Durham, the youngest first-class county, won their first title when they beat Hampshire in the final to take the Friends Provident Trophy this season © Getty Images

Firsts are not always good things but, with the exception of Worcestershire’s ground spending most of the summer doing a passable impression of the River Avon, the newly-done-and-dusted English season has been chockfull of extremely pleasant firsts.

First trophy won by Durham, the youngest first-class county (and nearly a second). First List A total to come within a four of 500 (Surrey, unfortunately, had the misfortune to do it in mid-April, after which the only way was down, as it proved). First sighting of an English legspinner capable of hitting Test hundreds since BT Bosanquet (and how sweetly, touchingly, apt that Adil Rashid should be a bequest to the nation courtesy of Yorkshire CCC, so long a no-fly zone for British Asians). First sighting of a gunslinging, matchwinning Caribbean fast bowler since Courtney hung up his holster. Pity Ottis Gibson is within sniffing distance of his 40th year, right?

But is it? Why should it be? Gibson is now not only the sole owner of the most sumptuously old-fashioned, roll-it-around-your-tongue name in the game now that Vasbert Drakes has retired, but also the Professional Cricketers’ Association’s inaugural MVP, having hoovered up more than 100 wickets in all formats while giving Durham’s late middle-order some oomph. Are there really four fast bowlers qualified to play for West Indies right now who have any reason to believe they could have done any better? (Messrs Powell and Taylor have been on the circuit over the past month or so, so they know whereof I speak.)

Which brings us to the most surprising of these jolly good firsts. Namely, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, now coming to the end of his illustrious reign as cricket correspondent of The Times, declaring in Tuesday’s paper that the England selectors no longer had any excuse not to recall Mark Ramprakash, another 38-year-old, whose spoils over the past two seasons might have turned Bradman green. For the first time since Ramps, the greatest Test underachiever of his generation, was reborn as a national treasure, I read an assertion of that ilk by a leading cricket writer. CMJ and I do not concur on everything, or even much, but we are soul brothers on this.

Last year, in all four competitions, Ramps totted up a smidge under 3,000 runs, average 75. This year he tallied a dash under 2,800 at 80. Last year he collected 2,278 Championship runs, including eight centuries, at 105. This year, this time in the First Division, he pocketed 2,026 - more than 600 in excess of the next greediest batsman – this time with 10 hundreds, average 101. Nobody has posted back-to-back northern hemisphere summers of that ilk. Even when Denis Compton made 18 hundreds in 1947 he required 50 innings; Ramps’s 18 came in 48. And the way he went about constructing those monumental twin tons at The Oval in that dramatic finale against Lancashire, with nothing on the line for his team bar pride, suggested that hunger is in scant danger of waning.

Ten months ago, as we sat in the bowels of a BBC studio while he took a break from practising for his ultimately victorious turn on a television “reality” ballroom dancing show, he talked about a delay in his trigger movement, evidence, surely, of a more relaxed mind. This tiny adjustment, he felt, had been the key to this final smile-ful chapter of his intermittently brilliant but largely frustrating career, one noted most for the lousiest well-known average in Test history – 27.

He seemed strangely serene, quite different from the boy-man I had met outside Lord’s one Bank Holiday Monday in 1987 following his maiden first-class 50 on debut against Yorkshire. Back then he was a shy, handsome 17-year-old of mixed parentage (Irish mother, Guyanan father) at sixth-form college in Harrow. I’d been educated nearby – and nearly attended the same school as him - so there was some common ground. In that BBC studio, having not seen him for a couple of years, what struck me most was what was missing. The reticence that had prevented him meeting the world’s best bowlers on an equal footing, rooted in an apparently shallow self-belief, had gone.

For the first time since we’d met, he seemed at one with himself, as father as well as cricketer. Which was no mean feat, given that the tabloids were raking over his private life. Despite plying his trade in the Second Division of the Championship, he had just been voted Player of the Year by his fellow pros. Was this what he had craved? Was this proof, finally, of acceptance, of belonging? It was hard not to draw that conclusion. The past six months have done little to correct this impression.

