'The processes are in place and our plans have been executed. We just have to wait and see if it will produce results' © AFP

Insomnia, ladies and gentlemen, is a terrible thing. To lie there, staring blankly at the ceiling, unable to quieten your brain as the clock ticks on inexorably is no joke. Luckily, cricket fans never have to worry about such afflictions. For those of us who follow closely the worldwide carnival that is the modern game, inducements to snooze are regularly pushed our way.

What’s that Lalit? No, I’m not talking about Test cricket, you naughty boy. I’m not even talking about the terminally drowsy County Championship that bumbles along from April to September without ever causing a single drop of adrenalin to enter the bloodstream. The fact is that no game of cricket has ever been dull, to the true fan and if you think it is, then you aren’t paying close enough attention.

There are, however, great reservoirs of tedium out there, held back by the mighty dams of editorial discernment. And in recent years, as cricketers have become superstars and the appetite for coverage of cricket has increased, the façade has begun to crack. Every day a new hole appears and on comes the tedious, the platitudinous and the downright boring, filling our lives with pointlessness

I am referring, of course, to the player interview. Players, for the most part, do not have anything interesting to say. They do not lead particularly interesting lives. They train, they travel, they play, they travel, they train. Indeed, they are contractually obliged not to do anything interesting because interesting can be misconstrued as scandalous or controversial. Instead, they say nothing and they say it at some length.

They could, if they wished, give us an insight into their craft. This would not be dull and it would increase our respect for them. For example, Aakash Chopra’s articles on Cricinfo are invariably fascinating. Stuart Broad yesterday revealed that he kept notes last time he toured India. That is an intriguing detail. But that is all he offered that could possibly be of any interest. The rest comes from the Manual of Cricket Interviews:

1. He’s right behind his captain
2. He thinks his captain is going to do well
3. He and his team-mates are confident and have been practising
4. But they’re taking nothing for granted

And so on and so forth. Players go through the motions, journalists politely offer up the same questions, readers snooze. So let’s shake things up a bit. Instead of putting up a hapless mumbling seamer or a wide-eyed young batsman for these press conferences, let’s fly in a cricket fan at random to sit at a table in front of a row of microphones. In the spirit of adventure, I offer myself as the first interviewee.

“Well obviously, its going to be a tough ask, what with the time difference, but my cook is ready for the challenge and I think he’ll have no problem sounding the breakfast gong. I expect it will be waffles, possibly croissants, but I’m confident I can step up to the plate. I’m not taking anything for granted, but I’ve been spending a lot of time on the sofa and I’ve been hitting good cushion areas.”

A clear improvement. And no talk of burnout, either.

	Bollinger: named for a sparkling wine, but a butcher by comportment © Getty Images

I recently went through one of those significant changes, a milestone in anyone’s life that can alter forever the way you look at the world around you. Last week I had a new television delivered. Three Ashes series, a World Cup, two World Twenty20s, Bhajjigates I and II: Old Faithful and I have been through them together. But there’s no room for sentiment in the modern game. He’s spending some time in the garage now, a call-up looking about as likely as a Monty Panesar comeback.

A bigger television requires a different watching technique. The altered proportions can catch you off guard. On Thursday morning, the multi-tiered Bull Ring loomed ominously. As did David Gower’s head - a disconcerting prospect to a man still easing himself into breakfast. A day or two spent wrestling with a multi-lingual manual has also left me with an insight into Daryl Harper’s little difficulties. Those volume controls are slippery blighters. Throw in the issues of contrast, sharpness, brightness and colour temperature and its no wonder the poor old boy was confused.

On Sunday morning I felt uncomfortably close to the action, as Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel proceeded to trap and beat up the pale, defeated tourists like a couple of angry bears cornering some hapless picnickers. In heartfelt sympathy, I mouthed Paul Collingwood’s anguished “Or Nu!” as he snicked a short one through the air. Reruns caught not just his forlorn cry but also the open-mouthed expressions of the phalanx of South African catchers, eyes fixed skywards on the tantalising arc of the ball as though it were a Faberge egg with wings, fluttering just out of reach.

In the end, England comfortably won the race of the defeated, collapsing softly inwards like a meringue left out in the rain, whilst over in Tasmania, Mohammed Yousuf’s men at least managed to last until the final day. On a pitch that appeared to be part potato patch, the batsmen offered their angled blades like plucky villagers defending their homes with garden spades and pitchforks. Johnson, Bollinger and Siddle fired in shooters from ever more acute angles, trying to dig them out.

They’re a couple of meaty customers, Bollinger and Siddle. Vicious rocks to the crease, rolling a little from side to side as he gets his steam up, reminiscent of that old boiler Merv Hughes, though conveying slightly less freight. The generously proportioned Bollinger runs in like a butcher taking his first venture on roller skates. Cautious at first, in a second or two he’s going too fast for himself, his head snapping back as he slams on the brakes just before gravity trips him up.

But it was Nathan Hauritz who did the damage in the end. His removal of Sarfraz Ahmed was at first glance a furtive, fumbling kind of dismissal, not worth dwelling on. But super slow-motion replays invested it with a curious beauty. Ball strikes bat like a match, tickles the seam of Haddin’s glove edge, bruises the heels of Clarke’s palms, balloons up from the tongue of his boot and finally settles lightly in his fragile grasp.

