Daniel Norcross with his mouth open

As Test Match Sofa, a ball-by-ball internet cricket commentary service, enters its fourth year, its founder, Daniel Norcross, talks to Gary Naylor, a member of its commentating collective.

I was convinced that anyone can be a commentator if they have sufficient passion, desire and love for cricket, but the gigantic prevalence of ex-cricketers in broadcasting has squeezed out the voices of the amateur who had devoted an enormous amount of time to the game. When I started listening to cricket, it was men like John Arlott, Brian Johnston and EW Swanton – guys who hadn’t played cricket at the highest level – whose voices I most readily remember. Now all we get is a players’ viewpoint. I thought I could do it better, so I put together a commentary team that could challenge Test Match Special (TMS) for being informative and knowing about the game.

Test Match Sofa’s challenge to the establishment has come through its very distinctive voice – one that’s more free. less awkward. On the BBC, the culture and regulatory environment means that TMS commentators have to be a little bit careful – on The Sofa, as long as you’re not boring, you can talk about anything you like. When we started, we were completely loose, but we got the ball-by-ball right from the first over. I knew that my dream – that those of us who had heard cricket commentary inside our heads for years could actually do it – had been proved true. That’s a tribute to the power of TMS burrowing into our brains for years.

But it was the introduction of the piss-taking jingles (after getting sick of the banality of the Twenty20 music in 2009)  and then the arrival of the outside world, especially tweets from listeners, that really made Test Match Sofa distinctive. It’s not for everyone – and quite right too; plenty of cricket fans don’t want to hear KP arriving at the crease to a chorus of disrespectful comments and bad music.

We’re not scared of disagreement amongst ourselves or of broadcasting the audience’s displeasure with a commentator. Neither are we too grand to admit our errors. The Sofa is independent of the players and the establishment – we’re not in the media centres, so we can’t be banned from them! That said, we do try to retain journalistic rigour and, even if we’re quick to criticise and express frustration, there’s too much knowledge on The Sofa for us not to balance the brickbats with analysis, perspective and fairness.

We’re not at the ground, we don’t often have recognisable voices (though comedians like Andy Zaltzman, Mark Steel, Miles Jupp and James Sherwood have really made the programme sing) and we don’t have a marketing machine behind us: on the other hand, we don’t need to patronise our audience by constantly telling them how great “the show” is. We assume everyone listening loves cricket – one bloke on an oil rig in Mexico claimed that we saved his life, because ours was the only commentary available. We relish the intelligence of our audience and they provide much of our content through tweets. Twitter’s 140 characters is perfect for snappy points and witty asides. I hadn’t realised that audience participation would become so important and I never knew that so many people would derive so much pleasure from listening and contributing.

I did have hopes that, by this stage in its development, The Sofa would have secured its future but, despite all its success, it hasn’t. We have a decent (English) Test crowd of listeners who come back regularly, and often more than that. I’d always imagined that the audience might pay £10 per year each – if they did, we could run the whole thing with no advertising and no sponsorship.  The gigantic differential between Test Match Sofa and TMS must be worth £10 per year! Soon the internet will be on everywhere all the time and on every mobile phone, so, with people already paying for apps, why not pay for the Test Match Sofa app at less than a pound per month? Others may try to mimic what we do, but we’re so far advanced of any new entrants that I think we’ll be okay. And I had been uniquely lucky in things coming together to create the website, source and maintain the necessary technical gizmos and to have found the commentators.

Now The Sofa is looking for a strategic partner – we’re quite well known and we’re not going away, but we need money to make the next step. There’s no business model for what we’re doing, because it’s never been done before. We need the kind of partner who can get to well known cricket fanatics and get them on to The Sofa. We’ve had plenty of writers but it would be good to have lots more guests. I’d love to interview Hugh Cornwell, because when he was on TMS, Jonathan Agnew didn’t know who The Stranglers were, and they’re my favourite band!

In the future, The Sofa can produce audio content that covers cricket comprehensively and then take it further by trying out new formulas like cricket-based game shows. “The Sofa Channel” will be the place to go for all things cricket – and there will be no limits on what we will turn into cricket-related programming!

