all head for the commentary booth at the same time. Talking loudly about nothing whilst watching a game of cricket is all that Ravi and Siva know these days. How will they earn a crust when they are made redundant?

No, each of these players deserves their full month’s worth of headlines, parliamentary tributes, pullout specials, and interviews with Harsha. And then there’s the other oldies. Ricky and Michael will also soon be entitled to their time in the setting sun. Maybe the ICC should set up a veterans decommissioning unit to prevent these all-time greats from stealing one another’s limelight.

Rahul, in particular, doesn’t deserve to have his retirement overshadowed. I can see the message board comments now: “Yes, he gave a lovely farewell speech, you can always rely on Rahul, but even though Sachin only said a few words (‘So long and thanks for all the runs’) he said it with such a mastery of tone and pitch that you’d have to say his goodbye press conference was the better of the two…”

The nightmare scenario for the selectors is if retirement becomes contagious. Let’s say Virender is woken at six one morning, turns over to look at the alarm clock and thinks, “Nah, I’ve had enough of this.” Later, he wanders into the dressing room in his jeans and t-shirt, and VVS sees how cool and relaxed he looks and calls it a day on the spot. Then Rahul, who was on his way out to try and save the follow-on, gets halfway to the wicket before retiring and returning to the pavilion, from where Sachin has already sent his farewell text, and the four of them drive off in a hors- drawn chariot.

And then what will Dunc do?

"Er what, you put your camera phone in my pocket instead? Ha ha, I see, very funny" © Associated Press

Sunday, 9th October
The League of Runners-Up is over and at last Mumbai have won something other than the Best Team In Mumbai Trophy. The injury-prone Indians lumbered to a bruising points victory over the Chris Gayle XI in a scrappy dust-up made fascinating by the flaws of the contenders. In the blue corner: Harbhajan’s half-fit Hamstring-Tweakers. And in the red corner: Daniel’s One-Trick Ponies (or perhaps, Two-and-a-half Trick Ponies, if you count Kohli and half a Dilshan).

But this is Planet IPL and Bangalore can still win this thing where it really matters: in the courts. I reckon they’d have a good case. For a start, there was clear evidence of bias towards the men in blue. After being careless enough to allow several of their players to be injured, Mumbai were granted special permission to play an extra foreigner. Yet when Bangalore asked if their captain could increase his quota of overs from four to 20, on the grounds that none of their other bowlers were any good, their entirely reasonable request was turned down.

And then there is Malinga. Watching him shatter the timber against Somerset yesterday, I began to suspect he is up to something. If my hunch is right, while the Slinger is warming up, Rayudu plants a small explosive charge at the base of each stump and then, at the moment of delivery, Malinga presses the button on his hand-held yorker detonation device. Sometimes he doesn’t even let go of the ball. No wonder his victims look so bemused.

Tuesday, 11th October
That beeping noise you can hear is the sound of the ICC backing up as it slowly reverses world cricket down the same cul-de-sac into which it drove it last year. We were told that DRS was the very thing, the absolute cherry on the technology trifle and that we were heading into a brave new world in which every decision would be the right one, small deer would feed from Aleem Dar’s hand as butterflies fluttered about the popping crease and Simon Taufel’s path would be strewn with rose petals.

But no longer, it seems. The problem is not really with the technology, but the men operating it. Umpires are not good with gadgets. They can juggle little stones to count the deliveries, they’re pretty good with a small pencil and they can read the hands on a clock to within a 30-second margin of error. But that’s about it. Look how they treat the light meter, wielding it as though it were an ancient and mysterious Aztec artefact of great power that no mere mortal can defy.

A new breed of umpire, capable of wrestling with all this data, might be one solution. Computer science undergraduates could do the job and you probably wouldn’t have to pay them very much. But then, a teenager in an unironed shirt triumphantly solving the lbw equation to 17 decimal points just doesn’t have the aesthetic appeal of Steve Bucknor’s slow finger raise or the quirky fun of Billy Bowden’s stick-insect gyrations. Without the man in the white coat it just wouldn’t be the same.

So now that we’re back in technological limbo, it’s time for cricket to ask itself the big questions. Does Hawk-Eye work in the dark? If your bat was on fire, would Hot Spot still be able to detect a nick to first slip? Why aren’t wicketkeepers’ caps fitted with lie-detectors? And is accuracy all that matters? Or to put it another way, isn’t it time to bin the gadgets and let the umpires get on with umpiring?

"Forensics found a giant footprint on the Indian team's face. It is possibly of English origin, but that proves nothing conclusive" © Getty Images

Sunday, 18th September
To some people the Champions League is like a big fat slug lurking at the bottom of your garden. It isn’t particularly attractive, you don’t see the point of it and you can get through the autumn fine without ever seeing it. But every part of the cricket ecosystem has its place, and to many of us the Champions League has become as familiar a part of the cricket calendar as a Shahid Afridi retirement or Somerset not quite winning a trophy.

It’s a jumble of flavours, a mix of cricket cultures that you just don’t get anywhere else. For instance, if there is a more unlikely cricket match this year than Somerset v Kolkata Knight Riders, I’ll eat Duncan Fletcher’s sunglasses.

And there’s something for everyone. You can have fun spotting players you thought had retired (good grief, Sanath is here!) and learn about teams you’ve never heard of before (welcome to my brain, Ruhuna, I’ll forget about Ronnie Irani to make room for you).

So who will you follow in the race to lose to Chennai in the final? It’s tricky. I don’t like snakes so the Cobras are out, and calling yourselves The Warriors is asking for trouble. Trinidad are a Bravo short, and though it might be fun to follow Somerset or Leicester, they have been shepherded into some kind of quarantine playoff system, designed, quite rightly, to keep the riff-raff out.

But while you’re deciding who to support, you can marvel at the unnecessary innovation. This year’s silly technology is a high-definition camera in a pair of sunglasses, so the viewer will be treated to wobbly footage from the vantage point of fine leg as he shuffles a touch squarer, live coverage of the drinks break, or if the glasses are being worn by a particularly inept fielder, the heart-stopping terror of a mistimed slog sweep heading directly towards our television screens.

Monday, 19th September
So Kochi are no more. The IPL just won’t be the same. The Tuskers were my favourite team, partly for their daring choice of colours, partly for the presence of Sreesanth, but mainly for the fact that they nearly called themselves the Indi Commandos (kind of like the A-team with orange shirts). But now it’s all over. They haven’t so much gone down in a blaze of glory as got their ankles tangled up in red tape, pitched over in the board room and knocked themselves out on the coffee table.

I did try to read up on why Kochi were kaput but then I found myself drifting into a daydream and when I woke up it was Tuesday. When did the IPL get so complicated? You need an MBA and a law degree to follow the goings on in franchise land. Perhaps IPL5 should dispense with the cattle market for players and introduce a lawyer auction. A star batsman may help you get to the final, but you need a crack legal team to make sure you’re allowed to play in it.

Tuesday, 20th September
Apparently there will be no investigation or post mortem of any kind into the unpleasant events of the summer, thus ending a very brief episode of CSI BCCI in which the charismatic Detective Srinivasan took a brief look at the crime scene and shrugged, concluding that India’s tour clearly just died of old age or something, and anyway it doesn’t really matter. Case closed.

Questioned at a press conference today, he first asked an aide why the “eject” button he was jabbing didn’t work, but was informed that the ejector seats fitted to the journalists’ chairs had been switched off due to doubts about the technology. So instead he called for his Big Box of Excuses and grabbed a few, handing them to his aide to read out while he tucked into a bag of tortillas. Those excuses in full:

“Sehwag wasn’t playing some of the time.”

“The weather was inclement.”

“Don’t forget to tune into the Champions League!”

“Srini for President!”

In his over-eagerness, Flintoff sizes up the next generation of Indian Test cricketers who he expects will challenge England's No. 1 ranking in 15 years from now © AFP

Wednesday, 3rd August
Last night I was visited by the Spirit of Cricket. He wasn’t in a very good mood. He complained vigorously that the Ian Bell thing had nothing to do with him, that as far as he was concerned, the fellow was dozier than a sloth on sleeping tablets and that if he’d been Dhoni, he’d have waited till Bell got back to the wicket and then rescinded his rescinded appeal, just to teach the blighter a lesson.

After he had calmed down, I told him I was about to post my 200th Long Handle entry and asked what he thought I should write. He thought for a moment, then he said, “Write what you like, it’s only Page 2. But whatever you do, don’t insult Ganguly.”

Thursday, 4th August
A realistic view of our place in the great scheme of things is a hallmark of the English nation from Alfred the Great, a failed baker, to David Cameron, who has spent much of his first year as prime minister apologising and publicly changing his mind. We are a moderately sized, oddly shaped, frequently damp island nation whose primary role these days is to bear the brunt of the Atlantic weather for the sake of mainland Europe. We’ve lost an empire but we can still serve as an umbrella.

So just because we happen to find ourselves beating India 2-0, there is zero danger of any flabby complacency or premature triumphalism creeping in. No one would be foolish enough to start loosening champagne corks just because they were leading a big final at half-time. Isn’t that right, Freddie?

“England are the best team in the world already, not just in ranking.”

Actually, not even in ranking, Freddie. Let’s be clear. The ICC rankings table is not drawn up by tabloid editors. As of tea-time today, I regret to inform you that we are not No. 1. To start calling ourselves No. 1 before we are in fact No. 1 would be the highest-profile English case of premature fowl-tallying since King Harold turned to his men on Senlac Hill and said, “Look, I told you, we’ve got real strength in depth behind this shield wall and the Normans were badly underprepared. I’d be astonished if we didn’t win from this position.”

Friday, 5th August
Two-nil down and the Indians are fighting back. Not on the pitch, but where it really matters: in the media. Today it was Paddy Upton’s turn to come to the PR party, spinning far more effectively than anything Harbhajan has managed in 70 overs. He isn’t saying that playing an awful lot of cricket is the reason why India are losing the series, but they are losing the series and they have played an awful lot of cricket.

“By giving the players so much cricket there is a potential of diluting the quality of the product. We are possibly seeing the evidence of it now.”

Possibly. But then cricket to the modern international bat-wielding superstar is a bit like dessert. Just because someone keeps putting it in front of you, doesn’t mean you can’t push it away now and again. For example, any of the World Cup heroes could have chosen seven weeks of comfy chairs and light promotional duties after their triumph, but instead they chose to muck about in the IPL. Jolly entertaining for the rest of us, but not the ideal, burnout wise. No, mental fatigue is not quite going to cut it as an explanation; we’ll need something more convincing. Ganguly thinks its lack of preparation. But then what does he know?