As Johannesburg showed, we can get ourselves into a pickle over technology. But those same gadgets have the capacity to enhance our experience and to deepen our fascination for a game that is, after all, an art form. In 2010 there are few better lives to live than that of a cricket lover with a television.

	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.

	Broad: guilty of looking like a fat-free Andrew Flintoff © Getty Images

I have nothing against word processors. Nor do I bear any ill will towards retired cricketers. However, the conjunction of the two is usually, in my experience, something to be avoided. Scientists may believe that an infinite number of former batsmen bashing away at an infinite number of laptops may eventually produce the collected works of Cardus, but I count myself amongst the sceptics.

And can you blame me? Only last week, the prosecution was handed yet more evidence for the bulging file of crimes against common sense committed by decommissioned flannelites. Still bleary-eyed with festive cheer, I turned on my computer one sunny afternoon and was jolted from my complacency by the following headline:

“SUNIL GAVASKAR ALLEGES NEXUS OVER STUART BROAD NON-ACTION”

It sounded dramatic. It invited the concerned, dressing gown-wearing citizen to read on. I read on.

“Stuart's father Chris is one of the ICC's match referees, and so the umpires are reluctant to make a complaint against the youngster.”

Crikey! Heavy stuff. Now when you read a sentence like that, it’s easy to get distracted by all the verbs and nouns and things, but look a little closer and you see that the hardest working part of that sentence is the word “and”. That brave conjunction is carrying a heavy load on its little shoulders.

See, what you've done there, Sunil, old chap, is to seat one undeniable fact next to one slightly smelly allegation, hoping they'll hit it off. Any normal journalist might be expected to come up with some teensy piece of evidence to back up that accusation. I mean Woodward and Bernstein would have had an easy time of it if they’d just been able to scribble: “Nixon. Dodgy. Watergate. Stands to reason, don’t it?”

But there’s more.

“Remember the umpires and match referees are used to hanging out together in the evenings since they are in a foreign country and so forge a good relationship and obviously the umpires are not looking to spoil that by citing the young Broad for a violation of the code of conduct."

Mmm. So sensitive wallflower Steve Davis deliberately goes easy on Broad junior because he and Broad senior have struck up something beautiful and Steve doesn’t want to jinx it. After all, Chris Broad is quite a catch. Who hasn’t bent the rules a little for the sake of romance?

Or is there something else going on here? Is Chris Broad running a protection racket? Has he incriminating photographs of Billy Bowden’s crooked finger? Come on, Sunil, tell us more, don’t leave us hanging in suspense, spill the beans. You’re an insider; you know where the bodies are buried. Surely, a respected former cricketer wouldn’t be throwing this kind of mud around without good reason. So let’s hear it. Sunil? Sunil, where are you?

But Sunil has moved on.

"He knows he can get away with it and indeed he has. Stuart has been quoted as saying he didn't think he had done anything wrong in questioning the umpire’s decision to refer the appeal to the third umpire… and therein has confirmed again that he thinks he is a special case and not on par with the rest of the cricketing world."

Come again? Cricketer says he hasn’t done anything wrong. Got that bit. Bleating that you haven’t done anything wrong is hardly rare. It is particularly common in people who have just done something wrong. But once again, Gavaskar S attempts to jam square peg A into round hole B, steps back and declares the thing a perfect fit. Is protesting your innocence now an indication not just that you think you are innocent, but that you think you are innocent because you are a special case? Apparently so.

In short then, Sunil’s catalogue of conspiracy includes just the three facts. 1. Stuart Broad is a cricketer. 2. Stuart Broad’s father is a match referee. 3. Stuart Broad didn’t think he did anything wrong in Centurion. Let’s be honest, Sunny, this one was a bit thin.

I’ve got a conspiracy theory of my own. It’s not flashy and it isn’t going to sell many papers but it goes like this. Former Indian cricketer, contracted to produce yet another article, is faced with those twin horrors: a blank page and a looming deadline. There are two ways out. One of the finest batsmen the game has ever seen can give us something interesting, uplifting and insightful. Or he can peddle idle, rabble-rousing gossip, ripe with unpleasant smears and entirely devoid of evidence.

	A fruit bat after making off with a bit of the ball, a scrap of baggy green, and some of Shane Watson's hair © Getty Images

Reviews, reviews, reviews. You can’t escape the inevitable end-of-year review. And this being the conclusion of a decade, there is 10 times as much reviewing to be done. Personally, I’d prefer my round-up of things-we-already-know-about to be sprinkled with a little mischief. Why not slip a few falsehoods into the end-of-year-raking-over-of-long-cold-news events and see if anyone notices? Much more fun.

For instance, you could set a princess-and-a-pea test for the statistically retentive by changing Brad Hodge’s final Test average from 55.88 to 55.89 and waiting to see if anyone notices. That should separate the true geeks from the wannabees. You could claim that it was widely understood that a bug in the ICC ranking system was to blame for South Africa’s temporary accession to the No. 1 spot, or that Australia in fact retained the Ashes after the Oval Test match was abandoned due to termite infestation.