In the mean time, Test Match Sofa is ball-by-ball for the Second Test between England and Pakistan on Wednesday January 25 and will cover the rest of England’s winter tours and summer series. You can listen for yourself by clicking here.  

Saeed Ajmal with his ten England wickets

Andrew Strauss (19 and 6) – Shorn of his lucky charm (Tim Bresnan who averages 45 with the bat and 24 with the ball, winning all ten of his Tests) the magic disappeared from England’s captain as quickly as a thief in a souk. Played a hideous stroke in the first innings that set the template for plenty more and, for once, seemed short of coherent, consistent plans in the field. All sides can have bad matches and captaincy can only be judged over a year or more; but applying that time scale to his batting speaks of a man who has not averaged more than 35 in 2010 nor in 2011. Has much work to do in both his roles, the two toughest in any side, after a sharp reminder that the game isn’t easy.

Alastair Cook (3 and 5) – Newly married and sailing on a wave of end of year sports review plaudits, he is currently 758 runs short of last winter’s tour tally. Out-thought by fellow opener Mohammad Hafeez in the first innings and strangled in the second, the fact remains that he was out early twice playing horizontal bat shots on a pitch that demanded that the ball be met with a vertical blade. His success is built on playing the percentages through careful shot selection allied to ferocious concentration – he’ll be looking to go back to safety first in Abu Dhabi.

Jonathan Trott (17 and 49, 1-16) – Caught behind off inside and outside edges playing uncharacteristically forcing strokes that probably lie somewhere outside his famous bubble. Might claim in mitigation that he had an almost strokeless and increasingly skittish Strauss for company in the first dig and was the last specialist batsman in the second, but the bigger picture has seldom clouded his thought processes in the past.           

KP (2 and 0) – Oh dear! Paralysed by the fear of what might happen in the first innings, an agonising 39 balls were spent accumulating 2 before he missed a straightish one and was LBW on review. In an over-reaction the scale of which perhaps only he could manage, second time round he holed out at deep square leg trying to get off the mark to leave England 25-3 and the game – already sliding – gone. The defeat, and his contribution to it, will have stung and a reaction is expected (and needed).

Ian Bell (0 and 4) – Done twice by that footpad stealer of wickets Saeed Ajmal’s weapon of choice, the doosra. Neither ball did much, but both did enough to see off England’s recent run-machine. Time to get back to the discipline of watching the ball closely from hand to bat.

Eoin Morgan (24 and 14) – Faced up with the board showing 42-4 in the first innings and 35-4 in the second, he did little to dispel the growing feeling that he might be a flat-track bully who plays by numbers. His ability to manufacture shots that squirt into unexpected places thus allowing him to rotate the strike, is invaluable at 6, but not if his mind is saying “Block – sweep – cut – reverse sweep – block – punch” at the start of every over.

Matt Prior (70* and 4, 1catch and 1stumping) – Understandably nervous of demons in the pitch when arriving at the crease after a clatter of four wickets in half an hour, he showed maturity in forcing himself to come forward with a defensive bat and dig in for the long haul. Left high and dry on 70 three and a half hours later, sorely missing Bresnan’s nous at the other end. The jig was up by the time he was out in the second dig, but he’ll be pleased with a tidy display behind the stumps.

Stuart Broad (8 and 17, 3-84) – With Prior set after making 19 off 70 balls, Broad played a horribly ill-advised pre-mediated sweep to be palpably LBW… then reviewed it – not smart cricket. On a pitch that demanded a tight line, bowled too much that could be left alone. England will be looking for cannier cricket from a player who has shown that he can read match situations with bat and ball and whose tactical sense is talked up by the coaching staff.

Graeme Swann (34 and 39, 4-107) – Pretty much the ideal pitch for Swanny – a bit of grip that meant his sharply revving off-breaks occasionally turned significantly, but plenty of balls that squatted and skidded bringing bowled and LBW into play. Without the threat of the ball leaping up to hit him in his motormouth, he could biff away with impunity and did so to good effect twice. Had he any support from the top six batsmen (who mustered a dismal  143 runs for their 12 wickets), he would have been a handful in the second innings. Will be looking forward to the return trip to Dubai for the Third Test a lot more than will his colleagues.