Foreign Minister Dhoni announces a new trade pact while skilfully deflecting questions about India’s latest loss © AFP

Saturday, 30th July
Michael Vaughan found himself in a sticky situation today, thanks to a popular ointment, Britpop, and the perils of Twitter. An entire sewage farm of e-effluence was poured onto his virtual head when the world mistakenly assumed that he had accused VVS Laxman of applying slippery foreign substances to his bat. In fact, MPV was a hapless victim of circumstance. Earlier in the day he had received this tweet:

“@MPVaughan what’s your favourite petroleum jelly-themed chorus by an English indie band?”

To which he had little choice but to reply:

“Vaseline! La la la-la la la la la-la-la la! #Elastica”

Unfortunately this tweet was tweeted at precisely the same moment that television replays were showing no hint of hot whiteness on VVS’s ghostly grey bat.

I hope this clears up any misunderstanding and also defuses any hostility that might have been provoked by his later tweeting of “Cigarettes and Alcohol” just as Nasser Hussain was asking why Sachin is out of form, and his unfortunately timed reference to “Big Mouth Strikes Again” as Geoffrey Boycott began his commentary stint.

Sunday, 31st July
Poor Ian Bell. He was going along swimmingly, having scored 137 of the politest, most well-behaved runs in Test match history. The world was a lovely, happy place. Already his thoughts were turning to his tea-time glass of strawberry-flavoured milk and his post-game episode of Peppa Pig. He watched Eoin Morgan hit the ball towards the boundary, the little umpire in his head called over and he was off.

And well done to MS Dhoni for saving the day. His noblesse oblige belongs to a parallel universe in which Geoff Hurst went to check with the Azerbaijani linesman, because from where he was standing, he didn’t think the ball had crossed the line; the Greeks got back into their wooden horse and asked to be wheeled out of Troy because it just didn’t feel right; and George W Bush asked for a state-wide recount in Florida on the grounds that he wanted to win but he didn’t want to win like that.

There was more to it than that. Dhoni, in addition to being one of India’s foremost commercial endorsers, a jetsetting magazine interviewee, a national hero and an occasional cricketer, also holds down a part-time job in the Indian Foreign Office. Yes, Ian Bell scored another 22 runs, but those runs didn’t come cheap. This evening there’s a new Anglo-Indian trade agreement on the regulation of prices in the paper clip industry that wasn’t there yesterday. Nice diplomacy, MS.

Monday, 1st August
Zimbabwe’s new captain, Brendan Taylor, has declared that his team may have a few surprises for Bangladesh in their forthcoming Test clash, which is already being billed in some quarters as Bangladesh’s fourth Test win. But what, we wonder, could Zimbabwe have up their sleeves to surprise an opponent they have met 18 times in the last two years? Here are three possible surprise scenarios.

1. Zimbabwe don’t turn up at all, later claiming that the entire team developed Bell’s Syndrome, a rare and only recently discovered form of temporary cricket-related amnesia. The match is abandoned, which is officially not the same as losing.

2. Soon after arriving at the ground, they express indignation at the lack of a gluten-free vegetarian option on the lunch menu and remain in their dressing room for five days, hoping the ICC will declare the game a draw.

3. Just before the toss, Taylor goes into the Bangladeshi dressing room and asks Shakib Al Hasan if, in the Spirit of Cricket, he wouldn’t mind conceding the match. It’s worth a try.

Brad Haddin emerges from the BBL's revolutionary dugout © Getty Images

Wednesday, 27th July
At Lord’s India went about their business with all the urgency of a party of elderly tortoises going for a Sunday afternoon stroll. But this does not mean that captain MS Dhoni is grounded for the second Test. The ICC’s Procrastination Committee has adjudicated and today released this statement explaining why he can come out to play in Nottingham after all:

"The committee felt that, on mature reflection, taking a rounded view, having weighed up the pros and cons, and without wishing to undermine or undercut those regulatory guidelines without which the administration of such eventualities would be rendered inviable, not to say untenable, it was nevertheless felt that, giving due regard to the wider implications of the application of the regulations in any particular case and weighing the balance of probabilities in such a way as to not detrimentally affect matters of public perception falling necessarily outside the purview of this body…"

(continues for 17 pages)

I think that’s pretty clear. So let the fate of MS be a lesson to all captains. Bowl your overs more quickly or you’ll be banned. *

Thursday, 28th July
You might think that the Big Bash League is the competition that time forgot. Twenty20? Franchises? Really? That is so 2008.

But you’d be wrong. The BBL is in fact dangerously relevant and ever so edgy. We know this because none of the attendees at today’s launch were allowed to wear ties and it doesn’t get much more dangerous than that, unless perhaps they weren’t allowed to wear trousers either. Maybe they can save that for the relaunch.

Anyway, the BBL is, in the words of a man with a podium, “a sports entertainment revolution”. And where better to launch a sports entertainment revolution than in what appeared to be a derelict fish packing plant in downtown Sydney. Instead of sorting and wrapping frozen sea food, they were processing hyperbole and packaging nonsense. In a really zeitgeisty way. With breakdancing. And dips.

At one point pre-recorded versions of the captains were projected against a wall and took turns to mutter vaguely about how their team were really tough and everyone had better watch out and mumble mumble mumble. But my favourite BBL launch moment was the opening question put to Michael Klinger, the new captain of the Adelaide Strikers; a line of enquiry which I think may represent a revolution in sports interviewing:

“Blue looks really good on you. How are you liking the newly released logo?”

If any readers are concerned, don’t worry. Turns out he was liking it just fine.

Friday, 29th July
Cameron White was today at a loss to explain Australia’s selection policy. It’s not his fault. Australia’s selection policy is a riddle wrapped in an enigma shrouded in a mystery and stored in the pouch of the purple kangaroo who lives in the tangerine forests of Andrew Hilditch’s subconscious. When they’ve finished locating the Higgs boson particle, scientists at CERN are planning to put Australia’s selection policy into the Large Hadron Collider and whizz it round a few times to see if it makes sense.

Where once Australian cricket was a pyramid, up which aspiring players had to clamber, it’s now more of an open cast quarry around which the selectors wander, picking up anything that looks as though it might be useful. Hilditch and chums are like the peasants who inhabited Rome in the Dark Ages, gazing at the monumental ruins of what used to be without the first idea of how to set about rebuilding things.

But while they’re hanging around waiting for the Renaissance, there are a couple of things they could try to improve the situation.

1. Recall Brendon Nash from Jamaica because obviously the WICB don’t want him
2. Set up recruitment centres in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town
3. Resign.

* Unless you’re very famous, popular or photogenic, in which case, certain exemptions may apply.

Ijaz Butt calls up the ICC in a rage to find out if their task team report was a conspiracy to evoke sympathy towards Pakistan cricket © AFP

Tuesday, 12th July
“The best man who walked the face of the earth never did anything wrong, but he was still crucified. And I am nowhere close to that.”

So now we know. Darren Sammy is not the Messiah. He can’t walk on water, but he does at least know how to get to the water and if you asked him, I’m sure he’d borrow a dinghy and row you across. He’s one of life’s triers. He doesn’t boast. He doesn’t score any runs. But he does at least give the impression that he quite likes being West Indies captain, which is always nice for Caribbean fans to hear.

And I know he isn’t quite good enough to be in the team, but there have been some very successful captains who weren’t quite good enough to be in the team. There was Mike Brearley, for example, and, well, the other ones, whose names escape me at the moment. Anyway, good luck Darren, I hope you succeed in your aim of getting West Indies into the top five by 2015, although it might depend on at least four of the other Test nations withdrawing from the ICC.

Wednesday, 13th July
We live in strange times, friends, and on days like these I feel particularly uneasy. But there’s no point shying away from it. Al Gore didn’t want to deal with the inconvenient truth, but he did it anyway. And if Al can do it, so can I. Here goes.

Today I read a story involving the PCB and found myself agreeing with them.

Yes, really. I know, but there it is. I think the PCB are correct. I’m right behind you Ijaz. Excuse me while I go for a quick lie-down.

What could possibly have led me to such a conclusion? Well, the Pakistan Task Team have produced recommendations for reform of the Pakistan cricket system. Jolly good thing, too, you might say. But then you read on. Apparently, only one member of the PTT had visited Pakistan, and that was because he caught the wrong plane. And neither of the two ambassadors for Pakistan have visited the place either.

Pakistan cricket may be poorly. But if you’re going to offer a cure, you should at least go and visit the patient. I’m a big fan of House, but I’m not sure the programme would have caught on if Hugh Laurie had done his diagnosing via email.

Thursday, 14th July
The News Of The World may be no more, but here at the Long Handle, we are keeping up the fine English tradition of sneaking about and getting our grubby hands on information we have no right to possess. Posing as an airline stewardess, I recently infiltrated an AirIndia flight to Heathrow and managed to swipe Duncan Fletcher’s SpongeBob SquarePants carry case.

Inside, I found a copy of Alan Border’s Fitness Programme, “Shed Pounds The Grumpy Way”; a good-luck card from Greg Chappell, 17 pairs of identical sunglasses and a highly confidential dossier, revealing the secrets of England’s top players. With this deadly dossier in their hands, the Indian team are certain to triumph this summer (even though they probably would have anyway). Here is just a selection of big Dunc’s inside info:

Kevin Pietersen: In my opinion, he could struggle against left-arm spin.
Stuart Broad: The lad has a bit of a temper.
Andrew Strauss: Posh. I believe he could be captain these days.
Alastair Cook: Can score a lot of runs if you don’t get him out.
Ian Bell: Short.
Matt Prior: He’s no Geraint Jones.
Ashley Giles:Retired.

"When I'm president of the PCB, nobody will be allowed to criticise Shahid Afridi" © AFP

Sunday, 10th July
One series in and Duncan is already hitting his grumpy straps. After the Dominica Test, he came to the media party, stepped up to the plate, picked up the plate and helped himself to a steaming portion of grumble pie. Old chubby cheeks was in the firing line because his new team had offended a certain section of Indian fandom by settling for a draw. Having explained to the gentlemen of the press that he thought it was the right thing to do, he was most put out to have to repeat himself and it kind of went downhill from there. Good to see that Fletch hasn’t lost his PR touch.

But was a draw so bad? The blessed Australians are often invoked at such times, but I don’t recall AB’s team risking a series win with a brave run-chase. We would all like cricket to be played in the spirit of the Golden Age, by characters out to entertain, for whom cricket is a pleasant diversion from more serious pursuits like fox-hunting, gambling and partying. But we are in the era of the drab professional and results are everything. Those are the rules. It’s not Duncan’s fault.