Quietly, modestly, he said the only reason he had an earthly chance of winning this TV thingy was because of the footwork he had developed as a batsman. The sort of footwork that saw him reel off an unbeaten 266 in May against Sussex and, specifically, Mushtaq Ahmed, the outstanding county bowler of the past five summers, whose return of 1-178 was as close as he has come to impotence in that half-decade (admittedly, Bob Woolmer’s recent death was perhaps more significant). The sort of footwork that might just prevent Muttiah Muralitharan from overtaking Shane Warne’s Test wicket hoard as rapidly as expected come December.

For David Graveney and his chums to select Ramps to tour Sri Lanka would be both nostalgic and radical. The days of the ageing internationalist, after all, are supposedly over. Who plays at 38 anymore? More to the point, who picks anyone of 38 anymore? Not many, Benny. But why? This is supposed to be REPRESENTATIVE cricket. Coaches and managers have a favourite saying in these parts, and many others besides: if you’re good enough, you’re old enough. What about the converse? If you’re good enough, you’re young enough.

If you are likelier to come up against world-class opposition in county cricket than on any other contemporary domestic circuit – and the presence these past few summers of Murali, Warne, Ponting, Younis Khan, Inzamam, Laxman, Harbhajan, Kumble, Kaneria, Chanderpaul, Clarke and Clark suggests that might well be the case - how can an England team without Ramprakash be truly representative of the nation’s cricketing talent?

The message to the selectors is unequivocal, and should be vocalised as often as possible. As Spike Lee would doubtless have put it, had he had any interest in cricket whatsoever, do the right thing. Forgive Ramps.

	The genius of Brian Lara was not so much his repertoire of strokes, command of angles and delicacy of touch, but that he could adjust his stroke according to the ball’s behaviour © AFP

To paraphrase Pete Townshend, meet the new prejudices - same as the old prejudices. As expected, the ICC World Twenty20 has succeeded in polarising aficionados in much the same way as the advent of the limited-overs format did in 1963 and, when the international version emerged, in 1971.

To say it is strictly a generational thing would be far too simplistic, as the support of the likes of Ian Chappell and Scyld Berry confirms: the debate has pitted those realistic enough to be concerned for the game’s future against those who would rather it had never stooped to alleged bastardisation in the first place.

The most intriguing aspect of events in South Africa has been the adoption of new measurements of effectiveness. For the best part of a century, statisticians had it easy: averages were all they thought fit to consider. This bred a laziness that their baseball counterparts – ever mindful of the need for fresh definitions of quality and effectiveness – have always fought against.

Not before time, the introduction of the abbreviated, faster format gave the Bearded Wonder and his pals more work to do. Over the past decade or so, happily, new ground has been tilled and ploughed. Economy and strike rates have emerged as crucial arbiters, indicative of a changing landscape, not to mention one-on-one details, such as how Sachin Tendulkar, say, has fared against Shane Warne. All of which has rendered conventional averages – which are anti-contextual, taking no account of the quality of the opposition or the state of the match – less insightful or relevant.

Now, thanks primarily to the broadcasters’ thirst for the telling stat, we have a whole new ball game: longest six, most dot-balls, even speed off the bat.

The last of these has been the most revealing. Hoary old cliché has it that the faster the delivery, the faster it leaves the bat. Bugger that. Even when Matthew Hayden was blitzing and bullying the Indian bowlers on Saturday the pace at which the ball was leaving that beefy blade never exceeded 130kph. Sreesanth and RP Singh, though, were consistently bowling at 140kph-plus.

What has been neglected, however, has been a statistic that continues, inexplicably, to be ignored, namely bat speed. Granted, the logistics may well be too tricky for those cameras to measure, although it is hard to see why. The importance of such figures cannot be underestimated. After all, a batsman’s ability to respond to length, line and deviation is intrinsic, surely, to his success – or otherwise.

The ability to play late, to choose one’s shot at the last possible instant, has long been acknowledged as a barometer of batsmanship. The genius of Brian Lara was not so much his repertoire of strokes, command of angles and delicacy of touch, but that he could adjust his stroke according to the ball’s behaviour through the air or off the pitch.