Chris Tremlett (1 and 0, 0-53) – An anonymous tower in a land of anonymous towers, he did little to answer the bar-room selectors pining for Monty. Like all England’s bowlers, he seemed a notch or two down on pace and attack through the crease and failed, inevitably, to generate the bat-jarring bounce that unsettles the best batsmen.

Jimmy Anderson (12 and 15*, 2-71) – Kept giving the ball a chance to swing and it obliged from time to time. Attacked the stumps or bowled a bouncer, which are the only two balls worth bowling on that wicket, but will have noted that his opposite number, Umar Gul, knocked the top off the England second innings batting, after he had failed to dismiss any of Pakistan’s top five.

Ball One – In the aftermath of Mervyn Westfield pleading guilty to charges of spot-fixing in English county cricket, I am indebted to GM for drawing my attention to an extraordinary quote. ”What we are aware of is the very, very strong culture within the Australian team and throughout international and national Australian cricket, male and female,” a CA spokesman said. ”It’s just an article of faith that it’s un-Australian to contemplate some of the things we have seen happening in sport overseas.” (http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/as-westfield-stares-at-jail-ca-confident-home-players-are-clean-20120113-1pzbi.html). 400 years ago Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar of events that took place 2000 years ago. The key message of the play is that every man has their price. We are invited to believe that cricket in Australia is unique in the annals of human history in being incorruptible. I’m afraid I agree with Shakespeare.

If India's selectors ignore him, perhaps he could try Bollywood.

Ball Two – I wrote last week of my desire to see pitches with a bit of help for the bowlers in the Ranji trophy semi-finals. At Rohtak, it seems my wish was granted with a match completed and in just over 200 overs to boot. Rituraj Singh caught the eye with match figures of 12-82, which should keep his place for the final at least. I’m not in a position to tout him for the national side, but at just turned 21 and with India’s Test XI facing reconstruction of its batting and bowling, it will be an indictment of India’s premier First Class competition if the lad is ignored.

Ball Three – The other semi-final saw Tamil Nadu bat 250 overs to secure their slot in the final ahead of multiple Ranji Trophy winners Mumbai. One of the many batsmen vying for places in the Test XI is Murali Vijay, who batted over eight hours for his 189 runs in the match at a strike rate just over 50. He’s had 12 Tests, but is still only 27 and is running into form at an opportune time. A good performance in the final will build his case further.

Ball Four – I am urged by Pakistani friends to take the ages stated for Pakistan players with a pinch of salt – but nobody can deny that the young talent just keeps coming and coming. The latest player to catch my eye is Sami Aslam, just turned 16, whose century steered his side to a match-winning total of 260 at Stellenbosch. He has four (probably five) more chances in this tournament to improve his credentials still further and I shall be highlighting his work next week.

Ball Five – Not many players score centuries in both innings of a three-day match and lose, but that was the fate of Qaasim Adams as Boland cruised to their target of 305 to defeat Western Province. I’m not convinced that three day cricket benefits players aspiring to play five day Tests nor limited overs ODIs or T20Is; nor is it a convenient format for the talented recreational player to manage around professional or academic obligations. But three day, four innings matches demand positive batting and bowling and proactive captaincy and that can only be a good thing for everyone involved – and it’s often great fun to watch.

Ball Six – Mismatches in any format of the game can be dispiriting to play in and to watch, but I like the idea that the Caribbean Twenty20 has invited Canada, Sussex and The Netherlands to the tournament . Too many beatings like the one Barbados handed out to the Dutch will give critics of this openness ammunition – the invitees have to step up and soon.

David Warner unwinds after his brilliant innings

Ball One – Like Rahul Dravid, Ricky Ponting is in the twilight of a glorious career and, like Rahul Dravid, he is getting bowled more often than he would like – more often than he should. Yes Umesh Yadav is slippery, yes he’s got a decent ball early in his innings and yes he’s been out all through his career pushing hard at the ball with his head falling to off, but he looked beaten for pace too, late on the shot. Perhaps that’s what happens when a 37 year-old fronts up to a 24 year-old, no matter who the 37 year-old is.