Monday, 11th July
Shahid Afridi is unhappy and is promising to unmask the people who are running a smear campaign against him. This is a touch melodramatic. And superfluous. When the smearing is carried out in an interview with a major newspaper, unmasking is not required. Even if the smearer had been wearing a Batman mask, and had given his name as Jazzy B Hutt, we would still have known who was behind it.

And besides the odd smear, as you might expect, Mr Butt’s interview had its share of crimes against logic. For example, the man who appointed Afridi as captain (for it was he) apparently thinks Afridi isn’t captaincy material. And then there was this:

“In my opinion, which may be considered by some people wrong,* he is responsible for losses in the fourth and fifth one-day internationals.”

Really? He may not have had the best of games in Guyana and Barbados, but he was ably assisted by at least ten other suspects, all of whom should have been in the frame for the blame. And oh yes, he won the series. Not to mention reaching the World Cup semi-final. Clearly the man was a failure. Let us hope that when Shahid becomes Chairman of the PCB in around 2031, he too has learned the art of logic abuse.

Tuesday, 12th July
Mitchell Johnson doesn’t want anything to do with the BBL. My first reaction to this news was to ask my computer what the Brett Geeves was the BBL? The Big Brother Love-in? The Baked Bean Luge? The Board of Banal Linguistics? Then I remembered. Of course! It’s the Big Bash League, Australia’s answer to the question, “Is there anything we can do to make the world a more irritating place.”

That Johnson has decided to spend time learning how to hold a cricket ball rather than perform for the Perth Ponderers is refreshing, but it isn’t really news. The news is that, apparently, Cricket Australia is encouraging its players to take part in this superfluous franchised-up PR stunt. And why? Because if the top Aussie pros join in, it will help ensure the success of the competition. Clearly the financial viability of the Big Banana League is priority number one for the administrators of the world’s fifth-ranked Test nation.

* Perish the thought, sir

Even the NASA's assurance of foolproof technology and the use of death-rays on erring umpires could not convince the BCCI to agree to the lunar Twenty20 © Getty Images

Wednesday, 22nd June
You might think that whole ICL business was just a lot of fuss about nothing. But former Cricket South Africa big grapefruit Norman Arendse was on hand today with a timely history lesson. Back in 2007 premier league proliferation was a deadly threat. The cricket world stood on the very brink of chaos. There were fears that it would be like Kerry Packer all over again, only without the flared trousers.

“Actually, with money, they could start a league on the moon and it would work.”

A figure of speech surely? Maybe. Or maybe not. Leaked documents from the BCCI’s Committee on Fantasy Scenarios reveal that at the time the organisation was deeply worried about the threat of lunar Twenty20. Working closely with NASA, they had begun construction of Megalomania 1, the world’s first Interplanetary Premier League Detection Satellite, capable of seeking out and litigating against unsanctioned franchise-based league forms anywhere in the solar system.

Thanks to their unhinged paranoia, the deadly threat was averted and the world was kept safe from the horror of unofficial limited-overs cricket.

Thursday, 23rd June
So finally, New Zealand have a captain. Sensibly, they appear to have gone for the one with the fewer tattooes. As far as I am aware there has never been a successful, extensively-tattooed international cricket captain, although in this case “as far as I’m aware” isn’t very far at all. Still, I think we can be fairly sure that Don Bradman’s biceps were not plastered with the names of his nephews and nieces, nor did Clive Lloyd have “Made in Guyana” scrawled across the back of his neck.

As protracted decisions go, this one was the daddy of them all, weighing in at a hefty 84 days. General elections don’t usually last that long, although admittedly, they aren’t usually as important. It would be unfair to criticise too much as I don’t know the precise details of the selection process, but I do have it on good authority that it was John Wright who flipped the coin and Mark Greatbatch who called.

Friday, 24th June
So the BCCI is not going to play ball. Indian players cannot play in the Sri Lankan Premier League, not even if they really really want to, not even if they get handwritten permission from their mothers and book their own flights. FICA are okay with it. The boards of Pakistan, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand are okay with it. The ICC is okay with it. But the BCCI say no. Why should this be?

“The Indian Board told us they couldn’t send their players for SLPL,” said the Sri Lankan minister for sport, “because they felt Modi is involved in this event.”

Modi.

Yes, the super villain is back. Somewhere in a top-secret lair, the founder of Modi Industries is plotting. To be honest, his latest scheme for world cricket domination is quite similar to his previous scheme for world cricket domination. But it’s a good one. Unless the BCCI accede to his demands, he will launch a deadly series of Twenty20 leagues on the world, starting with the SLPL. Can nobody stop him?

”If we give them this, what next – inspectors in the dressing-room showers to monitor our soap use? Rules about how many M&Ms we can eat per hour? It’s the end of civilisation” © AP

Saturday, 11th June
This summer there will be no T-shaped gesturing, no slow handclapping from the crowd and no sheepish-looking umpires changing their minds. Though the rest of the cricket world has gone DRS crazy, India continue to oppose it with Trott-like stubbornness, for reasons that are not entirely clear. It remains one of the sport’s enduring mysteries, like why professional sportsmen can’t play on wet grass, and how exactly a game of cricket is enhanced by having young women dancing near to it.

We know that Dhoni and Tendulkar regard the DRS with the same suspicion with which a family cat might greet the introduction of an automatic cat-food dispenser. Personally, I agree with them. I like the old-school thrill of middle-aged men in silly hats making snap decisions. Since in any given match, I don’t much mind who wins, to me, umpiring booboos are just a wobbly thread in cricket’s tapestry.

But if accuracy is your thing, then DRS works. And this summer we need it more than ever. Last time India toured these shores, there was plenty of tasty cricket, but we were also served several helpings of silliness, a side order of stupidity, and a light sprinkling of jelly beans. Any series featuring Sreesanth, Harbhajan, Prior and Broad is likely to have a touch of the school playground about it, and without DRS, we can expect toys to be ejected from prams with monotonous regularity.

Monday 13th June
At a time when Asian cricket boards are being encouraged to extricate themselves from the clammy embrace of the political class, the Australian defence minister has struck a blow for his kind. He has condemned the decision to deprive Simon Katich of his central contract as an atrocity. And he’s right. Chalk one up to the politicians.

“Simon has been a fantastic player, but we felt it was right to start blooding our next opening partnership in preparation for the Ashes.”

So says Andrew Hilditch. “Next opening partnership” is an impressive phase, implying that the Aussie talent factory has turned out yet another batch of world-class top-order batsmen, and that crusty old Kat has been swept aside by progress. It is slightly less impressive when you discover that what it means in practice is a recall for Phil “Step Back And Swipe” Hughes, the world’s leading bouncer magnet.

But the problem goes beyond Hilditch and Co. Cricket Australia is clearly suffering from Sick Organisation Syndrome, the symptoms of which are an outbreak of verbal diarrhoea and a rash of fake business-style job titles. Titles such as “Head of Cricket Operations”. Surely this should be Michael Clarke? Apparently not. Presumably he is only “Head of (Onfield) Cricket Operations”.

Anyway, this is how the Head of Cricket Operations described their selection set-up.

“You’ve got to have the best people, the best structures, the best position description for them…”

Well, if you like. Or you could just get a bunch of former pros together every so often and ask them to write down a list of the best dozen Test players in the country. A list that includes Simon Katich.

In a show of resilience and will power, Shiv Chanderpaul was able to write perfectly serviceable irate letters to the WICB despite two taped fingers © AP

Saturday, 30th April
So it turns out that the West Indies selectors can, after all, just about find room for Ramnaresh Sarwan in their exciting new team of all the talents. And who knows, if the young fella applies himself, he might one day be a regular, like those stalwarts, Marlon “Misadventure” Samuels and Devon “Disappointing” Smith.

Ramnaresh’s return from the naughty step does not, though, imply that his fellow troublemaker Shivnarine Chanderpaul will be forgiven. He is currently engaged in a duel by letter with Ernest Hilaire, and though the details of the spat are too wearisome to go into, it is vaguely charming in this electronic age to see two men slugging it out the old-fashioned way: via the postal service.

Sunday, 1st May
Indian pitch in “spin-friendly” shock! Yes it’s true. The wicket in Jaipur was so constituted that it enabled spin bowlers to cause the ball to deviate sideways more easily than might otherwise have been the case. Scandalous. Mumbai have complained, or not, depending on your point of view, and Shane Warne has hit back at the unwarranted slur/non-existent accusation.

So what happened to the Jaipur pitch? I tried to find the answer on the internet. As far as I can gather, the moisture is being sucked up by a giant invisible alien tree planted in the outfield by Martian gardeners with links to Pakistani bookmakers, in exchange for crates of counterfeit brandname sports gear, stolen iPhones and pirated copies of Yuvraj Singh’s debut album, Yuvi Love.

Probably.

But what’s the problem? So what if the surface at Jaipur was dryer than a packet of sand-flavoured crisps? Who cares if Kochi’s pitch was crustier than the rejects bin at Pies Pies Pies Plc, the world’s leading pie and pastry purveyor? Pitches, like wine, should reflect the character and soil of their locale. India is a generally dry and dusty country, ergo most Indian pitches will be dry and dusty. And if that sometimes makes life harder for lazy sloggers, then splendid.

Monday, 2nd May
Watching too much top-class sport can be a drag. Real Madrid versus Barcelona is all very well but too much of that kind of thing and you start to yearn for the gritty pleasures that come when the mediocre take on the ordinary. What do I mean? Well, take today’s game between Delhi and Kochi. The Daredevils, as we know, are all top hat and no trousers and Kochi do as well as a team can be expected to do whilst dressed like the Muppets on a trip to the seaside.

When two not-very-good cricket sides go to war, a half-decent score is usually enough and so it proved. But just to put the purpley-orange cap on the thing, up stepped Irfan Pathan, to remind us all that the key to being just short of top class is a thrilling and unpredictable inconsistency. His opening over provided a benchmark of inaccuracy with some delightfully curving leg-side wides that the wicketkeeper hadn’t a hope of stopping.

Keep this up Kochi and sixth place is yours!

Bob Willis was not best pleased about the notice from the SPCA giving him two days to get rid of the small dog he had grown used to carrying about on his head © Getty Images

Friday, 21st January
Yet more avant-garde administration from the wacky pranksters who gave us the self-rescinding lifetime ban and the incredible vanishing allegations. The PCB have gingered up the yawnsome selection ritual by flinging down a conceptual doosra.