Or maybe not. At any rate, there will no tired old reviews here. We do things differently at the Long Handle. No, instead I will be offering something groundbreaking and entirely unexpected. Not a REview, but a PREview. Genius, isn’t it? Instead of looking back with a wearisome sigh, I shall be gazing into the mists of the unknown with a keen eye and a stout heart.

Now a preview can be a slippery cove. He can leave you looking a little Shane Watson if you aren’t careful. It may be that not everything I set down here will come to pass during the next 12 months. Fortunately, if the fates allow you and I to be sat reading this blog again at the same time next year, I confidently predict that you will have forgotten all about the ensuing meanderings. I know I will have.

Four things that will definitely happen in 2010:

The Fruit Bat
After last year’s groundbreaking foray utilising the humble mongoose, scientists will reveal the latest mammalian addition to the cricket armoury. After several trials, during which leopards, moles, armadillos and lemurs were given a spin, it was the fruit bat that was found to be most effective. The flappy-eared creature will hang upside down from the batsman’s wrist and, utilising its radar system, catch the cricket ball, which it has mistaken for a fast-moving apple, in its mouth. It will then fly back to its cave with the ball, thus securing a six. Extra balls may be required.

Referral System III
The conclusion of the smash-hit trilogy will bring back the fun of the fairground in the form of a steam-powered engine wheeled onto the outfield. Dave Richardson’s Big Green Engine of Decisions will chug away, playing a selection of popular tunes before piping up with one toot for out, two for not out and three toots if a valve needs changing. The sight of Dave jauntily waving his boilerman’s cap at the crowd as the beast trundles off will be one of the images of the year.

Blondes Behaving Badly
The must-see film of the year, starring Cameron Diaz as Shane Watson and Paris Hilton as Stuart Broad, in which our high-maintenance heroines tour the world in a hilarious blur of tantrums, hair clips and expensive handbags. On a journey of discovery they’ll find themselves but lose their match fees. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, but mostly you’ll laugh. Look out for Bruce Willis in a cameo as tough-guy referee Chris Broad and Morgan Freeman as retired cop Steve "Slow Death" Bucknor, who is persuaded out of retirement to whip the girls into shape.

Bangla Boycott
The world of cricket will be set rocking like a rocking horse in February 2010 when several members of the Bangladesh Test team announce that they will be taking a hard-earned rest during the series against England.

“We have a lot of tough cricket coming up,” Mashrafe Mortaza will say, “and we need to prioritise the more attractive fixtures. It is a shame that we won’t be available for the England tour, but we hope our fans will understand that we don’t give a James Anderson. If they are foolish enough to buy tickets to watch that bunch of overrated whingers and twitterers, then good luck to them, but frankly, I’d rather watch paint dry. Which is exactly what I will be doing as I put the finishing touches to my house extension.”

	The name is Ton. Ath.Er.Ton © Cricinfo Ltd

Heroes. Everyone has heroes, don’t they? Along with the fictional XI, naming your cricket hero is a staple of cricket chat. For some it is Ian Botham, for others Dennis Lillee, Sachin Tendulkar, or possibly even Gareth Batty (though this might qualify as a fetish rather than hero worship). Small boys crowd the boundary boards in the hope that one of the Morkels will scribble an illegible something on their mini-bat, and grown men go into bookshops and emerge with Alastair Cook’s autobiography (presumably in a plain brown envelope).

But not me. I am ethically opposed to the idea of hero worship in cricket. For a start, the art of manipulating a small leathery object, whilst capable of great heights of refinement, weighs in pretty low on the bravery scale. Keith Miller’s famous quote involving Messerschmitts and arses is always worth an airing. If Miller was to be considered a hero, it should be for the things he did whilst perched in a cockpit, not his feats with a bat in the middle of a green field on a pleasant summer’s evening.

And it isn’t just that professional cricket involves no extremes of danger. This question of heroes goes right to the heart of why we watch cricket and why I have never bought an autobiography. A hero is someone you admire, indeed revere, as a person. When watching cricket, it is not Alastair Cook the man I am interested in. I care not where he went to school, what his first pet was called or whether he prefers low-fat margarine to butter. Without wishing to be rude, I don’t care what he thinks.

I am only interested in him in so far (and for as long) as he bats. On the field, he is playing the role of Alastair Cook, performing in a long tradition of public theatre. How he uses his bat, how he stands at the crease, how he runs, all these things taken together form the Alastair Cook of the mind’s eye. VVS Laxman may have some interesting things to say on global warming, but to be honest, I’m only really interested in his wrists and their neurological wiring. To say VVS Laxman is my hero would be a little like saying Hamlet is my hero.

And if you hit Ricky Ponting with a bouncer, does he not bleed? To idolise a man because you like the way he plays the pull shot is rather creepy. Ricky gets nervous, goes to the toilet, doesn’t remember where he left his car keys, snores, picks his nose from time to time and may even watch The X Factor. He is as human as the rest of us, so to revere him as a hero is unfair, particularly since it usually involves some disappointment or effigy burning later on, when he shows some human frailty. Personally I would never be so unkind to someone as to call them my hero.