Ball Two – Hit on the head, hit on the arm, dropped (horribly) by Virat Kohli at first slip, David Warner just blocks it or hits it (he doesn’t leave many) and runs like a hare. Then there’s the gum chewing, the narrowing of the eyes and the teeth bared in what might be a smile and might be a grimace. He is the personification of the romantic Australian image of an Australian. Michael Clarke – at the other end – isn’t, but he’s finding a different route into Australian hearts. Both are their own men and have grown in the last twelve months into cricketers of substance.

Ball Three – Ian Chappell on commentary with Ian Healy is the aural equivalent of Sachin Tendulkar batting with Chris Martin. Chappelli is spiky, sometimes offensive and often unpredictable, but he knows his cricket and he knows how to communicate that knowledge pithily and seriously. He’s 68 now, but that’s relatively youthful in the Channel Nine box.

Ball Four – All my lifetime, the WACA has been a venue that rewards positive batting and positive bowling. Pitches should vary around the world, but it should not be beyond the ken of modern science to analyse the composition of the WACA’s soil, variety of grass and the approach to preparation by the groundstaff and adapt that knowledge to local conditions and get a little WACA into the roads that too often reward ordinary batting. Pace, bounce and a little help for bowlers as the match progresses – that’s the ideal for a Test strip.

Ball Five – It’s easier said than done, but bowlers really need to concentrate on the last ball of the over. In the 58th of the Australian innings, Ishant Sharma had logged five dot balls and then delivered a wide half-volley that Mike Hussey merely had to meet with the bat to send it through the covers for four. It was a double release of pressure, as Hussey was on just two at the time and would have felt a lot better for a boundary notched.

Ball Six – Australia have seldom gone into a series with so inexperienced a opening pair as Cowan and Warner, who had just 72 matches between them coming into this Test. But their stand of 214 is the difference between the sides – take them out of the match and India’s 161 does not look so dismal compared to Australia’s 99-6. Batting in partnerships has never been more important than during this curious spell of low scores in Test cricket.

We call it the Michael Phelps, Sir. And the hookah shop next door has a Michael Phelps too.

Click.

Has Tim gone already? Is he that desperate for pork pie and a pint of Tetleys?

Who’s that sitting next to you Eoin? (Murmuring) Look Boyd, you’re welcome to come to the bar for an orange juice later and I know you’re only a Bunny Onions ankle knack away from a place on the tour, so don’t check out of the hotel, but this is a team meeting about today’s match. And you were playing for the oppo. So thanks and keep your phone charged – that’s all I can say just now.

KP – you’d be better employed watching some left-arm spin on that phone of yours instead of tweeting, so put it down for now and remember to be at the nets at 9.00am tomorrow because Boyd’s mate George is hanging around for a sparring session. No, not like Jimmy and Tremmers last year, I’m speaking metaphorically. Metaphorically – it means. Oh tell him later will you Cookie.

We’ve a lot to learn from that match against, against… whatever the team was called. Only Cookie and I got fifties – though your 99 was pretty impressive Swanny, so you can wipe that smirk off your face and get that quip in your next book. And no I haven’t read it – I know what went on, even if I was at university (a proper one too) while you were finding 101 uses for Deep Heat. It’s not big and it’s not clever – like the book really Swanny.

Okay – this Pakistan side may be young and inexperienced, but they’re punching above their weight in Test cricket right now. Which reminds me – Trotty, remember to punch Riaz’s bowling through the offside, not Riaz’s face  through the nets eh? And you’ve all had the lecture and notes on acceptable sledging haven’t you? Yes Swanny – it covers tweeting too – and you’ll just have to resist all the opportunities presented by Mr Butt being in prison. Don’t giggle Jimmy.

Right – it’s a day off tomorrow (except you KP), so there’s a chance to take in the history of Dubai. Okay – I know there isn’t much, so maybe go to the shops and buy whatever… I don’t know gold or silver or something – text Jade, he’ll have some ideas. Even his name sounds like bling. And Stuart and Jimmy, don’t bother turning up for that dune buggy trip into the desert Boyd’s mate promised you – I’ve already cancelled it.