Is it asking too much for the broadcasters and number-crunchers to join forces and find a way of assessing this? Come on, chaps, get your fingers out.

	Andrew Flintoff had an ordinary World Twenty20, scoring only 70 runs and taking five wickets in five outings © Getty Images

And then there were four. Of the England XI that defeated Australia at Trent Bridge to take a decisive 2-1 lead in the 2005 Ashes series, only Michael Vaughan, Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen and Matthew Hoggard are now likely to figure in the forthcoming Test tour of Sri Lanka. And so the curse continues. Who would have thought that those fluffy white clouds over Nottingham would contain such a grisly grey lining?

True, the team management have yet to formally announce that Andrew Flintoff’s persistent ankle problems will keep him off the plane, but his withdrawal from next month’s one-day series suggests this may only be a matter of time. The sensible option would be to give him the winter off in the hope that he can return against South Africa next summer with all cylinders ablaze, but even that may be overly optimistic. To watch him grimace, groan and hoick his way through the Twenty20 was as pitiful as it was painful.

Two years ago, when comparisons with Ian Botham were all the rage, most Poms were convinced that Our Fred’s career graph would maintain its inverse relationship to that of His Beefiness. Posterity, or so it seemed, would enshrine him as the superior force.

Botham reached the pot at the end of his rainbow with almost indecent haste then spent the last six years of his international career hamstrung by back trouble and trading on reputation and psychological muscle, with ever-diminishing returns. After a slow-motion overture, Flintoff’s development was convincing enough to persuade us that, if he was unlikely to net the best part of 400 Test wickets at 28, as his predecessor did, the odds were firmly on him comfortably outstripping Botham’s batting average of 33 and easily outdoing him as a limited-overs force. As things stand, however, his Test averages are 32 with bat and ball, and all the signs are that his final figures will deteriorate rather than improve. If, that is, he ever plays another five-dayer.

What the pair have in common is the true allrounder’s stubborn refusal to accept the word of their bodies and prolong their productivity by focusing on one of that mighty bow’s mellifluous strings. Had Botham’s ego allowed him to put all his eggs in his batting basket, it does not seem fanciful to suggest that the last five years of his Test career would have produced a few more centuries. Or even one. Instead, he declined alarmingly on both fronts. Flintoff’s bowling remains highly effective – albeit rather more conspicuously in the one-day fray – but it is now 32 innings since he made the most recent of his five Test tons. Like Botham, his batting has recently suffered from a lack of concentration and discipline, a surfeit of recklessness and a reluctance to adapt, in technical terms or to the collective need. In short, he seems to have reverted to the unthinking cricketer who once drove county and agent to hair-tearing fury.

In fairness, this may be due less to an obstinate belief in his own apparent superpowers (Botham’s Achilles heel-in-chief) than a symptom of depression. Between 2003 and 2005 he soared to the very summit of cricketing attainment, as lethal with bat as ball, a matchwinner for all seasons, a folk hero without contemporary parallel in English sport. When his body rebelled, it was as if he had been marooned in a cave with an Everest’s worth of greenest kryptonite. Were the mediocrity and brevity of his captaincy unconnected? One seriously doubts it.

So what now? Some have proposed that he train his sights solely on the abbreviated game, the better to protect and preserve. It might be sensible but it would also be a terrible pity. Besides, can you imagine him being content to operate exclusively on what most if not all cricketers regard as the lesser stages, to give up, in effect, the theatre for an endless stream of Hollywood potboilers? I can’t.

One can only pray, for Flintoff, for English cricket and for the game as a whole, that the surgeons can work the requisite wonders and restore him to full working order. Whether they do so or not, let’s hope he takes a good look in the mirror over the coming months, learns from Botham’s errors, acknowledges that Garry Sobers was the exception rather than the norm, accepts his vincibility and sets greater store by the runs column than the wickets.

	The Twenty20 format reduces the Grand Canyonesque chasm between Davids and Goliaths © Getty Images

Four days into the first major event to showcase cricket at its most bastardised and most, if not quite all, the signs are encouraging. Please forgive the shameless boyish enthusiasm.