Of course, I am a hypocrite of the first order and I can therefore break my own rules. Please take off your irony spectacles and unplug your sarcasm detector. This is not a joke. For someone who watched his first Test match in 1986 and spent much of the next 20 years hiding behind the sofa whenever England took the field, there are three little syllables that produce instant equilibrium. Ath.Er.Ton. It is a sound as comforting as a hot, sugary cup of tea or a steaming slice of fruit cake. Whenever I heard that sound crackling from the radio, I knew everything would be all right.

Sir Michael (it’s only a matter of time) shrugged off his colossal misfortune in becoming England captain at precisely the worst point in the country’s cricket history. Without mentioning his crippling back pain, he dug his inept colleagues out of a hole again and again and again. He didn’t chuck it all in, he didn’t whinge and he didn’t stop doing what he did. He was the only constant in a decade of chaos. And he just happens to be one of the few ex-cricketers whose words are worth reading. So if I had a hero, which of course I don’t, it would be Athers.

And I would be remiss not to mention the real heroes. Who are they? The people who read this blog. I’m talking about all those brave, misguided souls who, having scoured everything else there is to read on Cricinfo, including the adverts, finally click, more in hope than expectation, to reach this page. I’m talking about you, dear reader. Those of you have clicked once, give yourself a hug. Those who have clicked twice, your medal is in the post. More regular readers should probably increase their medication.

But whoever you are, whatever you’re doing, I’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

	Cometh the hour, cometh the agriculturist © AFP

So India are numero uno. Congrats to MS Dhoni and chums. A high five with a big foam hand to them. But large wet raspberries to the BBCI. Like a bank in possession of a painting that has has just gone up in value, the Board for Choking Cricket Indefinitely seems determined to lock its world-beating Test team away in their vault for the foreseeable. It’s not fair. We want to see ‘em. Please Mr Manohar, if we promise to write you some more cheques, will you let Sachin come out to play?

But no. As far as the BCCI goes, FTP stands for Failure To Play. Still, the fact that they can postpone a Test series with South Africa reminds us of the flexible nature of international cricket. Touring teams no longer take three weeks to arrive, having picked up a touch of scurvy and having played an awful lot of shuffleboard on the way. Test series can be scrubbed out or pencilled in overnight, entire tournaments are transplanted at a moment’s notice. And this got me thinking.

The time has come to scratch the ICC Test ranking system. It is nothing more than a fiendish attempt by statisticians to take over the game (and from there, perhaps the world). And we need not fall back on the opinions of studio-hopping, microphone-bothering former pros or the weight of internet forum anger to determine which is the best team in the world. Instead, we should take a lesson from the boxing world.

I have a vision. I am picturing a Test captain raising aloft a gleaming title belt, encrusted with jewels, signifying that his team are the undisputed Test Champions of the World. They would have to defend their title three times a year and all the other teams would fight amongst themselves for the right to get a shot at the champs. No elaborate tours programmes, no multiple divisions, no playoffs, and absolutely no algorithms.

We could go further. Let’s think about introducing enormous silk shorts instead of those tired old whites. What about a few catchy nicknames (Graeme “Strong On The Leg Side” Smith, Ricky “Rather Irascible” Ponting). Perhaps we could look into playing a Test under neon in Las Vegas. And we could also ditch a lot of those silly old laws and replace them with a pre-match chat from the umpire. Fifteen sessions, two falls or a knockout, no punching below the belt. Seconds out. Play.

Ahead of its time, perhaps. Meanwhile, those of us who like watching India play Test cricket will have to survive for a while on the memories of the last rites of the third Test in Mumbai. Sunday’s action occupied that curious netherworld that only a game that takes five days to play can produce, in which the result is known but takes rather a long time to arrive. It was a kind of sporting bureaucracy as the last “t” in defeat was crossed whilst the dignitaries and the podium erectors hovered.

However, it did give us one more look at Murali. Not the rather haunted-looking offspinner but the hearty striker of a cricket ball. When his rubber wrists finally seize up, I think that he should consider playing on as a tailender for the untainted joy that he brings to the cricket watcher. His dash of bravado on Sunday epitomised everything that is noble about the game, the last stand, the futile, yet heroic gesture.

At the fall of the eighth wicket, the camera focused on an Indian fan blowing a mighty conch and coloured head to navel in freshly gleaming saffron, white and green. The crowd were jubilant, Harbhajan was scenting blood and Zaheer was in full flight. Yet Murali strode jauntily into that arena and proceeded to bat with the vigour of the agricultural worker and the innocence of the child.

He has his own method. First there is the grimace of concentration as he takes up a stance that changes from ball to ball. Then a blur of foot movement: forward and back, side to side, quick-slow-quick, and finally the almighty thrash of the Murali blade. One was nicked off his nose, another sent spiralling over midwicket with a step-back and heave. All the subtleties of Zaheer and all the venom of Harbhajan were trumped in a gloriously pointless nine-ball dingdong.

It was good to see the old boy smiling again.

	Dizzy G: his Spofforthian glare is now available as a deterrent for hire © ICL

I was returning from my annual pre-Christmas expedition to Harrods yesterday when I happened upon a throng of theatregoers in Shaftesbury Avenue. Nothing unusual there, you might think, but this particular mob of citizens was arrayed in a circle, roaring with laughter at some unseen source of titillation.

