He thought Australia went on the defensive very quickly and points out how a deep point appeared almost inevitably after an aggressive shot. There was a hint of that during the Ashes series as well and it raises an interesting issue about teams like Australia that win, if not all, at least most of the time. Just as teams that don’t win often enough find themselves lost when victory is sighted, teams that win all the time can find themselves searching for ideas when a relatively new situation presents itself. It has long been my view that Australia are awesome when they are front runners, a great and often elusive quality in itself, but get a bit confused when they fall behind.

That will happen more often now that Adam Gilchrist, one of the greatest rescuers of cricket matches in history, joins Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath in retirement. Plan B will need to be pressed into service more often and opposing teams will be looking to see if that is an indicator of weakness.

You could look at the deep point being posted as a good, strategic move but it is not Australian to do so. It reminds me of what Ian Chappell, a fine and astute observer, said some years ago. “I’d love to see these guys field against Kanhai and Sobers when not only are the wickets difficult to come by but the bowlers are getting a bit of a pasting”, he said.

Australia are still the best cricket team in the world but teams will now know, as they did after Ashes 2005, that if you come hard at them early they are, as Shylock said in a slightly different context, “fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer.” This knowledge will encourage and test the rest of the cricket world. Knowing this to be true, are they good enough to put Australia into that position? And will we then arrive at the conclusion that Chappell suggests likely; that Australia may not be improving as much as the other teams are going backwards?

Tendulkar also seeks to remind people that the Test team did an excellent job too. Anil Kumble would be one of my candidates for player of the series for the manner in which he held the team together after the ridiculous events of Sydney. That piece of drama ended up helping India, because it took such a lot out of Ricky Ponting and Andrew Symonds that they had very little left to offer in the one-dayers. India’s aggression on and off the field made Australia a lesser team in the one-dayers.

Having said all that, Tendulkar throws in the googly. His favourite shots, he said, were the two upper cuts off Mitchell Johnson! And here we were talking about his straight drive and the great punch through cover off the back foot! Maybe it is the shape of things to come, maybe the new ‘V’ will be behind the wicket rather than in front of it! And if that is the way ahead, so be it, for the game must evolve and not all change is bad.

I say that, about change, because I have been so disappointed with a lot of the nonsense that has been written about the IPL, especially overseas, where the colour of Indian money seems necessarily bad. I have not read one word of appreciation at the fact that India is offering an outlet to cricketers from the rest of the world; giving them an opportunity to make a living doing something, maybe the only thing, they are good at. On Cricinfo, one of my favourite writers, Amit Varma, has produced an excellent article on the IPL and if that doesn’t open people’s eyes, nothing will.

What Amit’s article also does is to point out that the best cricket writing seems to come from those beyond the boundary. The most consistently stimulating articles seem to come from Rohit Brijnath, Prem Panicker and Amit Varma rather than from the by-lines I am forced to see in the newspapers; by-lines that have wickets and runs behind them but, except from a very few, little thought or insight.

Maybe we need to challenge previously held theories on the residence of wisdom.