Yes, we have bowlers. Batsmen we’ve also got. Wicketkeepers too (ish). But check this out: there’s no captain! That’s right. We’re sending a World Cup squad to India and we’re so crazy we don’t even know who’s going to lead them!

Reactionary old Waqar doesn’t get it. He thinks it’s preferable to have a captain than not to have a captain. He used to play a bit and he still wears a tracksuit from time to time, so he’s probably entitled to his opinion. What he’s not entitled to do is express it. You concentrate on lining up the post-nets energy drinks, W, and leave the rest to the experts. Or they might just decide to send the team to India without a coach either. Maybe Chairman Butt will do the coaching. Who’ll be laughing then, eh?

Sunday, 23rd January
Only extensive hypnotherapy, blind fear or a cocktail of powerful hallucinogenic drugs can induce the English batsman to play in an attacking vein for any length of time. Andy Flower achieved the apparently impossible in the Caribbean last year, by artificially stimulating their slog glands. But since that EU ruling outlawing the use of sub-cranial electrodes, it’s back to normal for the men in shady blue. And normal means stodgy with occasional showers of recklessness.

Let me explain. In different, distinctly un-English climes, where the bounce is true and the sun shines, fledgling willow wafters grow up trusting their swing. But hereabouts, where everything is the colour of damp, grass and soil are the batsman’s natural enemies. This is the home of the wary nudge, the stifled clip, the sneaky glance and the dead bat. A classically correct drive to the cover boundary may be possible on a sunny day at Lord’s in early June. But that’s about it.

So when the England captain pledges that our chaps will continue to attack, I fear the worst. Attacking, like drinking in moderation, doesn’t come naturally to us and we tend to overdo it. Whereas our most famous military victories, like Waterloo and Agincourt, were based on the forward-defensive, when required to take the initiative we end up with the Charge of the Light Brigade: a reckless headlong attack that had very little prospect of success. Which could well be England’s World Cup motto.

Tuesday, 25th January
People have some funny ideas about what a cricketer should look like. Andy Flower thinks a proper cricketer should be able to look down and see his toes. Australians seem not so bothered by the dimensions of a man’s paunch and even have no problem if he’s blond. But blond, pretty and a celebrity? That’s too much. Hence the opprobrium heaped on Michael Clarke for using Twitter when he should have been beating himself about the shoulders with birch twigs in penitence for his lack of runs.

And then there’s wannabe Indian bowling coach Fanie de Villiers, who has taken against Ishant Sharma.

“First thing I would ask him is to cut his hair short. He does not look like a cricketer to me. You need to look like a cricketer first. Batting or bowling comes after that.”

Piffle times codswallop squared. Dennis Lillee looked like an angry scarecrow with a stick-on-moustache and averaged two buttons per shirt from 1975 till 1979, whilst Bob Willis appeared to be balancing a miniature poodle on his head for most of his career. I seem to remember they did okay. Out of solidarity, every single member of the Indian bowling attack should grow their locks until they could pass for a heavy metal band. Apart from Sreesanth, obviously. That dude really needs a hair cut.

"This is better than the 66 win. There, I've said it" © Getty Images

Wednesday, January 5th
Four walkovers and a stalemate. This has been the dullest Ashes series in living memory and still it goes on. I feel like a tourist whose long-awaited dream holiday has turned into a nightmare, trapped in a dingy hotel above a 24-hour Barmy Army karaoke bar, suffering from ear-ache and chronic disillusionment and counting the days until it is all over. It has been the triumph of the competent over the shambolic. England have done well, no doubt, but they play cricket like Oliver Cromwell might have done, if he hadn’t thought it the devil’s work. It’s been so dull that even Paul Collingwood has had enough.

And throughout, there has been the insistent drumbeat of patriotic bias, as welcome in the commentary booth as a nest of scorpions in your biscuit jar. Chief cheerleader is Ian Botham. Listening to his gratingly one-sided contributions is like being hit on the head repeatedly by a white and red inflatable hammer. When Phil Hughes half-heartedly claimed a catch today, Beefy exploded. Clearly, Hughes was a cheat. A lesser man might have reflected on some of the other examples of sharp practice in recent years, from the unorthodox use of Murray Mints in 2005 to Strauss’s “catch” at Lord’s in 2009. But not Beefy. This is the Ashes. It’s us and them. If you’re not with us, you’re against us. God Save the Queen! Pass the earplugs.

Thursday, January 6th
The BCCI do not want to use the UDRS system and have refused an invitation to go and watch it in action in Australia, reminding us that sand-based full-cranial immersion remains as popular amongst sports administrators as it does in the ostrich community. Loathe it or tolerate it, UDRS has become part of the cricket experience. Watching the game without referrals, HotSpots, traffic lights and snickometers already seems an antiquated pastime, part of cricket’s yesteryear, like the days when TV companies couldn’t afford a camera at both ends and the viewer spent 50% of their time watching to see which way the batsman’s bottom moved.

So what’s the BCCI’s problem? The suggestion that they can’t afford it is entertaining, but not particularly credible. They have said that they have serious doubts about its accuracy, but that’s not the point. Accurate or not, if everyone else is using it, so should India. We need a level playing field of inaccuracy. Besides, lots of things that aren’t completely accurate are still an integral part of the game. Take Sreesanth for example. The poor chap was beside himself in Cape Town when a couple of appeals went against him. If you won’t embrace UDRS for any other reason, Mr Srinivasan, then do it for the sake of Sree’s blood pressure.

Friday, January 7th
I read puzzling news from the Caribbean. Apparently, there is to be another Twenty20 competition in those parts, only six months after the last one. It is the kind of overkill that the ECB would be proud of. So who’s going to win this time?

“The Red Force is going to wipe everything away in front of them,” says Trinidad’s manager, Omar Khan.

“Last year we were accused of leaving coffee stains and isotonic energy drink spills in the Queen’s Park Oval canteen. So I have issued the players with rubber gloves and absorbent wipes and I can guarantee that the players will not leave the ground until all the work surfaces are spotless. As for the cricket, I expect that we will go out in the semi-finals again, but it doesn’t matter because everyone knows we are the best.”

Sreesanth decides to teach the South Africans a lesson after they hid his hairbrush © AFP

Wednesday, 15th December
Steven Smith has been told not to worry too much about runs or wickets. His main role will be to bring the fun.

“For me it is about making sure I am having fun and making sure everyone else around me is having fun.”

Selector Hilditch, who has been receiving treatment for a nervous tic and a tendency to cackle insanely at inappropriate moments, said that Smith’s comedic abilities were essential if Australia were to regain the Ashes.

“Nothing is more vital to a successful team than forced jollity ha ha, he he! Tomorrow you will see a different team. There will be fixed grins all round, some of the players are experimenting with red noses and custard pies will be issued at the drinks break.”

Smith has apparently studied for a Masters degree in Practical Pleasantries at the Allan Lamb Centre for Irritating Personality Traits and is keen to put his skills to work, bringing the fun back to the Aussie team.

“After all, everyone else is laughing at us, so it’s about time we learned to laugh at ourselves,” said Smith, before squirting journalists with water from a plastic daisy attached to his lapel.

Thursday, 16th December
It appears that lie detector tests are to be introduced to root out corrupt players. Steve Waugh put the case for their use: “If a bloke’s got nothing to hide, why not?”

Fair enough, I’m convinced. And this opens up all kinds of possibilities. I understand that the ICC are considering going one step further and reintroducing the ducking stool, a popular device from the Middle Ages. Players suspected of naughtiness will be seated in the contraption and repeatedly ducked under water. If they drown, their innocence will be proven and their posthumous reputations restored. If they fail to drown, then clearly they must be in league with evil forces and should therefore be burned at the stake, or possibly forced to go on Shane Warne’s new chat show.

Friday, 17th December
India may be losing the Test, but coiffure-wise, they are well ahead. Jacques Kallis is undoubtedly hairier than he was before, but having come into such splendid follicular good fortune, he hasn’t yet decided what he is going to do with it, the result being a kind of floppy-fringed insouciance. And the rest of the South Africans have always been resolutely of the “short back and sides” school.

Not so the tourists. Ishant’s locks are as luxuriant as ever, but even he is eclipsed, (literally, depending on the angle of the sun) by Sreesanth’s ‘do. With his big bold hairband and big bad hair, he is a one-man celebration of the late 1970s. Indeed, with all that pouting, shouting and complaining, he is starting to resemble an Asian McEnroe, although the former Wimbledon champion would probably make a better mid-on.

Meanwhile, back home, I have seen some alarming pictures from Eden Gardens that appear to show a building site engaged in a fight with a cricket stadium with the outcome of the contest still in the balance. The BCCI are on the case, and have given every assurance that things will be ready on time, but if you are thinking of going to any of the World Cup games at that venue, it might be a good idea to pack a screwdriver and a hard hat.

KP is apoplectic when he finds his sunblock is only SPF 100 © Getty Images

Wednesday, 1st December
Kevin Pietersen is the latest victim of an unpleasant illness predominantly affecting highly paid sportspeople and celebrities. Known as “Marie Antoinette Syndrome”, the condition initially causes an inflammation of the pomposity gland and if left untreated, can result in a complete breakdown of the patient’s sense of proportion.

Antoinette sufferers are usually advised to keep away from social media but unfortunately, KP’s illness was not diagnosed immediately and his Twitter outburst concerning the nets in Adelaide was followed by a series of Antoinette episodes. There was, for example, this Tweet, from the dining room of the Plaza Hotel:

“F***** Lafitte 89!!! Wot kind of muppet serves an 89??? Evry1 noes the 89 tastes like dishwater!!! Amateurs! Had to send back the Hollondays sauce 2!!!”

and this from the fitting room of Mr Lee’s Posh Suit Emporium:

“Yep, muppets! Tryed to sell me a dubble-breasted jacket!!! Who thaf*** wares that? And the shoes had tassels on em!!!! F***** colonial f******”

and finally this from Tubby Taylor’s Tea Shop:

“F***** muppet waitress!!!! $2 an hour and she can’t even make tea!!!! Unblveble!!! You got to warm the pot 1st love!!!!! F****** Australians!!! Amateurs!!!!”

Fortunately, doctors believe that they have got to him in time and he is currently resting with a gag in his mouth and a padlock on his Blackberry. Get well soon KP!

Thursday, 2nd December
Cricket Kenya has a splendid new logo and not before time. The state of Cricket Kenya’s previous logo had been the cause of much anguish on the streets of Nairobi. How can we go on as a nation, people were asking, with such a boring cricket badge?
Like any small cricket country, if they were to have any chance of securing Test status, they urgently needed to spend thousands of dollars on a rebranding exercise.