My curiosity piqued, I plunged into the fray to establish what all the commotion was about. As I did so I was assaulted aurally by what on first hearing appeared to be a cockerel with a sore throat imitating Gilbert and Sullivan. Imagine my surprise upon reaching the front row to find the ICL’s own Jason Gillespie the centre of attention.

“I feel pretty!” he was roaring, “Oh so pretty and witty and gay. I’m so pretty. That I hardly can believe it’s me…”

Mercifully, he didn’t attempt the la-la-las. I had no idea what had reduced the great Dizzy to making such a prize spectacle of himself but I was not going to allow this exhibition to continue. With the help of my shooting stick and a member of the metropolitan constabulary, I dispersed the unsavoury mob, whereupon Dizzy bent down to retrieve his cap and emptied from it a handful of loose change.

“I say, Dizzy, old chap,” I began. “What on earth has reduced you to this? I haven’t seen you look such a ninny in public since the summer of 2005.”

“It’s the bloody ICL, mate,” he replied, “I can’t get any work.”

He then outlined to me a tale of woe that would make a statue weep. Of cheques that bounced and a back bedroom piled high with commemorative ICL baseball caps. Of small children throwing rocks at him in the street and old ladies setting their dogs on his ankles. Of 24-hour surveillance by the undercover branch of Cricket Australia. Of the clouds of acrid smoke that rose from the nightly burning of his biography Dizzy: Man and Mullet on the beaches of South Australia.

And all because he had dabbled in the ICL. But he wasn’t the only one. I am afraid, dear reader, that I must unburden myself. The time has come to confess. Although I knew full well that the ICL was taboo, forbidden and utterly naughty in every respect, I did on occasions succumb to temptation and sneak a peek at it. I am not proud of what I did. It was a furtive, shady and slightly grubby affair and I had to do it with the lights down low and the curtains drawn, lest any passerby catch me in the act. And afterwards I always had to take a shower, sometimes two.

The ICL was not, to be frank, the most fashionable of cricketing endeavours. The garish uniforms looked like they belonged in an early Beastie Boys video. Some of the players were of a similar vintage. It was Twenty20 without the bling; it was IPL unplugged. But the Gillespies, Kasprowiczs and Halls were multi-coloured polyester trailblazers, rolling bravely into unknown territory, with only a fleeting prospect, a distant dream of being paid. They were pioneers.

So I did what any decent chap would do. I gave the great Dizzy a job. As I speak, he is retrieving golf balls from the guttering of the east wing; without, I might add, the aid of ladders. Later on, he will be positioned in the foyer, turning his Spofforthian glare on any purveyor of window-glazing or offshoots of Christianity who attempt to violate the sanctity of the Hughes afternoon nap.

Naturally, there have been consequences. I have already received a threatening-looking letter from the BCCI but have refused to open it (I find this works just as well with telephone bills). I have also had to face the disapproval of a significant person in my life - indeed in all our lives. Last night, as I retired, I was confronted by the framed photograph of Lalit Modi that I keep by my bedside. I could take his accusatory glare for only so long before I snapped.

“It’s no use looking at me like that, Lalit; you brought it on yourself. You couldn’t play nicely.”

Lalit continued to stare with mournful eyes, and in the end I was compelled to turn his photograph around. But my conscience is clear. I couldn’t let the hero of Chittagong humiliate himself singing show tunes on the streets of London for a second longer. I hope, dear reader, that you can understand.

	Phil Hughes, of Hughes XI, Australia and Middlesex fame © Getty Images

The clan Hughes has been synonymous with the sport of bat and ball since the Viking king Harold Hughdrada brought back a spherical shrunken head and a granite bat from the Pacific island of Crigit in 405AD. But the extent of the Hughes contribution to the great pastime has remained unfathomed. Until now.

Back in June I assembled a panel of experts (myself, my great aunt and her secretary Lavinia). We met in the gazebo, with just a bottle or two of Bollinger, a platter of cucumber sandwiches and a picnic hamper full of dietary pills to aid us. To be frank, Lavinia is 97 and not as nimble-fingered as she used to be but she has at long last finished typing up our deliberations. Here then, is the all-time Hughes XI.

1. Phillip Hughes
My aunt had not come across this young man, so for her benefit I tried to illustrate Phillip’s idiosyncratic technique by vigorously brandishing a sponge finger whilst hopping backwards into the begonias. She announced herself unimpressed but was persuaded when I reminded her that he played for Middlesex.

2. Kim Hughes
Lovely cover drive, lovely crinkly hair, beastly team-mates. After a slow start, would undoubtedly have won everything it was possible to win, were it not for his mutinous crew. But then it has been the Hughes way to rouse the jealousy of lesser mortals. For centuries, we have been burdened with particular genetic traits: immaculate hair, a certain youthful joie de vivre and a tendency to burst into tears.

3. Merv Hughes
As a player, Mervyn Aloysius St John Hughes was famous for his gentlemanly spirit and fastidious fitness regime. However, whilst he was a kind-hearted soul on the field of play, once he crossed the boundary rope and removed his plastic moustache, he had a reputation for unpredictable behaviour and impulsive, ill-advised decisions. He has since found work as a national selector.