Click.

Some time in the last century

Ball One – With big money in the game these days, old cricketers tend to play as long as they are selected (and then go and play in Twenty20 cricket) – and why not? But at the start of 2012, there are a few veterans for whom time may be up long before 2013 hoves into view. One is Mark Boucher, who is not the eldest of the old guard at 35, but seems to have been around forever (actually nearly 15 years, so not far off!). Far from the youngest candidate for the gloves is Dane Vilas, Boucher’s fellow Cape Cobra, but he’s coming good at the right time. 187* and ten catches in a match in which only two other batsmen crossed fifty, is a handy way of barging to the front of the queue.

Ball Two – Martin van Jaarsveld has been around even longer than Mark Boucher, but experience is no defence against the slings and arrows of cricket’s outrageous fortune. His last eight innings have brought him scores of 0, 0, 5, 167*, 80, 38, 0 and 0 (including a pair that occupied four balls in his most recent match). van Jaarsveld’s savvy enough not to worry about the ducks and to enjoy the 80 and the 167* – but no batsman likes making scores between 20 and 60. Once the hard work is done, the best cash-in and van Jaarsveld (not to mention a few big name Indians) won’t want too many scores like 38 on his record at this stage of his career.

Ball Three – Finding ways to make knockout cricket work over four days is no easy matter, as the Ranji Trophy quarter-final between Rajasthan and Hyderabad illustrates. Having spent nearly half the match crawling to 421, once Rajasthan removed Hyderabad’s top five for 135, the game was effectively over just past its half-way point (since it was extremely unlikely that Hyderabad could get ahead on first innings or force the win). That a side can make 431-2d in 98 overs (as Hyderabad did second time round) and never be in with a sniff of advancing to the semi-finals seems unfair.

Ball Four – While India’s Test bowlers were being flayed by Ponting, Clarke and Hussey, India’s domestic bowlers were taking a bit of a pounding in the Ranji Trophy Elite quarter-finals too. That’s okay – bowling’s always been tough in India, but a format that allows three of the semi-finalists to have taken 12, 13 and 14 wickets (with only Haryana dismissing their opponents twice) is not the way to develop bowlers who can win Test matches. Next week’s semi-finals need to be won by taking twenty wickets on pitches that give the bowlers the chance to do so.

Ball Five – The England Lions (absurd name for a second string) are an exciting set of cricketers with talent to burn – which is exactly what they did in their first tour match going down like Keith Moon’s lead zeppelin against Bangladesh A. That can happen playing in alien conditions for the first time, but James Taylor’s team will want to redeem themselves in the four remaining “ODIs” and two T20s.

Ball Six – England’s batting has collapsed in a tour warm-up match vs an ICC Combined Associate XI. I’m not sure that matters much to England as the real business begins on nine days time, but it’s a feather in the cap of the opposition. If there were 466 days in a leap year, it would be great to see an Associate XI play regular Test series – they wouldn’t win many series, but they’d win a match or two and it would allow some dedicated and talented cricketers the chance to express themselves in the greatest format of the greatest game.

 

Adam should have gone for the old "wear a Bobby Charlton mask" ruse

In Chasing Sachin, Adam Carroll-Smith spends the summer of 2011, well… chasing Sachin, recounting the ups and downs (downs and more downs really) in his first book (which has three – yes three – pictures of Sachin on the cover!) 

Having idolised “Sach” (natch) since his youth, Ad (you get used to the one syllable chuminess) pursues his dream to bowl one delivery that might, like Michael Vaughan’s, snake between the Mumbai Maestro’s bat and pad and clean him up. Unlike MPV, Ad does not score a trio of Test match 190s in order to get his chance to have a pop at Sach – he, like the ex-tabloid journo and schoolboy cricketer that he is, goes off on a series of wild goose chases in an attempt to speak to Sach, to Sach’s management, to Sach’s agent, to Sach’s hotel receptionist. In this Ahab-like quest, Ad is assisted by a rogues gallery of friends who pull a few stunts, crack a few gags and bugger him up with blokeish bonhomie. 