Ten Reasons to be Disgustingly Cheerful

1. A conspicuous narrowing of that Grand Canyonesque chasm between Davids and Goliaths. Bangladesh and Zimbabwe’s defeat of West Indies and Australia meant two seismic shocks in the first half-week; the World Cup manages one every one-and-a-half months.

2. Humble Aussies.

3. Horrendous mismatches, bane of the 50-over World Cup albeit no less apparent in today’s Sri Lanka-Kenya Judy-Beats-Punch-To-Pulp affair, are done and dusted nearly three times quicker. If only painkillers brought more rapid relief.

4. Things We Never Thought We’d See Again: Chris Schofield bowling a flipper in a representative match. Things We Thought We'd Never See At All: Schofield starting with a dot-ball to Adam Gilchrist and dismissing him the next.

5. The first Twenty20 international century did not prove to be a match-winning one.

6. Kevin Pietersen’s rising aptitude for creative left-handed biffing is bringing us ever closer to the arrival of the game’s first bonafide switch-hitter, which would be the biggest evolutionary leap since Christina Willes decided bowling overarm was the solution to having to play in a dress.

7. Sanath Jayasuriya’s undimmed ebullience. Given the lesser physical demands, perhaps this will be the stage that enables the oldies to carry on entertaining us? It probably wouldn’t be beyond Shane Warne to bowl four decent overs when he’s 64. We might even be able to tempt Sir Viv back to the boards.

8. The extra risks batsmen are required to take means more chances for bowlers – and about bloody time too. Ask Brett Lee or Shaun Pollock whether they have any objections to cheap wickets.

9. An annual Twenty20 World Cup featuring 16 teams would enable the 50-over version to slim down to more manageable proportions, the better to enhance the quality-drama nexus.

10. If it’s this good now, think how much more fun it would be if each side had two innings. Now THAT’S the way I’d like it.

One Reason to be (slightly) Fearful.

When I professed that pathetically boyish enthusiasm to my best mate, whose preferred tipples are tennis and soccer, he wondered whether the brevity of it all went hand-in-hand with a reduced premium on skill. I can see what he was getting at. Luck certainly plays a more integral role in terms of run-making, which is in no-one’s best interests. On the other hand, guile, ingenuity, nous, variety and courage are arguably even more obligatory for bowlers than they are in the longer forms. I’d still drop the restriction on the number of overs available to each bowler, the better to further correct that imbalance between bat and ball.

Ah, but is this all just another profoundly regrettable example of the 21st century’s infuriating penchant for dumbing-down? Not really. After all, this is cricket at its leanest and meanest, not to mention the form most familiar to millions of club players the planet over. Besides, if this is what it takes to refresh the parts other formats struggle to reach (especially the holy grail that is Dubya Land), and hence preserve Test matches into the next millennium, who cares?

Still, let’s go the whole hog and trade in “Twenty20” for “Cricket 2.0”. Who knows: that nice Mr Jobs might cough up some sponsorship.

	Big hitters, clever pace bowling, quality spin...this series has had it all © Getty Images

Contrary to received wisdom, humble pie doesn’t actually taste that awful. Or need not. Granted, it doesn’t exactly boost the confidence and self-esteem to be proved totally and utterly wrong. On the other hand, when the wider interest is as admirably served as it has been by England and India over the past fortnight, only a fully-qualified curmudgeon could complain.

Before the one-day series began, two thoughts were uppermost, one a good deal more widespread than the other. First, that tours comprising three Tests and a seven-part one-day series should be never, ever be deemed worthy of a nation’s time or money again. Second, why on earth had those entrepreneurial ICC mandarins of ours not heeded the leaders of the major team sports in North America, home of the best-of-seven series? Over there, they have it sussed. If the outcome of a septet or quintet of playoff games is decided in the minimum number, that’s it. No 7-0s or 6-1s or 5-0s. No room to question motivation. No scope to subdue the heat of battle. True, this does mean medium-sized migraines for clubs, supporters and media, forced as they are to make last-minute decisions depending on the previous night’s result, but they cope.

Indeed, a seven-game series was the source of my most memorable journalistic assignment: baseball’s 1991 World Series. Atlanta’s Braves and Minnesota’s Twins grappled over nine days, taking turns to make home advantage count, before the latter took the finale in extra-innings. Neither before nor since, in my experience, has sport better justified its reputation as reality theatre.