So, out goes the boring old lion with the red, black and green face and in comes the exciting new logo; based around a lion theme with a red, green and black facial motif.
Still, you do have to have some sympathy for the advertising executives charged with titivating the CK badge. They were given the baffling instruction to produce “something contagious”. Having considered producing a logo based on the chemical composition of the flu virus, they clearly thought, “Nah, let’s just do another lion.”

Friday, 3rd December
It’s official. There are no more products out there for cricketers to endorse. Today we heard news that MS Dhoni is lending his name to the last available unendorsed comestible good in the world, the Kendal Mint Cake produced by Mr and Mrs Trelawney of Ye Olde Village Shoppe, Market Street, Kendal, Cumbria. Dhoni is apparently a big fan of the peppermint-flavoured product and will be photographed snacking on it at nightclubs and handing it around on the pavilion balcony.

And the next generation of celebrity cricket endorsements is already here. We understand that next week, MS will officially endorse his fellow countryman Yuvraj Singh. By becoming Yuvi’s brand ambassador, the Indian captain will have to spread the word about Yuvi wherever he goes, wear an “I Love Yuvi” baseball cap, be seen with him at parties and, of course, promote Yuvi at selection meetings.

“It’s the way of the future,” said Yuvi’s agent, “Besides, as Indian captain, MS has already been unofficially endorsing Jadeja for months, so it’s just the next step.”

It was evident Bhajji had bowled for far too long with no luck when he threw a tantrum after mistaking the popping crease for a zebra-crossing © Getty Images

Tuesday, 16th November
IPL fans will be pleased to hear that preparations for the next installment of the world’s favourite Indian cricket league have been unaffected, despite all of the litigious shenanigans of recent weeks. There have though been one or two changes to the format. IPL 4 will consist of an initial round-robin stage of legal actions, counter suits and disciplinary hearings, at the end of which the last franchise to be disbanded will claim the title. In the event of two franchises being banned at the same time, the one with the fewest of Lalit Modi’s relatives on its board will be declared the winner.

Wednesday, 17th November
Giles Clarke’s ongoing campaign to ensure that no one can see the England team play cricket today suffered a setback. It emerged that ITV will be showing highlights of the Ashes for free. Yes, you heard it right, for free. It’s a scandal. Fortunately, the highlights will be on the middle of the night and viewers will have to apply to the ECB for a special exemption certificate if they want to partake in this act of wanton selfishness. And of course, it’s on ITV, which is itself something of a deterrent.

The big question is who will be in the studio? Normally, the advantage of employing ex-internationals is that they can offer us valuable insights. But this is the Ashes. The only thing that the likes of Alec Stewart and Graeme Hick can tell us about playing against Australia is how to lose in the shortest possible time. They probably won’t even show up until the last Test, when, with the pressure off and expectations suitably low, the men from the nineties will turn in a stirring, but ultimately futile display of punditry.

Thursday, 18th November
The Ashes offers many opportunities for spin-off publications and I see no reason not to cash in. I am currently working on my own book, entitled “Deconstructing the Soundbite: Semantics in the Post Modern Sporting and Media Milieu. For Dummies”. There is no shortage of material. Take this from Troy Cooley:

“Mitch brings a nice set of skills to our team and we accept that with his action, he’s not going to get 100 balls in the right area at the right time.”

What does this tell us? Firstly it reveals the enormous admiration Cooley has for the tattooed slinger. He looks upon Mitch as a figure of prodigious strength and power, reminiscent of the mythical giant Briareus, capable of bowling 100 balls simultaneously. But at the same time he is preparing us for the possibility that not every one of Mitch’s 100 arms will be functioning with optimum accuracy and that low flying aircraft in the Brisbane area should take particular care next week.

Friday, 19th November
Harbhajan isn’t happy, a situation that is not good for India, for Indian cricket or for the furniture in Bhajji’s apartment. According to India’s premier allrounder, most of the pitches in that part of the world are like roads. Coincidentally, many Indian roads are like five-day old pitches. Perhaps some sort of exchange programme between groundsmen and road maintenance engineers might be the answer?

If Shilpa goes, Chanel goes with her © AFP

Saturday, October 9th
Bangalore is Kumble land and the man himself was in the house, aloft in the stands, looking on like a benevolent cricket god. His every appearance on screen provoked roars from what looked suspiciously like a full house. The faithful were compelled to view their cricket through barriers, which at first I took for another example of the appalling way paying cricket fans are treated in this part of the world. Then I realised these were not nets designed to pen the audience in but an enormous mesh erected to protect the public from the giant marauding insects of the locale.

In an unfortunate piece of scheduling, the Association of Winged Invertebrates (Karnataka Branch) had arranged their annual convention for the first day of a crucial Test match. Insects are, in my experience, a stubborn bunch and so, despite the arrival of 15 men in white, they continued about their business regardless. The effect on the viewer was disconcerting, as an occasional wing brushed the camera and, periodically, enormous creatures loomed into view. I’m sure at one point I saw Mitchell Johnson catch one with his tongue and begin to chew. Always had my doubts about that one.

Sunday, October 10th
You may think it drastic that the new IPL chiefs have expelled two franchises, but when you read the full details of what these franchises were up to, you’ll see they had no choice.

Rajasthan, it appears, had not cleared their headed notepaper with the Branded Stationery Authorisation Committee, and Kings XI Punjab fell foul of the little-known “Apostrophe Accuracy” clause in the franchise regulations, since it wasn’t clear whether the XI belonged to one King or several Kings, or indeed, whether it was a team comprised entirely of kings. They had been given three years to clear the matter up, so they only had themselves to blame, really.

Proper and full implementation of all regulations and a rigorously ethical approach to administration are, as we know, the hallmarks of the BCCI. Still, although we are all no doubt glad to be free of these two evil franchises, you have to feel a little sorry for the television producers. What on earth will they be able to focus on now that Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty will no longer be pitch-side? The cricket? Miss Zinta’s antics in particular were the most compelling part of the Punjab effort; she certainly showed more energy in the cause than any of the men in red, white and silvery bits.

Monday, October 11th
Blessed are the peacemakers and few are more blessed than Mr Ijaz Butt. In his ongoing efforts to heal rifts and bring about reconciliations, he has sent a letter to Younis Khan. Claims that Younis has not received the communication are nonsense. I happen to know that Mr Butt personally scribbled something illegible on a post-it note, wrote, “To Younis Khan” on the other side and dropped it out of his office window. Having made all reasonable efforts to contact the batting fugitive, he cannot be held responsible for the failures of the Pakistan Postal Service.

It is not clear what significance we should attach to this letter. Until recently, the words “Younis" and “Khan” were outlawed at PCB HQ and the chap in question was at all times to be referred to as “That Man”. His offence, as I understand it, is that he hasn’t yet apologised for his as yet-undisclosed naughtiness that led to a ban, which was subsequently rescinded for no apparent reason.

If Lewis Carroll were around today he would no doubt be adding a new chapter to his most famous work, in which the heroine wanders into a PCB office by mistake and is reduced to a gibbering wreck by the goings-on therein.

Ponting: temper, temper © Getty Images

Friday, 1st October
Watching little Ricky lose it with Zaheer today was just like old times and particularly welcome at the headquarters of Hughes Cricket Toys Limited, where we are well into the marketing phase of our latest product. Sales of the Graeme Swann “Catch a Kitty” board game have slackened of late, so just in time for Christmas, we are delighted to announce the launch of the Ricky Ponting Wind-Up Doll.

Kids will have hours of fun with this pint-sized plastic replica of old Punter himself. Push his buttons and hear him splutter with rage before unleashing a string of semi-audible Aussie expletives. Or twist his nose out of joint and watch him stomp round and round in circles, brandishing his plastic bat until his baggy green slips over his eyes and he falls over. Get ‘em now while his captaincy lasts.

Sunday, 3rd October
The cricket in Mohali hasn’t been bad, but the real action is in the booth, where we are witnessing a fascinating clash for the Hogg-Shastri Lack Of Objectivity Trophy.

Stout Brad is clearly a graduate of the Ian Healy school of commentary, though with more roaring. He has so far managed to refrain from launching into the opening bars of "Advance Australia Fair", but you feel it could happen any moment.

The Ravster is of course, a smoother operator than his commentary chum. He gets the job done in subtler fashion. Take, for instance, the issue of the catch that dismissed Dhoni today. The big guy declared surprise that a catch that had clearly been taken was given, on the grounds that you usually can’t see that kind of catch clearly on replay even though this time you could. Nice work, sir.

Monday, 4th October
It appears that the list of suitors for the Olympic Stadium now includes Essex County Cricket Club. Now I don’t mean to be unkind, but given that the stadium in question holds 80,000, I’m not sure that the tiny band of Essex regulars will quite do the facilities justice. Still, in the same spirit, I have made my own application to use the Olympic Stadium for a couple of family picnics in May 2013. I have offered to do my own catering and promised not to let my daughter draw on the plastic seats.

Tuesday, 5th October
I’m glad that it was India’s youngest spinner who secured the winning runs because up until then it had appeared to be “Pick on Ojha” day at the PCA Stadium. First, Siva claimed he looked like he was going to cry whilst waiting to bat, and then, while standing at the non-striker’s end, he was on the receiving end of that rarest of phenomena: a VVS verbal tirade. The four-letter earful had commentators baffled and Ojha looking like a guilty puppy who knows he has done something wrong but isn’t sure what.

By the end, the stands that had been empty for much of the game were heaving. I like the attitude of the Indian crowds. Test cricket may be the most enthralling flavour of the sport. But it isn’t enthralling seven hours a day. Sometimes it is duller than listening to David Gower reading the shipping forecast. Rather than arriving two hours in advance with three packed meals, a thermos and a scorecard and sitting there all day, it makes far more sense to turn up when it gets exciting, then pop home to feed your parrot or clip your toenails during the quiet bits.

Now Harbhajan Singh's kit to come with this logo © Getty Images

Monday, 27th September
The ICC Health and Safety Risk Assessment into the forthcoming series in India has been completed and has made the following recommendations:

1. To avoid any verbal misadventures, all communication on the field of play must be in ancient Greek.
2. In addition, the slip cordon must stand an extra 20 metres back, so as to remain out of the batsman’s earshot at all times.
3. Sledging will be permitted but only if the sledger has sought the permission of the sledgee and submitted the appropriate form (Sledge.1a.) to the match referee’s office prior to the day’s play.
4. A ten-metre exclusion zone will be established around Harbhajan Singh, who will at all times be required to wear black and yellow tape marked: “Danger: Approach with Caution!”
5. Enormous foam shoulder pads will be issued to all bowlers and batsmen, thereby taking the tension and some of the bruising out of those unfortunate mid-pitch collisions.