4. Hugh The Stick
One of the foremost thrashers of the 18th century, Hugh achieved notoriety when he married a stick that had fallen into the River Severn. Though they chuckled at first, the villagers of Much Hughes soon changed their tune as Hugh and his wife scored 15,000 runs between 1729 and 1732 and put Much Hughes on the cricket map. Sadly, Hugh left his wife for a younger splice of willow and though they nicked the odd single together, he was never able to recapture the glory days.

5. Patience Hughes
Provoked consternation at Lord’s in 1912 by marching onto pitch during a game between Gentlemen and Players and standing at the crease with a placard that read, “Votes for Women”. When WG Grace tried to intimidate her by bowling a beamer, she belted it over his head for six. She went on to make 157 not out, and six short years later women got the vote.

6. The Maharaja of Hughpur
Caused havoc in the world of cricket in 1921 when he invited the world’s leading players to take part in his tournament, providing they obtained No Objection Telegrams from their governments. At the time, critics said that it was the end of Test cricket as we knew it. “This is the end of Test cricket as we know it,” said the Yorkshire professional, Jack Grumbler. “Now where do I sign?”

7. Henry Harmsworth-Fortesque-Hughes, Earl of Hughestown
Described by friends as obnoxious, rebarbative, devious and left-handed, the Earl was a reckless gambler and a cheat, known for paying off opposing players with leather britches. He regularly consumed a bottle of port between overs and finally met his end in a duel with an umpire over a no-ball.

8. Able Seaman Hughes
Serving under Captain Cook on the Endeavour, he stowed a bat, a ball and a set of stumps in the hold, which helped the crew to pass their time during the seven weeks they were stranded on the newly discovered Australian continent. Unfortunately, the absent-minded Hughes left the kit on the beach. The rest of the world has paid a heavy price for his forgetfulness.

9. Sid “Hit ‘em in the head” Hughes
An irascible fast bowler for Little-Hughton-on-the-Hughes, Warwickshire and England, his bowling average of 0.5 was testament to his ability only to turn up when the wicket was dodgy. Caused outrage on the tour to Australia in 1912-13 when he sat down at the end of his run-up and blew raspberries at the crowd. Only when a local businessman wrote him a large cheque did he finish his over.

10. Emperor Hughsimus Maximus
Not one of the most successful of Roman Emperors, Hughsimus was a sports fanatic and even experimented with an early form of cricket in the Coliseum. Sadly, it proved a failure as the lions repeatedly moved before the ball was bowled and kept eating the umpires.

11. Captain Horatio Hughes
A cavalry officer who served at Waterloo, Captain Hughes struggled to reintegrate into society. An umpire of some distinction, he kept a loaded pistol in his coat and if he felt a bowler’s appeal was unnecessarily insistent, would shoot off their cap. Sadly, his umpiring career ended in 1821 when he accidentally incapacitated the Duke of Kent and henceforth, the rule permitting firearms on the field of play was abolished.

	Thommo: If you ask him nicely, he'll rip your tongue out for you © Getty Images

I was resting in the tea room yesterday afternoon, savouring a slow-sipping amontillado and watching the November rain lash down onto the herbaceous borders when I was surprised to hear a heavy rapping on my front door; surprised because my pack of Japanese fighting dogs usually intercept any visitor long before they attain the sanctuary of the portico.

I was even more surprised to see Jeff Thomson standing on my doorstep, holding a World Series Umbrella and a bulging plastic carrier bag.

“G’day, yer Pommie bastard,” he greeted me, “Can I use yer fax machine?”

Since I had only last week allowed Rodney Hogg to avail himself of my hedge trimmer, I felt obliged to extend the Hughes hospitality to his hairy compatriot. Before long, I heard the soothing whirr and beep of the facsimile device, punctuated by a choice selection of ripe Australian expletives.

“Sherry?” I asked, when he was done. Propriety forbids me from repeating his reply here, but you can be assured that he left me in no doubt as to his opinion on the merits of fortified wine and its implications for the sexual preferences of the imbiber. As he left, I tried to warn him about the pack of slavering beasts that was sure to descend upon him, but in the event, I need not have worried for his safety. Later that evening I found them cowering and whimpering behind the livery stables.

But to the gist. As he left, a solitary sheet of paper became dislodged from his carrier bag and drifted onto the marble floor. When I picked it up, I found that I held in my hand a single page from the minutes of the latest meeting of the FBU, the Fast Bowlers Union. In the interests of freedom of information, I feel duty bound to publish the entire contents of page two for your perusal:

“…tore his arm off and had a good laugh about it in the dressing room afterwards.

Apologies
Mr Edwards is unable to be with us as his bruised fingernail is a lot more serious than first thought. I understand that he also sustained a nasty paper cut when trying to open his Deccan Chargers pay packet. I’m sure we all wish him a speedy recovery.

Appointments
We are delighted to announce the re-election of Mr Sreesanth to the top table (applause). Previously a strike bowler only in the sense that we all wanted to strike him (thanks to Mr Kirsten for that joke), he has recently managed to take some wickets without doing anything silly. Thanks go to Mr Dravid for the hypnosis sessions, to Mr H Singh for the slaps and to Mr Patel and Mr Nehra for stepping aside so graciously.