Of course, staging a one-day series on the home turf of both participants, the sole viable excuse for a seven-match series, is impractical: even 50-over matches last three times as long as the average baseball game. Nevertheless, even though the ICC rankings take individual matches into account (to an extent), the series score remains paramount. As a consequence, the potential for torpor and ennui seems unlimited.

So much for all that. Paul Collingwood and Rahul Dravid’s teams have regaled and entranced us with a string of vivid scraps full of rollercoastering emotions and script-shredding twists. Big scores, big hitters, clever pace bowling, quality spin (albeit almost exclusively of an Indian persuasion), breathtaking fielding (albeit almost entirely of English origin) and, best and most tellingly of all, more tight finishes than loose ones. As a result of which, glory be, a cricketing Game 7 is, for once, as exhilarating a prospect as its World Series counterpart. That Lord’s should be the venue is only right and proper. The rugby union World Cup, the European Football Championship and the US Open tennis may dominate the headlines come Sunday, but I know where I want to be on Saturday.

The 50-over format has had a pretty good bashing in recent times, and rightly so. The World Cup was a yawn, a complete letdown. Fortunately, being the best two Test sides on the planet behind Australia, tussles between England and India, so tepid for so long, are now blessed with a keen, if occasionally over-sharp, edge. Despite India’s overall victory, this summer’s ludicrously truncated, three-chapter five-day rubber contained enough switches in fortune and power to fill a John Grisham novel. But would seven Tests followed by three one-dayers really have made a tastier meal? I doubt it, though a 5-5 split would have been eminently acceptable, not to say profoundly sensible.

	The nerveless Uthappa © Getty Images

Better yet, as Andy Zaltzman highlighted in his splendid column for The Times today, this series has proffered the shot in the arm the game so sorely needs, bedevilled as it currently is by a seemingly interminable spate of high-profile retirements. Kevin Pietersen is alone in the current top 15 of the ICC Test rankings for batsmen, Andy pointed out, in being under 29. And eight of the top 10 bowlers, no less disconcertingly, are thirtysomethings. Happily, if perhaps inevitably - a seven-hour contest is rather more suited to a young man’s concentration and temperament than a 30-hour affair - the generation gap has been yawning a good deal less blatantly as this series has worn on.

In a match littered with an uncommon number of strong individual contributions, Wednesday’s key figures, with the exception of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Dmitri Mascarenhas, were all under 29, and mostly a good deal greener: Pietersen, Owais Shah, Luke Wright, Ian Bell and Stuart Broad for England, for India Piyush Chawla, MS Dhoni, Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir and, most memorably of all, Robin Uthappa, whose nervelessness at the death was awesome in the extreme.

In the previous five episodes, Alastair Cook, James Anderson and Yuvraj Singh had all imposed themselves at various times. Moreover, several of these bright young (and youngish) things are already touting their impressive wares in Tests. There are few reasons to believe that a sizeable majority of the remainder, most notably the precocious Chawla, will not soon follow suit.

As for Peter Hartley’s decision to give Paul Collingwood out at The Oval after referring to the big screen rather than the third umpire, bloody good for him. Commonsense prevailed, justice was done: end of story. Oh, that the latter could so clearly be seen to be done a wee bit more often in our courtrooms and parliaments.

	Ian Bell has been the best batsman on view in the one-day series against India © Getty Images

Scyld Berry, arguably the most broad-spectrumed, lateral-thinking writer ever to grace a cricket pressbox, is acting as locum for the yellow bible’s 2008 edition as Matthew Engel takes a richly-earned sabbatical. As ever, his trickiest task will be to choose his Five Cricketers of the Year, an honour recently restored to its original confines – prime consideration is given to those summering in England. In other words, before you start shouting at me for bypassing Stuart Clark, Yousuf Youhana and Kumar Sangakkara, exploits overseas count for little or nowt. In the interests of brotherhood and posterity, therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to proffer some fairly humble suggestions. And yes, I know the season isn’t quite over, but on the basis that achievements over the last three weeks of a five-and-a-half-month campaign can, and should, only count for so much, that should not be a deterrent.

