Lawrence's Booth

A bad ghost-writer is like a bad umpire or a bad wicket-keeper: you only notice him when he starts to drop a few clangers. (Hell, theSpin has been getting away with it for years - bawling a few drunken thoughts down the phone from the local boozer on a Monday evening and hoping one of its many PAs manages to turn them overnight into coherent English.) Which is why one of the many joys of touring India was the daily dose in the local papers of Graham Gooch. Or, to be more accurate, "Graham Gooch". No day was complete with "Goochie's" latest take on the one-day series, or the predicament of Virender Sehwag and Mohammad Kaif, or even life and the known universe itself. The Spin has emerged a wiser cricket email."

I understand England doesn't want to be conservative or orthodox and wants to unravel the mysteries of one-day cricket with aggression and flair," wrote "Gooch" after England lost the first one-day game atDelhi, immediately causing two generations of Essex cricketers to wonder what their man had been on and whether they could have some please. "England were blown away like a ramshackle hut in a gale," he added, conjuring up images of one of his more effusive team-talks on a wet Wednesday at Chelmsford. Presumably "Gooch" was a little miffed after England went 4-0 down at Cochin? " It is tough to avoid being repetitive," he opined, "for England yet again walked the same filthy path and met the same wretched fate."

As the Spin imagined Gooch reclining on a chaise-longue, with cigarillo in one hand, brandy in the other, and nubile maidens massaging his feet, he went on to capture the Sehwag problem in a nutshell. Most of us had imagined Sehwag had simply been struggling to locate his off-stump. But "Gooch" had spotted something more troubling. "His initial bravado has given way to scepticism," he explained. "Sehwag in repose at the crease has resembled a cat ready to pounce on anything which comes his way. A cobra in coil, a panther on haunches, a falcon in that strategic patrolling of the sky." So that was it! Had Sehwag remembered all the animal impressions he used to do while the bowler was running in, he would have taken England to the cleaners! Sometimes, you really do need to be an ex-pro to notice these things.

And that's the final word with much love and vituperation from our dear dear friend Lawrence Booth of The Guardian.