With these sensible precautions in place, the safety and well-being of all participants should be ensured. Play nicely chaps, and stay safe!

Tuesday, 28th September
Michael Clarke has advised all players in their mid-to-late 20s with multiple advertising deals and a good chance of becoming Test captain in the next year or so to remain loyal to their country rather than favouring the IPL. I’m with you there, MC. I’ve made exactly the same choice; it’s country every time. Admittedly, the IPL has not yet expressed an interest in my services, but it’s the principle that counts.

Wednesday, 29th September
Scotland’s ingenious method of progressing to the final of the ICC Intercontinental Thingy by refusing to tour Zimbabwe (on the grounds that it’s quite hot and they might lose) suggests possibilities for England ahead of the Ashes. All that is needed is for the UK government to produce a similarly bleak assessment of conditions in Australia. There’s plenty to work with: enormous spiders in the toilet, deadly snakes in your sock drawer and seas stuffed full of unnecessarily vigorous marine creatures.

Then there is the hostile local culture to consider, namely the well-documented breakdown of normal standards of civilised behaviour within the average Australian stadium. Sending Ian Bell into that environment could have serious implications for his well-being. A quick recommendation from the Foreign Office advising against all travel to Australia; the series will be forfeit and England retain the Ashes. Hurrah!

Thursday, 30th September
Despite the fact that the “Reports on the Structure of County Cricket” annexe of the British Library already covers seven acres and has its own bus service, the ECB has decided that what we really need right now is a report on the structure of county cricket. Onlookers, perhaps unschooled in the ways of the ECB, might think this a prelude to a drastic reduction in the Friends Provident Twenty20 Endurance Contest that caused most of July’s cricket time to disappear into a black hole of pointlessness.

However, in my experience, the sane cricket enthusiast should approach these things in the same spirit with which one might tune in to a hastily arranged press conference by the Chairman of the PCB*. Expect the unexpected. It is entirely possible that the ECB will decide instead to increase the number of Twenty20 games and make room in the fixture list by settling the County Championship with a series of coin tosses on April 30. You heard it here first.

* On behalf of the Amateur Society of Satirists, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Mr Butt for the support he has given to our industry over the last few months and I’d like to take this opportunity to wish him many more years of top-level administration.

Graeme Swann is dressed to the nines for a party organised by the Ugly Duckling and its family © Getty Images

Wednesday, August 18th
There has been an angry reaction from some quarters following the apology and suspension of Suraj Randiv for his involvement in what has become known as The Great Dambulla Disaster. The Amalgamated Union of Effigy Burners and Associated Light Arsonists have written to both the BCCI and the Sri Lankan Cricket Board, protesting at the manner in which the issue has been allowed to fizzle out.

"We note with concern,” their letter states, “that both boards appear to have taken a cavalier approach to this issue and in stubbornly refusing to pour petrol on the fire, they have allowed the delicate spark of controversy to be extinguished. We urgently ask the BCCI, the Sri Lankan government and possibly NASA and the United Nations to vigorously poke the embers of this dying scandal, in order to offer support to the hard-pressed likeness conflagrators of the subcontinent.”

Meanwhile the campaign to give Viru back his century has gathered pace. All Indian cricketers are being asked not to score a century in their next innings, out of solidarity. Already it is believed that Ishant Sharma and Praveen Kumar have signed up. And a charity single: “A Six for Sehwag”, designed to raise awareness of the plight of Delhi-based batsmen with only 12 one-day centuries to their name is to be recorded next week by many of the world’s best singers and Brett Lee.

Thursday, August 19th
After the great injustice perpetrated against our nation yesterday, all true-born Englishmen were united today in raising a mojito to the ECB’s Emailer-in-Chief, Giles Clarke for his dynamic intervention that has salvaged our country’s pride. The crisis began less than 24 hours ago when the ICC announced the long list of nominees for some award or other. The precise name of the award and indeed the identity of any of the previous winners escaped most in these shores, but what did not pass us by was the total absence of any Englishmen on that list.

The sound of thundering jowls could be heard all the way back to Dubai, but in our hour of need, it was to our leader, Lord Clarke of Antigua, that we turned. A swift electronic mail, no doubt involving heavy use of the underline and bold font facilities and hey presto, sanity was restored to the ICC lists. I am proud to report that sitting at the head of the list of nominations for a brand new category, “Offspinners Named After Large Birds”, sits our own buck-toothed twirler, Graeme “Tiddles” Swann. Three cheers for good old Giles and God Save the Queen!

Friday, August 20th
The Sri Lankan Cricket Board, under fire for arranging too many matches against India have responded to the criticism that they couldn’t possibly find a new way to take on their rivals to the north by rising to the challenge. Rather than India versus Sri Lanka in India or Sri Lanka versus India in Sri Lanka, it was today announced that their next encounter will be Sri Lanka Versus India On Ice.

The two teams will tour the ice rinks of the world re-enacting classic moments from the recent past. Laugh as the hapless Yuvraj is teased by a group of small boys waving cups of water at him! Cheer as Murali collects his 800th wicket as the clock strikes midnight! Boo as wicked Randiv hides the magical ball from the hero Viru, then cheer as the heroic Sri Lankan administrator chases him from the ice!*

* Those buying tickets for this event will be guaranteed half price admission to Sri Lanka Versus India On Ice 2, due to tour next year. Book now to avoid disappointment!

	Did the Kolkata Test matter? Ask the gent with the beehive down his trousers © AFP

India are still top dogs. Yes they were at home, but home means expectations, nay demands, of victory, and the press after Nagpur left none in doubt about the retribution that would be dished out should Dhoni and Co fail to seal the deal in Kolkata. Three fluffed catches on the last day suggested sweaty palms and jittery fingers. But Test cricket demands patience, even when the margins are shrinking. Ten balls to go and things looked ominous. A few seconds later, they were cavorting in the outfield.

The Kolkata Test was a vindication, not just for MS Dhoni, but for the oft-derided ICC ranking system. It was once considered an ingenious but entirely superfluous statistical contrivance for measuring how much better Australia were than the rest. Sometimes it was 20 points. Sometimes it was 18. Jolly interesting and all that, but what’s the point? When your car is covered in cold white stuff, you don’t need to consult a meteorologist to find out it’s snowing.

Well ranking-sceptics should now recant. That list of numbers is not only a barometer of who’s good and who’s not, it has become a competition in itself. Thanks to the ICC spreadsheets, this match meant something; it wasn’t just one more stop on the bus route of reciprocal competition. The pre-match hype had everything except Don King. Newspapers competed for hyperbole. Would Bhajji have screamed like a lunatic and raced off towards the stands as though he had a beehive down his trousers if this had been just another game?

Best of all, Eden Gardens was full. For a Test match. It isn’t pink balls, floodlights or cheerleaders that the punters want. It’s context. Every Test, as far as possible, should mean something; it should be a small piece of a bigger picture. This doesn’t pollute or detract from Test cricket; it adds another delicious layer to the anticipation and the tension and helps marketing men sell it to newcomers without having to give it artificial injections of razzmatazz.

And non-cricket fans, strange folk though they are, deserve to experience the joy of Tests. This five-day stuff reaches parts that other formats cannot. It ebbs and flows, it has currents and undercurrents, and you can’t take your eyes off it. The slow siege of the South African second innings demanded attention, the fielders creeping closer and closer as Amla, exhibiting stony impassiveness, dead-batted and flicked the Indian spinners, reading every ball from the hand.

This series has also featured one of the game’s true artists at his best. Tendulkar, found out by a slightly loose drive in the first innings in Nagpur, avoided that tangle of technical adjustment and declining confidence that entraps so many batsmen when they can’t trust a favourite shot. In his second innings, he simply cut it out. Such self-imposed restrictions can bring out the best in an artist. Georges Perec wrote an entire novel without using the letter “e” and Tendulkar constructed a brilliant century without employing the drive. It is not facetious to mention them in the same sentence.

	The pitch for the Kolkata Test? Why not? © Getty Images

Some weeks ago, I suggested that gagging orders for professional cricketers might contribute to the advancement of humankind. Not everyone thought it was a good idea, but it was gratifying to read last week that two more of the species have confirmed my faith in the benefits of an immediate restriction of their right to free or indeed un-free speech. In a moment, Paul Collingwood. But first, I give you Mystic Chris Gayle.

Last week he announced that West Indies would beat Australia 4-1 in a one-day series. Now, we all like a little bit of pre-game trash talk, Chris, and we all like fairy stories, but I’m not sure the two really mix. I mean, there’s got to be at least a hint of reality in there or the kids will lose interest. If you’d announced that you’d been kidnapped by aliens or developed the ability to travel through time by twitching your nose, then maybe you’d have had a little more credibility, but 4-1? In Australia?

It gets worse. In between packing suitcases, practising his forward defensives and having five lie-downs (or burnout-reducers) a day, it’s Paul "Chuckles" Collingwood, doing his bit to bring back the good old days, when pale-skinned types travelled the world, sticking their flag where it ought not to be and having a good old giggle at how jolly backward Johnny Foreigner really was.

“It won’t be easy to find a golf course in Bangladesh. If there is one, they’ll probably have wooden clubs.”

Wooden clubs, Paul? Why’s that? Oh I see, because Bangladesh is a relatively poor country. I get it. It’s a GDP gag. Good one, Colly! Got any good Haiti jokes? No? Probably not, best to quit while you’re ahead, eh. And thanks for giving us another reason to hope for a thumping England defeat, besides your part-time captain and the forestalling of Volume 2 of the Alastair Cook Story.

And now for a prediction of my own. The second Test of the Kumble-Tayfield Trophy (thanks to Hilton for that suggestion) will be played out on a pitch that is dryer than the Gobi desert, for which India will field ten spinners, with Dhoni available to turn his arm over, should the game go into a third day. India will win, South Africa will lose and much tut-tutting will ensue from certain quarters.

But I don’t see the problem. How warped is a game in which a "result pitch" is something shady and slightly disreputable, likely to bring a groundsman a sternly worded letter from the ICC Pitch Sterilisation Committee? The concept of the "fair pitch" is one of the dullest ideas in modern cricket. Why must every 22 yards be like every other 22 yards? Let curators give full rein to their imagination and let’s see the return of the minefield, the cabbage patch and the sticky dog.