First, though, a rider. The rules have always precluded the nomination of any previous Cricketer of the Year, which is an especial pity this year. The star county turns, after all, have been the oldies – Andy Caddick, Ottis Gibson, Mark Ramprakash and Mushtaq Ahmed, of whom only Gibson has not hitherto been a recipient. So with that in mind, the nominees are…

Ian Bell

He ebbed and flowed in the Tests, relegated to No.6 and even 7 by his returning captain and assorted nightwatchmen, but in the one-day series against India, to date at least, he has been the best batsman on view. Given the stiffness of the competition, numbering as it does Messrs Collingwood, Dhoni, Dravid, Pietersen and Tendulkar, this should on no account be sniffed at. Finally beginning to assert and impose, he is surely England’s long-term five-day No.3, as frequently hinted at during the Ashes series. One blessing arising from Andrew Strauss’s decline is that it may persuade Michael Vaughan to open with Alastair Cook in Sri Lanka. Either way, that sheepish, “Do I really belong?” smile has been usurped by the beginnings of a fiendishly sadistic grin.

Shivarine Chanderpaul

“He should be extra careful and avoid getting excited while playing, else, it may dampen his game.” So says astrologer Bejan Daruwalla’s Tarot card reading for Guyana’s gutsiest. Which tells you almost all you need to know about astrologers. The only thing that appears to excite Chanderpaul the Test batsman is occupying creases for days on end and annoying purists and opposition alike. All but left in the lurch by Brian Lara’s retirement, Ramnaresh Sarwan’s injury and Chris Gayle’s frippery, he rose heroically to the occasion: getting him out has been the summer’s stiffest ask. A pity he has been deemed unsuitable captaincy material: nobody in this dark decade for Caribbean cricket, not even dear Brian, has done more to lead by example.

Ottis Gibson

Speaking of which… Given that coaching acumen and those Bajan roots, it seems barely credible that the West Indies have seen fit to overlook his services in some capacity or other. Not that Durham are complaining: his enduring potency as a seamer brought the most tenderfooted first-class county their first piece of silverware, and may yet bring home their first rasher of Championship bacon. A decisive burst in the Friends Provident final and the first 10-for in county cricket since 1994 comprised the icing on a resplendent cake.

Chris Schofield

On figures alone, Danish Kaneria should win my vote, but why not reward persistence, especially when it comes packaged in such inspiringly Disneyfied wrapping? It would, admittedly, be far too insular to describe the Surrey leggie’s revival as the comeback of the sporting summer: Rick Ankiel of the St Louis Cardinals, a highly-touted pitcher who lost his nerve a few years back after an horrendous playoff game, has lately been reborn as a home-run hitter, a conversion akin to Glenn McGrath learning how to mash middle-order hundreds. Still, the erstwhile Great White Hope of English spin has worked untold wonders in reigniting a career that could yet be, if not as great as hoped and hyped, then certainly a great deal better than most feared after his rapid decline. Hand injury permitting, the Twenty20 world championship - his mother burst into tears of relief when his name was announced in England’s preliminary squad - may confirm the unlikeliest second coming since the Mullet.

Zaheer Khan

The pitches may be subterranean much of the time, but a summer at Worcestershire need not be a total waste. A late replacement for Nathan Bracken, India’s erratic spearhead took 78 Championship wickets in 2006, sussing out the terrain and returning to torment England’s batsmen as no left-arm quick has done since Wasim Akram. Of his 18 wickets in the Pataudi Trophy series, 12 were plucked from the top six in the first two Tests, five of them in that rubber-resolving second innings at Trent Bridge. Nobody, one rather suspects, will ever offer him jellybeans again.

	Despite several sublime performances against Australia, there was no place for VVS Laxman in Warne's top 50 © Getty Images

Like the born showman that he is, he kept us waiting, and wondering, and bitching.