Injuries
Mr Lee wished me to pass on my thanks for the flowers and chocolates. He has undergone emergency teeth-whitening treatment and his dentist believes that his smile should soon be back to normal. So a reminder to everyone to remember their shades next time, and I will also be writing to Mr Lee, reiterating our rule on bringing guitars to committee meetings.

Awards
It’s that time of the year again when we reveal our ‘Snarler of the Year’. It has been a good year for snarling, although several entrants had to be disqualified for excessive smiling on the field of play. And a reminder to you all for next year that a grimace because you’ve put your back out again does NOT count as a snarl.

I’m pleased to announce that this year’s award goes to Mr Siddle for his sterling work in Cardiff. The judges were impressed not just with the extent of his snarl and growl work, but also the high volume of spittle deposited onto the pitch, the umpire and Simon Katich at short leg. Well done, Sid; a worthy winner, I think you’ll agree.

Charitable Causes
Mr Akhtar has once again been leading by example. His concern for the plight of penniless cosmetic surgeons has led him to voluntarily undergo the knife-and-vacuum-cleaner procedure, rather than just going for a bit of a jog of a morning. I think we can all applaud such selfless dedication.

Unfortunately, our ‘Radar’ appeal has stalled a little of late. I know there’s a recession on but can I ask all of you to dig deep and redouble your fund-raising efforts so that sufferers like little Mitch can get the treatment they need for their unfortunate problem. Thanks in this regard to Mr Steyn for his ‘sponsored choke’. It didn’t raise any money, but it did give us all a good chuckle and helped to raise morale…”

	Bob Willis (right): a thrilling prospect in store for those who eat all their vegetables during the South Africa-England series © Cricinfo Ltd

In a world of fast-food cricket, there is something just so about the menu for England’s tour of South Africa. First up was a serving of Twenty20 bites, a frivolous snack to pick at while everyone settled into the affair; then comes a modest portion or two of the 50-over stuff, followed by the main course: a big, fat, filling Test series with lashings of hot controversy and helpings of steamy tension, and the extended postprandials, including victory cigars, a selection of hard cheeses and bitter grapes and, if we are particularly blessed, a pungent slice or two of Bob Willis. Gosh, I am hungry! Excuse me while I pay a visit to the pantry.

Ah, that’s better. Sadly, I missed one of the Twenty20 appetizers as I was making my biannual pilgrimage to the WG Grace Memorial Rest Home in order to pay obeisance to my great aunt. She isn’t as up to date in matters cricket as she should be, a state of ignorance that can be partly ascribed to the fact that she is currently the only person on the planet legally constrained from taking out a satellite subscription, following a particularly belligerent letter to the Sky Studio. In her defence, I must say that David Lloyd’s slacks were distressingly beige and that a man who treads such a fine line sartorially must expect to receive a death threat or two during the course of his working day.

As ever, she was anxious to hear the latest news. I explained to her that the great Sachin Tendulkar was approaching 30,000 international runs. She absorbed this information with great solemnity, nodding several times.

“He reminds me of your grandfather,” she opined, definitively, taking a healthy gulp of her gin.

“Are you sure about that?” I asked, concerned that the oldest surviving member of the Hughes dynasty might be a legspinner short of a balanced attack.

“Oh yes. They could have been twins. Apart from the eye patch and the false leg, Sebastian was the spitting image of your Mr Tentacles.”

“Tendulkar,” I corrected her.

“Yes, that’s what I said. In any case, 30,000 isn’t all that many.”

“Well it sounds like an awful lot to me.”

“Nonsense. Your grandfather could have done that, if it weren’t for the Great War.”

“Grandfather was born in 1936.”

“Yes, but it upset him terribly when he read about it.”

The visit continued in a similar vein, though, as ever, I had to be careful not to mention anything relating to Twenty20, lest she suffered another of her turns. Unfortunately, against medical advice, she had been reading the Times, and inspired by an article by that nice young man, Michael Apathy, who had once been something or other with England, she had taken matters into her own hands. Her contention was that modern cricketers are lily-livered, weak-kneed invertebrates, and that any run scored before the invention of the athletic support was worth two of our modern runs. She had therefore taken her fountain pen to every one of her Wisdens, all of which now show one DG Bradman topping the Test averages with an impressive 199.89, a figure that I have to say is unlikely to be surpassed, even by the prolific Mr Tentacles.

I returned home in time to catch some of the first Test from Ahmedabad. The game had not yet died at that point and there were some memorable passages of play. I was particularly impressed by Ishant’s slower ball to Jayawardene a little while before tea on the third day. Time seemed to stand still as the ball followed its lazy, mesmeric trajectory, as though the laws of the universe had conspired to bring about a slow-motion effect. We caught our breath momentarily. Would Mahela spot it? Naturally he did, for at his best he is the kind of delicate, precise batsman who could probably carry out open-heart surgery with his blade.