	Amla adds just the touch of modernity to his old-timer’s mien with a Powerade bottle © Getty Images

Sometimes it is worth reminding ourselves how fortunate we are to be able to enjoy the Victorian anachronism that is Test match cricket. The best team in the world are taking on their nearest rivals in what would, if it took place in the English Premier League, be labelled a “top-of-the-table clash” and be played out in a maelstrom of tripping, diving, rolling, gesticulating and screaming. And that just from the coaches.

India against South Africa has been a treat so far. Awesome laser-guided fast bowling from Steyn; impossible jagging bounce from the gangling Morkel; Sehwag restraining his instincts in a clammy-palmed innings that almost rescued his team, before cutting loose and falling into a trap. And all this on top of Amla’s Old Testament batting and the delights of watching Mishra’s delicate but unrewarded curvers and dippers.

Yet it has been devoid of bile and belligerence. Perhaps that is partly due to the surroundings. The stadium in Nagpur has the atmosphere of a sleepy provincial town square. The polished white steps up to the pavilion are covered with a graceful summer awning. Spectators eat ice cream and chat to one another at leisure. There are even potted marigolds on the ledge of the players' balcony.

And for once, the commentary has suited the occasion. Danny Morrison, in particular, seems more relaxed than when I last listened to him, during the IPL. Perhaps because his Test duties do not require him to plummet down an inflatable slide, play at being a DJ or turn up to the coin toss wearing a cheerleader. He is merely expected to sit in a chair and talk about cricket. Gratitude has been evident in every syllable and so far he has been rather good.

Still, whilst I’m not one for unnecessary hype, I’m not sure that the official title of this heavyweight bout really conveys the significance of the contest. No disrespect to Mr Jaypee or his distinguished colleague, Mr Infratech, but the modern cricket fan has come to expect a hyphenated brace of legends for these things. I’m guessing the Cronje-Azharrudin Shield might not create the right ambience, and the Gavaskar-Procter Vase probably isn’t a goer either. How about the Pollock-Prabhakar Prize? The Kirsten Cup? The Ganguly-Cullinan Chalice?

Meanwhile, over in Australia, Chris Gayle surprised many people when he predicted a 4-1 victory for the men in maroon in the Haigh-Cozier Trophy. On the face of it, it could be said that Sunday’s 113-run defeat in Melbourne casts some doubt on the wisdom of the prediction. But the Jamaican plays a long game, you see. Now that they have swiftly dispensed with the 1, big Chris and his men can start work on the 4.

	Oh pipe down already, or you'll have detention with Shane Watson © International Cricket Council

I’ll be honest. I don’t like teenagers. Their music is dumb, their hair is too long, they are having way, way too much fun and most irritatingly of all, I’m not one of them. So, the Under-19 World Cup, an entire tournament confined to adolescents, was never going to appeal as a prospect. Still, if Sky has gone to the trouble of sending an outside broadcast unit all the way to a field in New Zealand, it is the least I can do to tune in and pretend to take an interest.

So on Saturday, I sat down to watch the highlights of the India versus Pakistan quarter-final. It was a little disorienting. A 50-over game, reduced to 23 overs per side, then squeezed into a half-hour transmission. Take out the ad breaks, the replays and the waffle and it boiled down to a collection of sixes, wickets and the more amusing cock-ups. Every piece of action seemed only vaguely related to what had gone before. It was like watching a French film.

I am not qualified to say whether the teams were any good, although after witnessing a particularly horrendous slog across the line, I had to drape a handkerchief over my marble bust of Peter May, lest it start to weep. But all told, they did a fair impression of a proper grown-up one-day game, albeit with more hair and fewer beer bellies. They even managed a few circus shots (I counted at least two Dilscoops, one of which actually worked).

I could have lived without the cranked-up celebrations though. I haven’t seen that much roaring, posing or strutting since I stopped watching WWF. It is not possible for the sane viewer to watch a cricketer puff up his chest, stick out his bottom lip and howl like a baboon in the mating season without feeling a spasm or two of irritation. When the cricketer in question is a teenager who has just dismissed one of his peers with a long hop, the irritation is increased exponentially. I blame Shane Watson.

Nick Knight was Sky’s man in a suit for this occasion, paying his dues before he moves on to bigger things. He troubles me, that one. It’s the eyes. At first, I thought he was just frightened. But now I’m sure he’s trying to exert some kind of mind control through hypnosis. I haven’t worked out what he’s up to yet, but he doesn’t appear to want to join the Botham-Gower-Lloyd-Hussain-Atherton axis of washed-up old warriors. I can imagine him hosting a Saturday night quiz show or founding a cult in the wilds of Warwickshire. He’s plainly someone to watch, by which I mean, keep your eye on him. Just remember to blink.

	Careful son, you could crick your shoulder hoisting a bat that large © Associated Press

Be warned, fellow cricket lovers, there are some odd folk about. Some of them may even be living under the same roof as you. Earlier this week, having set my alarm for a refreshingly early hour of Sunday morning, I was met with a quizzical look from Mrs H. I explained that it was necessary to rise at such a time, lest I miss the toss in Chittagong.

“Chitta-what?”

“Chittagong. It’s in Bangladesh.”

“So?”

I patiently outlined to her the nature of the feast of cricket that was about to ensue in that part of Asia, between the No. 1-ranked team in the world and another, slightly lower-ranked, but nonetheless equally determined XI. I cheerfully invited her to guess which was which. She declined the opportunity.

“Who’s going to win?” she asked, wearily.

“India,” I replied, “unless it rains.”

“So why are you going to bother watching it then, if you already know who’s going to win?”
I had no answer to such a question. How can you even begin to cross the gulf of understanding implied by a comment of that nature? I wasn’t planning to spend four (or possibly five) mornings rising abruptly in the pitch dark, banging my knee on the bedside table and stumbling bleary-eyed down the stair, merely to find out who would win.

It was cricket. It was cricket and it was on television, and as such I felt that unless I let the Hughes eyes rest on the spectacle for at least an over or two, I’d let the side down, somewhat. Besides there’ll be plenty of time to sleep during the county season. Right now the schedule is packed tighter than Jacques Kallis’ lunch box and I intend to miss none of it, however many espressos it takes.

And having seen a lot of Bangladesh in the pyjama formats, I was keen to see what approach the Tigers brought to Test match cricket. Exactly the same approach, as it turned out. A procession of slightly built young men arrived at the crease and attempted to belt the cover off the ball. That is proper cricket, as Geoffrey Boycott probably wouldn’t say. Surely Mushfiqur Rahim’s life-affirming century with a bat that is a size too big for him is an early contender for innings of the year?

But the real star of the show was India’s stand-in captain. I hope that when he retires, someone takes the time to put together his best microphone performances and releases them on DVD. Virender’s Greatest Interviews. I would buy it. So would you.

He is the "before" character in the "Welcome to Diplomacy" introductory video shown to all new recruits to the Indian Foreign Office. Unfortunately, the brilliance of Sehwag’s interview technique is not always fully appreciated. Certain sections of the Chittagong crowd booed him on Thursday.

“You’re very popular here, aren’t you,” smirked Ravi Shastri.

“Yes I am,” replied Sehwag.

Put your irony away, Ravi, Virender is impervious. Before the game, the Mighty V had stated that he didn’t believe Bangladesh could take 20 Indian wickets. This did not go down well either. I suppose it shows how upside down the world is these days, that when a man gives a straight answer to a straight question, he is regarded either as a villain or an eccentric. Anyhow, as it turned out, in the first Test, Bangladesh took precisely 18 Indian wickets. One-nil to Mr Sehwag, I think.

	The tri-series: an avant-garde celebration of the essential absurdity of human endeavour © Associated Press

Some have suggested that the Tri-Nations Tournament in Bangladesh is a less-than-gripping addition to the cricket calendar. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Triangular Extravaganza in Mirpur is an avant-garde celebration of the essential absurdity of human endeavour as seen through the medium of cricket.

Just as the abstractionists once stripped the figurative arts down to bare lines, so the Bangladesh Cricket Board has daringly done away with all that is superfluous in our sport. By insisting on playing the second half of every match in a paddy field, the 50-over game has been reduced to its essence: the toss.

So let’s have no more negative talk about this immensely significant, if ever so slightly damp, competition. I have enjoyed every minute of the Isosceles Cup and I have already planned my schedule for the final on Wednesday:

07:40 Secure my seat in front of the television
07:45 Cheer the arrival of the titles sequence
07:50 Whoop enthusiastically as the captains trudge out to the middle
07:52 Shout ‘Heads!’ or ‘Tails!’ as the mood takes me
07:52 Gaze open-mouthed in suspense as the coin hangs in the air
07:53 Listen intently as Dhoni (or it may be Sangakkara) utters those now familiar words, “I think we’ll have a bowl.”
07:54 Turn off television and go back to bed.

The Hypertridimensional Shield has, in addition to rendering overs 1-100 entirely superfluous, enabled me to watch some players I don’t see enough of. Amit Mishra is a case in point. Of the roughly 27 spinners employed by India during Sunday’s game, Mishra was the only one who caused the ball to rotate on its axis, and after a week of plucky tailenders hanging around forever, it made a pleasant change to see the batting duffers flail about like giraffes in a tar pit.

Skittling out the tail, of course, is part of the game that has gone out of fashion, like gentlemanly conduct or employing wicketkeepers who can catch. Which brings us to the curious case of Akmal, K. We learned this week that during the Sydney Test, the hapless keeper had been kept up nights trying to put his baby to sleep. But slow-motion footage obtained from the team hotel revealed some glaring flaws in his baby-rocking technique, described by Channel 9’s lullaby expert Ian Healy as "pretty ordinary". I’m afraid that the time has come for Mrs Akmal to seriously consider drafting in a replacement babysitter, at least for the remainder of the tour.

As for Kamran’s wicketkeeping, I don’t see what the problem is. I’m with the PCB on this. Five thousand dollars to teach someone to catch would have been an outrageous use of public money, money that could be better spent on desk stationery, name badges, executive trouser presses and the like. If absolutely necessary, I’m sure Ijaz Butt could be prevailed upon to give a demonstration. I mean, how hard can it be? Crouch like a frog, watch the ball, catch it if possible; it’s no big deal. And it’s not as if Kamran is getting the important stuff wrong. His chatter is some of the inanest and most annoying on the international circuit and that’s all you can ask for in a modern keeper.

