The other concern area is spin bowling. India have picked every spinner available. The real danger for the test team is not what happens after Tendulkar but what happens after Kumble! Will we, and pardon the incredulity, be better off playing on seaming tracks in England and bouncy tracks in Australia than turners in India? Talking of which, I hope there is some life in the pitches for the tests unlike the pathetic surfaces put out for the series against Pakistan. If we have another couple of those, one-day cricket and twenty-twenty will need no promotion!

Meanwhile, I am starting to get a little concerned, for the first time, about the IPL. Everyday there is a new report about a film star being signed up to do something and everybody seems to be worried about the entertainment around the IPL games. I must be seeing it wrong because I thought the T-20 format itself was entertainment. The one thing that the ICC World T-20 taught me was that nothing, absolutely nothing, could compete with the thrill of the cricketing contest. Now I get the feeling that people are trying to stage a variety entertainment show where the cricket match is but one of the components.

One of the joys of being in this game over the years is that I get to live in the real world. You can make all the comments you want before the game starts, you can allow all the posturing, but that is rendered useless once the bowler is at the top of his run-up. Everything after that is true and you are only rated by what you do in a real contest. Your friendly PR manager who slips in all those charitable quotes about you in willing newspapers is no good (wasn’t that a gem about that Mallika Sherawat refusing to fly with scummy earthlings like us!!). He is a good man to have in the movies and on television soaps because nothing happens live there and the truth is never really needed. In cricket you still have to face that ball; the goggles, the tantrums and the 21st take for raising the right eyebrow count for nothing. I’m not devaluing it, it’s just a different world.

... contd.