These moments may occur in other forms of the game, of course, but they flit away from you. Test cricket invites reflection; it is the ultimate luxury sporting spectacle, displaying all the haphazard rhythms of real life. Unfortunately, as we all know, whilst real life can indeed have its heart-stopping seconds of passion, it also includes a certain amount of grocery shopping, toenail clipping and snoring. Lets hope that Kanpur next week offers us a few more thrills and a little less somnolence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

	Jesse does the seventies © Getty Images

Let there be no doubt, cricket is men’s work. Women may be able to bat, bowl and field as well as the lesser sex, but there is one cricket skill in which, by and large, men remain pre-eminent: the rapid production of facial hair. And one man in particular, one selfless hero, has just raised cricket’s masculinity bar a notch higher. That’s right. Jesse Ryder has grown a moustache.

At the moment, it is hard to tell which way Jesse’s ‘tache will go. It’s something of a mini-Boon, but by the time the Champions Trophy comes to an end, he may be walking around with a full Zapata under his nose. Or perhaps he might go in for the waxed Hercule Poirot, or possibly even a Salvador Dali. I’ll keep you posted.

Of course, as we all know, the moustache is the nuclear option when it comes to demonstrating one’s masculinity and it brings its own particular dangers. Admirable though it is, this extra infusion of hairy-lipped testosterone into the New Zealand squad could have repercussions. Indeed, I’ve suspected for a long time that we may be approaching a fashion black hole. Consider, if you will, Jacob Oram’s hair. At what point does deliberately messy become just plain scruffy? Before you know it, people will be sprouting sideburns, shirts will remain unfastened and we will be back in the dark, hairy, and above all ugly, seventies; a decade when even attractive cricketers looked like they’d spent their close season living in a ditch.

It was precisely in order to uphold the aesthetic purity of the modern game that I recently launched my latest campaign. I am proposing that tattoos are made illegal under Level 4 of the ICC Code of Conduct. We all know that there are only three kinds of people on whom tattoos look good: Maoris, Bronze Age tribesmen and 19th century sailors. On everyone else they look like the scribblings of someone who tried to cheat in their maths exam, failed and then forgot to wash off the evidence. It can surely be no coincidence that the two biggest troublemakers in international cricket - Andrew Flintoff and Brendon McCullum - are covered in inky dribble

If we don’t make a stand then commentators will be next, and before we know where we are, Nasser Hussain’s pitch report will end with him rolling up his trouser leg to show us something deeply personal. Someone needed to draw an imaginary line in the metaphorical sand. That person was me.

The ICC tend not to answer my emails these days, so I decided to go to the top. The modern globetrotting cricketer is a surly sort of cove and not easy to bring to heel. I needed the help of the only man they would listen to. I needed Lalit Modi.

As you might imagine, His Modiness is a tricky man to get hold of, but I find that if you grab him firmly by the BlackBerry, he eventually stops struggling. He was sympathetic to my request, but replied that he was in no position to take a firm stance on body art. To my mounting horror, he then began to slowly remove his shirt to reveal an enormous, slightly hairy, chest-size Lalit Modi portrait in ink and flesh.

I haven’t been able to sleep ever since.

	Full disclosure: your correspondent’s cellphone-alert tone is a song by this man © Getty Images

Burnout. It is the scourge of our times. And it can devastate lives. In fact, it struck this very morning. I had just sat down to my usual orderly breakfast, my eggs perfectly boiled, my toast symmetrically aligned and my butler standing ready with the Lady Grey. All that was missing was a crisp pile of fan mail. The clock ticked on inexorably. Eight thirty-one. Eight thirty-two. The toast cooled. Outside on the lawn, a cricket chirped. Silence reigned.

Then, instead of the comforting rattle of a brass letterbox, I was shaken by the shrieking of a polyphonic Freddie Mercury. I had received a text message from my local sorting office, informing me that my postman was unable to fulfill his contractual duties today. He had, it emerged, been delivering letters and parcels for 15 of the last 21 days and the Post Office management had decided to give him a rest, lest his letterbox-stuffing career be cut short.

My breakfast was ruined. The eggs were two degrees below their optimum edible temperature and my butler had sustained third-degree teapot burns. But I was not angry. You see, dear reader, I felt that poor mailman’s pain. I too have fallen victim to the curse of burnout.

Yes, I am ashamed to say that midway through the recent Natwest series between England and Australia, I experienced what can only be described as a spasm of ennui. I simply couldn’t watch another nudged single or another clumsy fielding pratfall. I was running on empty. I knew that if I didn’t take a break, I would be placing my sanity in jeopardy.

So I took off to the races and asked a chum to help out. He dutifully stood in for me during the fifth and sixth (or it may have been the ninth and 10th) matches, allowing me to return fresh and invigorated to catch the 17th game of the series and England’s statistically inevitable victory.

And it was whilst standing on the heath at Newmarket, watching those beautiful, athletic thoroughbreds galloping up the Rowley Mile, that a solution to the problem of player burnout occurred to me. Racehorses are sensitive, intelligent creatures. They are only in it for the hay, and yet in order to entertain us they are forced to run and run and run and occasionally thwacked with a leather whip, through no particular fault of their own.

So I have contacted the ICC’s disciplinary department to suggest a similar motivational tool for recalcitrant freelancers and lazy-arsed franchise employees. Take that, Mr Anderson, and get moving! Your job is to play cricket. We pay money. You play. That’s the deal. No, Mr Collingwood, I’m not interested in your bruised thumb, your dicky knee or your general feeling of world-weariness. Just shut up and play. And while you’re at it, do it better, too!