Anyway, I hope the selectors see sense and retain him for the final Test, because he deserves to feature in the inevitable consolation victory. Yes, you read that correctly. By the strange laws of cricket physics currently affecting the game, it is blatantly obvious that Pakistan are going to triumph in Tasmania. I am as sure as if they were batting second in Dhaka. It’s their turn.

It is a lesson in the new cricket realities that the England management must absorb. I was somewhat dismayed at the weekend to see a twinkly-eyed Geoff Miller breathlessly extolling the virtues of his shiny new cricket team, with its multi-tooled bowling attack and devastating batsmen, reminding me of a 10-year-old boy telling all his friends what Santa had brought him. Long experience teaches us that Christmas Day’s glittery new toy is usually defunct by the time the snow begins to melt.

So delicately poised is the international balance of cricket power these days that for those who think they’ve reached the top, the taxi carrying nemesis is likely to be pulling in even before hubris has stepped onto the pavement. It would be far better, Geoff to describe your boys thus: "I believe England have the part-time batsmen to ensure that a likely defeat can be turned into a draw on a reasonably regular basis." Not sexy, I’ll grant you, but it might just satisfy the cricket gods and stave off the inevitable reversal in Johannesburg.

	Harbhajan and Praveen Kumar in the happy days before they moved on to assaulting farmyard animals © AFP

Well done India, bad luck Sri Lanka, and what a riotous bit of fun that was. Tuesday was the great Carnival of the Bat, a day-long festival in which anyone answering to the description of willow wielder was given the freedom of Rajkot. No request was denied, no whim unsatisfied. Every lunge, swing, dabble, poke and swipe was rewarded with a quartet of runs, sometimes more.

It was frantic, it was silly, it was sport on fast-forward, hyper cricket. At times it appeared that the whole ground had been turned into one of those amusement arcade games, as the batsmen kept pinging the boundary boards in pursuit of ever higher scores, like they were playing pinball.

As well as being thumpingly good television, the fact that the ball sailed so often through the air meant that we were afforded regular glimpses of the pleasing white buildings and trees of Rajkot. We also got a close-up of a poor, battered, greenish-white object nestling on the patterned shamiana. I felt sorry for that ball. I hoped someone would pick it up and hide it away in a darkened room so it could have a rest.

One or two fielders might have wished for the same thing. In an enterprising piece of captaincy, Dhoni had set a short point to Upul Tharanga. Praveen Kumar bowled the perfect ball, just back of a length. Tharanga obligingly fended it towards the recently placed fielder, ever so gently. And plop, Virat Kohli dropped it.

The commentators came rushing in with an explanation, the same explanation, in fact, that had been waved around a lot last week and was starting to look a bit tatty. Kohli, they explained, like Yuvraj Singh and many others before him, was surprised that the ball hadn’t arrived more quickly. I have to question this. As a hopeless fielder myself, I can empathise. But was it really surprise that proved Kohli’s undoing?

Let’s employ an analogy. You’re at your table, waiting for the soup to arrive. After an hour or so, the waiter hoves into view. As he reaches the table, you, unable to bear the tension any longer, make a lunge for the soup dish. “Sorry,” you mutter, sheepishly, “I was surprised.” At the next table, Sunil Gavaskar surveys the wreckage of shattered porcelain and scalded toes and nods sympathetically.

Still, I rather like Kohli. He bats pugnaciously, which is cricket shorthand for being short and aggressive. He seems to have more spirit than some of his rivals, and I can see him overtaking Suresh Raina in the queue for Rahul’s dressing room seat.

Raina, meanwhile, is the victim of persistent rudeness. We all know he struggles with the short ball, but it is the height of bad manners to continue to press him on the subject. Let the man have some privacy, please. But no, every time he approaches the crease, every medium-paced chancer believes himself Thomson incarnate. Net practice is clearly not enough to cure this problem. I suggest that Gary Kirsten arranges for all the doorframes in Raina’s house to be lowered by two feet and “Duck!” be painted onto the inside of his shades as a reminder.

Then there were The Men Who Beat Up Goats. Praveen started it. Having finally persuaded Kumar Sangakkara to commit an indiscretion, PK clenched both fists and roared. But the moment demanded more than a roaring double-clencher. So he took out his pent-up frustration by punching an invisible goat. A few balls later, Harbhajan fooled Dilshan and the Turbanator dealt the imaginary quadraped a fearful round-arm pummelling. It must have been a goat because it was too high for a sheep and too low for a horse. I expect a complaint from the Invisible Goat Protection League is on its way.

And finally, a word on the continuing fish-out-of-water flounderings of Mr Sanath Jayasuriya. The old boy seems determined to bring his batting average down to a more reasonable level so that future generations of hard-hitting Sri Lankan openers won’t feel so overshadowed; which is jolly decent of him. But short of painting “RETIRE” on the outfield in big white letters, it seems that nothing can persuade him to take his dignity and shuffle off into the hall of legends. On Tuesday he was down the order. It made no difference. An excess of footwork, an optimistic forward sally and an inability to locate the white leathery thing, and the old man of the sea was wading back to shore again, looking more rueful than a rue-salesman returning from a slow day at market.

	Dhoni, in an extraordinary display of impudence, shares a laugh with Ponting at the last presentation ceremony of the series © AFP

Hold the front page! Saddle up your high horses and head for the moral uplands. Our old friend the cricket scandal is back in town, barging into forums and message boards across the cyber world, banging a metaphorical fist on a virtual table and demanding our attention. Yes, to the sound of several hundred million people tut-tutting in unison, it was revealed earlier this week that MS Dhoni and associates had been “partying” just hours after a cricket match that they’d had the appalling bad manners to lose.

When I first heard the news, naturally I was horrified. How dare they, I thought. What kind of heartless, selfish, irresponsible reprobates go out “partying” whilst a nation is still weeping over a defeat at the hands of Australia, a catastrophic event almost unheard of in the history of Indian cricket, certainly since the last one.

At first I resisted the temptation to click on the link inviting me to goggle at the sordid pictures of these debauched playboys getting up to all manner of disgraceful things. To click or not to click, that is so often the question. But after a millisecond or two spent weighing up the ethical issues involved, I decided to click. Invariably, I find it is better to have clicked and regretted it than never to have clicked at all.

However, for the benefit of those who did not click, I will tell you what you missed. Almost immediately, the scandal-seeking viewer was presented with a photograph of Dhoni, resplendent in a Michael Jackson t-shirt and beaming a well-scrubbed smile. Other photos followed, all of them featuring the Indian captain, the aforementioned t-shirt and an ever-present smile. Sometimes there were other people standing next to him. They were also smiling, though they were not wearing Michael Jackson t-shirts. I do not know their names. So far, so dull.

Then things started to get interesting. Just who was that mysterious man in the background? Could it be Praveen Kumar? Possibly. Well, guess what he was doing, this man-who-could-be-Praveen? Brace yourselves. You may want to make sure your children are not reading at this point. He was…(whisper it)…smoking! Yes, I know, I could scarcely believe it. But that wasn’t all.

Still reeling from the shock of Smoking-gate, I was confronted with a photo of Ashish Nehra. And what was that in his hand? It was a glass containing what appeared to be some kind of carbonated fruit-themed soft drink! Who knows how many he’d already had! Should he really have been drinking himself into a caffeine-frenzy in the middle of such an important series? Did his mother know he was out? What would Sachin say? What a scandal, what a disgrace… what a… what a… complete waste of our time.

Whatever Dhoni and chums were doing, it was certainly not “partying”, at least not in any meaningful sense of the word. They looked like a bunch of computer technicians relaxing in a provincial hotel between seminars on open source software and embedded systems programming. In other words, it looked like exactly the kind of tedious affair that you or I might have found ourselves at, not the carnival of celebrity bacchanalian excess I had been led to expect by the lurid headlines.

So just as Gary Kirsten will be analysing his team’s efforts against Australia, perhaps it is time that the Indian media held a performance review of their own. To help them out, I have compiled my own handy reference guide to help struggling journalists to tell the difference between a big fat juicy scandal and something that, er, isn’t. Here is just a brief extract:

Drugs test, failing of: Scandal

Coca Cola, drinking of (with or without ice): Not Scandal

Lap dancing club, visiting whilst on tour: Scandal

Michael Jackson t-shirt, wearing of: Not Scandal

Pedalo, falling from whilst drunk: Scandal

Pool, playing with friends: Not Scandal

Team-mate, hitting with cricket bat: Scandal

Grinning in company of consenting adults: Not Scandal

See how it works? We all love a scandal, but this, I’m afraid, was not it. Now raise your game, chaps, get off your comfortable office chairs, go out there and get us some real dirt. What’s that? Exclusive photographs of Graeme Smith looking at wallpaper samples just days before the coin toss for the crucial first Test? Ooh, that has to be worth a click…

	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.

	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.

	Shahid Afridi does his best Saturday Night Fever impression © Getty Images

Some images from Saturday’s game linger in the mind. There were the ghostly faces of players shrouded in sunscreen. There was Mohammad Yousuf’s grim, expressionless concentration - a man of fortitude and endurance at work. There was the close-up of Harbhajan’s gleaming kara, his hand cradling the green-stained ball that looked like a moss-covered relic from a bone yard. There was 17-year-old Mohammad Aamer blowing Gautam Gambhir a kiss, Sachin Tendulkar’s exquisite square drive, the whirl of Simon Taufel’s finger to signal yet another free hit.

The surroundings played their part. As the stadium resounded with shouts, whistles, drums and music, the fierce light of a Highveldt mid-day seemed to belong to another continent entirely. Then slowly the Indian players’ uniforms began to turn darker shades of blue, night crept up unannounced and the broiling arena was transformed into a clammy, floodlit film-set.

It was compulsive television. And even though by the standards of one-day cricket it was not a nail-biter, you didn’t want to leave your sofa. We owed the players that much at least. They seemed to be walking on eggshells. Every movement, every gesture, every run, no-ball, misfield and stumble brought instant feedback from the crowd. The audience were part of this drama, not mere onlookers. The pressure was evident in the muted behaviour of the players, unleashed in moments of celebration and sometimes in wild, pleading appeals. India were the more inhibited team, made more bad decisions under pressure, and so they lost.

And in the midst of all this sweaty tension, there were some bizarre musical interludes. A failed Harbhajan sprawl and claw at third man was greeted with the chorus to “Come On Eileen”. A short while later, RP Singh had only just begun to wipe the grass stains from his trouser knees after an inelegant fumble when Abba’s “Dancing Queen” blasted out across Supersport Park. Either the DJ was a Pakistan supporter or he had a dangerously mischievous sense of humour.