Ad’s a pleasant enough companion over 260 odd pages, though that opinion may not be shared by all women – this is a book that owes something to Top Gear’s laddish banter, mercifully shorn of Clarkson and co’s overt sexism and right-wing politics. There are a few good jokes and a few duff ones too and, I add condescendingly, rather more asides and adverbs than suits my taste. But Ad isn’t trying to win prizes here – he’s invited us along for a summertime jolly fuelled by beer, pizzas and Nandos played out on mobile phones and computer screens dressed in a series of outfits inappropriate for their environments. If I were 26 again and had the money and the time, it’s pretty much what I’d have done too – though I’d have sorted that wasp out. 

Mr Right and Mr Wright

Alastair Cook is getting married on New Year’s Eve. 99.94 has secured a transcript of the Best Man’s speech, which may – or may not – be authentic. Here it is.

When I was asked to be Best Man for Alastair, I was delighted – but I needed help, so I asked some friends and colleagues about what makes him special. I’ve got some notes here of what they said, “Once he gets in, he can stay in for hours, though he does need to up his tempo once he’s got through a nervous start. He does make it easy for his partner who can just get on with things their end, knowing he’ll keep ticking over in his own bubble. All those years of practice on his own (or possibly with Graham Gooch to help him) have paid off and he’s now able to pull out a big one almost at will”. That was Andy Flower. I asked Alastair’s wife-to-be the same question and she said, “Once he gets in…”.

It’s great to see so many of the faces that have been with Alastair during his triumphs for England – and it’s great to see Ravi here too. It’s also great to see so many players from Essex who have been with Alastair from the start, supporting him in his England ambitions, revelling in his success and welcoming him back to his home county when not required by his country – and it’s great to see Ravi here too.

We’ll soon be able to let our hair down – though not you Matt obviously – but before we do, I know Alastair wants me to say a few words to some of his colleagues here today because he knows that most of you would rather be at home with your families, like KP. Alastair was particularly grateful to Straussy for sticking by him when he was in a run of poor scores in 2010 and he’s pleased to have been able to return the favour in 2011 and on into 2012 and beyond. Trotty has shown him the importance of being able to relax at a cricket ground – when he bats, most of the crowd are so relaxed that they’re asleep. Swanny is the joker in the pack, despite KP describing him as a knave the other day, and Alastair really looks forward to when Swanny fulfils his ultimate ambition in the game and takes over Bumble’s seat in the commentary box.

So before, like Alastair scoring a century, I overstay my welcome and everybody starts to drift to the bar and check their texts, I’d like to wish Alastair and his lovely bride all the best. And can somebody check that Freddie’s all right down there please?

Phil Hughes middling one - but you can see why he doesn't middle many these days

If, as widely expected, Phillip Hughes is dropped again by Australia after just two scores over 36 in his last 19 Test innings, he will work hard on his almost comically obvious technical difficulties and I have no doubt that he will, if not exactly overcome them, compensate by becoming more orthodox at the crease – especially against the hard, swinging, seaming new ball. Thus much will be evident from observation of his work for New South Wales and by a glance at the scorebook. What will be less evident is the challenge he faces to make himself believe that he is a Test player having been told, twice, that he is not. (Forget what selectors and captains say and look, as always, at what they do).

If he wants advice on the mental side of his journey back to the Test XI (and he should) he doesn’t have far to look. Damien Martyn, a year younger than Phil Hughes, was dropped in January 1994 and waited until March 2000 before he was to wear his Baggy Green again. The stylish Western Australian had made fifty (one of only four in the match) in the first innings of his seventh Test, but his second innings six, in nearly two hours, left Australia six short of their victory target and Martyn six years short of his expected Test career. On his return, he batted at six, the most comfortable slot in the order and, with Stephen Waugh at five and Adam Gilchrist at seven, perhaps the most comfortable slot in any Test order in history. Hughes is unlikely to fit into a comfort zone like that any time soon, but a move away from the glaring light of opening might stop him looking like a rabbit in the headlights. Martyn, back for good, played sixty more Tests.

