The Surfer

Maybe if the media scrutiny was tougher then, attitudes might be different now. For years, sports reporting was a mates' business. I broadcast the Test in Christchurch and knew Geoff had tested positive. Never mentioned it on air. Did I suggest why that bowler performed so abysmally at Bloemfontein? No. The reporting of drunken incidents involving top players is now widespread. So it should be. Until there's acceptance from players and fans that heavy drinking by young men in this country is a serious problem, it won't go away.

Perhaps he senses that this team belongs to him, that he can put his imprint on it, that it is not too late to recover the livewire seen in his early years. He began as a young captain surrounded by players of vast experience and high calibre. He had not built the team so much as inherited it, and several of the regulars were his seniors. Not until the withdrawal of Matthew Hayden was he completely his own man.

How could such an anti-establishment writer love the sport with which England once hoped to educate its officer class and civilise its empire?

Hayden might be the most marketable retired cricketer in the world. He is an icon in Queensland, all over Australia, India and elsewhere. He is Steve Irwin with 30 centuries. He is a fisherman, a keen barbecue chef, a Christian, a father and the sort of man prime ministers can't wait to meet. Last week he managed 13,000 media mentions - twice that of any politician, including Kevin Rudd [Australia’s prime minister] ...

Walter Hammond was so self-absorbed he was practically a black hole, yet he led England in 20 Tests, and lost only one series. Besides, anyone who has ever played club cricket will know that in the vast majority of cases captaincy brings with it certain privileges, not the least of which is selfishness. I once played under a captain known to one and all as The Wangler. When it came to dedication to his own cause, The Wangler made Kevin Pietersen seem like Mother Teresa. The Wangler batted at No4, fielded at first slip and, like a cricket version of John Lewis stores, was never knowingly under-bowled.

A bit like an ageing fast bowler who has seen more fiery days, one-day cricket returns to centre stage today with an uncertain future. Many say the 50-overs a side game has become tired and tedious in comparison with the new kid on the block, Twenty20, and will struggle to survive the challenge. That argument will be harder to refute if, as seems certain, fewer than 50,000 people turn up to see Australia take on South Africa on a Friday night, recognised by all sports as box-office prime time in Melbourne.

Tendulkar produced one of his finest Test innings to beat England in Chennai last month, in the aftermath of the Mumbai atrocities, establishing still further his iconic status. It was a privilege to witness it. But, according to official ICC figures, his entire career has been a plateau, unchanging from one year to the next, entirely reliable, but lacking ultra high-performance, the Volvo of great Test batsmen.

Cricket Australia needs to stiffen its backbone ... CA is not really bothered about ICL. Instead it is kneeling before the power of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

I remember big four-day games when he was teetering on being back in the Australian side. When the doors opened in the lobby or when he first saw you walking on to the bus, the first thing he would say is "has everyone got rid of their demons and negative thoughts?"

In the eyes of the England and Wales Cricket Board, Pietersen committed a couple of tangible crimes: he did not have the full support of the dressing-room (the attempts by certain players in recent days to claim otherwise have exposed another of Fox’s defining English characteristics – hypocrisy); and he was seen to make excessive demands regarding the identity of the coach (according to Dennis Amiss, the vice-chairman of the ECB, this made his position untenable, but for some reason only once it became public: Fox points out that the English like to avoid embarrassment at all costs).