Little things please cricketing minds, and annoy them even more. Which is why Shane Warne’s list of his 50 finest flannelled fools, published in the Times over the past few days and culminating in this morning’s Top 10, was delightful on so many counts, most notably the irate reactions. How could he possibly rank Waqar Younis behind Steve Harmison? And what the blazes was Kapil Dev doing as low as No.40? The fact that he only opposed Warne once in a Test had evidently been forgotten.

The most erudite response on Times Online came, somewhat aptly, from that hotbed of greenswardian appreciation, Minneapolis. “Chill out guys,” suggested Mohit. “This is 'Shane Warne's' list, he has full right to even name his sons and daughters...He has earned that right by taking 708 wickets!!!”

To the last, one suspects, it was a bit of a giggle. Scores were summarily settled, agendas flagrantly pursued and history gallingly made, albeit strictly of the mathematical variety. This was not his “50 Greatest Cricketers” at all, but, given the presence of two 29ths, two 28ths and two 27ths, his “53 Greatest Cricketers”.

And so to those scores and agendas. Before the Top 10 were unveiled, being a shamefaced, anorak-wearing member of the anally-retentive brigade, I jotted down a list of certs and outsiders. On the basis that Warne was picking purely from among those he has played with or against, the main contenders, by a process of elimination, were fairly obvious: Ambrose, Border, Healy, Lara, McGrath, Muralitharan, Ponting, Mark Taylor, Tendulkar and Akram. The absence of even one would doubtless incite a riot in the blogosphere.

But might there be an honorary mention, even though the two never opposed each other on the field, for Abdul Qadir, for reinvigorating Warne’s trade and inspiring its master practitioner? Or perhaps VVS Laxman, that most elegant defier of baggy green caps, would squeeze in? Primarily on the back of his 281 at Kolkata in 2001, almost certainly the most resplendent music Warne has ever faced, but also for that magnificent lone-handed 167 in Sydney the previous year, comprising as it did virtually 70% of the non-extras in India’s second dig.

Not that Nos 11-53 lacked intrigue. Was Waqar’s insalubrious 45th place a comment about ball-tampering? The appearance at No.16 of Andrew Flintoff, fully 11 berths ahead of Jacques Kallis, whose allround returns have been of Sobersian proportions, was surely nothing if not a measure of Warne’s lack of fondness for South Africans and those whose play he perceives as being devoid of passion or soul. Justification for Tim May standing eight rungs higher than Stuart MacGill, owner of the best strike rate among modern Test spinners, was much harder to comprehend. Unless, that is, you attributed it to self-justification. After all, MacGill might have doubled his cap tally by now had he not been unfortunate enough to play in Warne’s vast shadow.

Then there was the sight, at a conspicuously lowly, pointedly humdrum No.26, of Steve Waugh, in his erstwhile colleague’s view a match-saver rather than a match-winner whose captaincy record had been buffed up for posterity because he inherited such an awesome side from Mark Taylor. That Warne himself might well have – and possibly should have – succeeded Taylor should not detract overmuch from the soundness of his logic. That Waugh's twin should rank 14 places higher was an even greater slap in the face.

In the event, the Top 10 were precisely as predicted. Headed by Tendulkar, who averaged a run more against Australia than Laxman and Lara (53 to 52), Lara emerged as the runner-up, leaving VVS, presumably, a tad miffed.

That a brace of batsmen should head this bowler’s chart was inevitable. Fellow bowlers never intimidated Warne, but there were times, assuredly, when Tendulkar and Lara came close to doing just that. That Murali emerged in seventh spot was a case, one rather suspects, of having one’s cake and eating it. High enough to stave off any charges of self-affirming bias but low enough (beneath Ambrose, McGrath and Akram, his top three bowlers) to make it clear that, well, even though the Sri Lankan will presumably steal that hard-earned wicket-taking record before the year’s out, he isn’t THAT good. Which could in turn be interpreted as disapproval of his action. The opening comment, “No matter what anybody thinks about his action…”, does little to deter this. If he truly believed Murali was beyond reproach, why bother mentioning it? The entries on Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar contained no such riders.

So thank-you Warney, as ever, for the entertainment. And yes, 708 wickets does earn you the right to cock snooks and ruffle feathers. Mind you, the next time you attend a dinner with Mr Waugh it might be wise to hire a food taster.