On debut, Darren Lehmann made a fifty in India and in his second Test 98 in Pakistan off an attack featuring Wasim Akram, Saqlain Mushtaq and Mushtaq Ahmed. Both matches were won at a canter, yet he was to play just three more Tests in the next four years – it wasn’t easy to get a place in that Australian XI! Like Matthew Hayden (another man with a stop-start Test career) before him, Lehmann found county cricket developed his game through its variety of conditions and opportunities to spend time at the crease and, though much maligned at that point in its history, prepared him well for his return to the Test arena. Phil Hughes has been advised well and is taking a position at Worcestershire in 2012.

For all the Martyns, Lehmanns and Haydens, there are far more Usman Afzaals, Aftab Habibs and, though it pains me to say so, Neil Fairbrothers, so Hughes’ task is not an easy one. He’ll spend hours in the nets, hours more studying videos and hours in the middle on the long road back, but I hope he finds time to speak to those who have traveled the journey before. And I hope that they are honest enough to reveal their doubts, since they must have harboured them, despite all the positive thinking mumbo-jumbo sports stars espouse – until they tell the truth in their autobiographies. Hughes greatest technical challenge is to get his head in the right place to play his shots – and that, metaphorically, is his greatest mental challenge too.

Ball One – It’s always nice to get a score on debut, so Manprit Juneja must have been pleased to get the nod for a first class debut on the Ahmedabad road. He certainly cashed in though, bashing his way to a double ton, in red ink to boot. Quite what that tells us about his potential I’m not sure – the match scores were 698-8, 539 all out and 100-0. Even I might have got a few. Unlike Parthiv Patel, who kept wicket for a mere 181 overs, then opened then batting and lasted nine balls. One can take leading from the front too far.

Ball Two – The first matchof the Big Bash League brought a scorecard entry that turned back the clock – Hayden b MacGill 29. I’m not sure it’s an entirely good thing that men of a previous generation are quite as prominent as they appear to be in Australia’s new sports-entertainment hybrid, but I know that Stuart MacGill is twice the bowler that Steve Smith is and will be for a few years yet. 4-0-21-2 vs 2-0-25-0 rather backs up that view.

Ball Three – To absolutely no surprise at all, Rahul Dravid’s Bradman Memorial Lecture has been universally praised for its erudition, its judgement and its sensitivity. Coming less than six months after Kumar Sangakkara’s tour-de-force in his Cowdrey Lecture, it has set me wondering whether any other sport offers such platforms for current players to speak, free of any obligations to anything beyond the game itself. I don’t think they do – though I stand to be corrected – and, perhaps, they should. Maybe Derek Jeter or Raul might not match the oratory of the two men from the sub-continent, but John Eales and Jose-Maria Olazabal might have spoken as well in their day. Perhaps it’s just another example of cricket’s glorious exceptionalism in a sporting world dominated at the top level by sponsors’ spokesmen and media training.

Bloemfontein cricket ground - apparently.

Ball Four – I’m all for attracting new audiences to cricket and can even stomach most of the marketing-speak that surrounds the Big Bash (but I’ll draw the line at The Hayden Way). However –  Knights vs Titans in a first class match? Of course, not every team has bought into the hyped up names.

Ball Five – David Warner is in a rich vein of form in diverse formats and proving the doubters wrong. Like Eoin Morgan, his arrival in international cricket was hardly a seamless progression through the expensive development systems put in place by armies of coaches and administrators. Pakistan produce great talents by default as much as design too. It’s a glory of this most wondrous of games that talent will out wherever and whenever it turns up.

Ball Six – A little Twitter debate with which you may wish to join in below the line. How many 80s Test sides would beat their 2011 equivalents given the same support, preparation etc? I’ll say NZ, SL (just now), Aus (late 80s), WI (obviously), Pak (obviously), Zim. India 2011 would beat 80s India, SA 2011 too (though not 70s SA) and England 2011 would probably do 80s England because of the bowling. That so few current sides would beat the previous generation is quite an indictment of current standards, I suggest. Or maybe I’m donning the rose-tinted spectacles that I favour from time to time. What do you think?