125/4 one more wicket now and they might struggle to get 200.

Nuwan Pradeep can hit speeds of 150kph © Getty Images

Sri Lanka?s knack of picking unorthodox cricketers out of nowhere continues. The replacement for Lasith Malinga, who is out of the second Test with a stiff knee, is a similar story. Until three years ago, Nuwan Pradeep hadn?t played any cricket with a leather ball ? and he is 23 now. He won a pace contest, impressed the talent scouts with his pace in a soft-ball event, and was sent straight to Sri Lanka Cricket?s academy.

Pradeep doesn?t look as strong, his round-arm is not quite the slingshot, he is not quite the Malinga, but he has attributes: pace, and according to observers, outswing and reverse-swing. The pace and the round-arm action come because the tennis balls wouldn?t travel. Ranjit Fernando, national selector and his coach during Sri Lanka A?s tour of Australia, recommends Pradeep highly.

?Does not have any cricketing background,? says Fernando. ?Never played with a cricket ball till three years ago. Came from a fast-bowling competition arranged by the Maharaja about three years ago. He was the fastest bowler in the competition. Bowled in Australia. There were no speed guns, but to me he bowled quicker than all the Australian bowlers. Being a slinger, he doesn?t have much bounce, but I feel he is someone to watch out for. He is quick, you can see it. Someone like him keeps on coming at you all the time, so is hard to negotiate on such wickets. He is also very accurate.?

Sri Lanka?s former national bowling coach, Anusha Samaranayake, told srilankacricket.lk: ?He can touch 150kph mark as of now. He has got express pace, and he?s also accurate. He?s a very special bowler. Comes at the batsman with a very long run-up and his pace has troubled many batsmen in the domestic circuit.?

Muttiah Muralitharan, Ajantha Mendis and Malinga have been glowing tributes to Sri Lanka?s tolerance for the unorthodox. Dilhara Fernando used to play only basketball until his school coach asked him to play cricket one fine day. Now we have Pradeep, who might not get a Test in this series, but provided he meets the fitness his action demands, could one day be bowling alongside Malinga in an international. Hard bowlers created by softballs.

Sir Donald Bradman at the P Sara Oval in 1948 © Cricinfo Ltd

P Sara Oval, the venue for the third Test of this series, is the only ground in Asia where Don Bradman played. He did so on a 20-yard pitch. In Brightly Fades the Don, Jack Fingleton writes: ?It is possible one of her male assistants (the round had a lady curator) measured the pitch and not she. The Australian batsmen found the going rather tough in the morning. It was hard to get the ball away, and it was Ian Johnson who discovered largely why.

?He had his doubts about the pitch, measured it and found it was only twenty yards. From that point onwards the Australians bowled from two yards behind the crease and everybody was happy.?

An 18-year-old who saw the match live from a crowd of 20,000 which, according to The Janashakthi Book of Sri Lanka Cricket, occupied every inch of space right up to boundary line, has a slightly different account. That 18-year-old was Chandra Schaffter, of the Tamil Union Club, who played three first-class matches in the fifties and also hockey for Ceylon. ?Bradman, I think with all his experience, realised it was short, and he was the one who pointed it out,? says Schaffter. ?He mentioned it to the umpires, they measured it again, and then rectified it.? Take your own pick, Fingleton?s realism, or Schaffter?s romanticism.

Imran Khan: fat free © Getty Images

At 57, Imran Khan still stands tall and lean. The Pathan lineage is reflected in those broad shoulders. There isn?t any fat noticeable.

This was the first time I had seen Imran in person. He still looked the same man who charged in with a purpose, with that lovely slinging action, and always managed to retain a confident demeanour regardless of the match situation. He motivated his troops with words that could spur them on to do things they thought they could never do. He came back from retirement to nearly win a Test series against the mighty West Indies in 1987.

Five year later, at 40, he retained the hunger to lead Pakistan to a World Cup triumph. Later he would build a cancer hospital in memory of his mother; he is now raising funds to start a university in Miawali. What a life.

A Pathan who came to England, was educated at Oxford, was in awe of his two cricketing cousins, and always wanted to be a batsman. Instead, he made up his mind to turn to fast bowling, having seen Dennis Lillee at full throttle. He has also been a man who could woo the most glamorous, beautiful and rich women in the world with his persona, and is now a man fighting to be an independent politician in a country ruled for generations by feudal lords and the army. It takes balls.

Little wonder, then, that he is Shahid Afridi?s hero, as he was to Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and every other Pakistani. It is a unique thing ? cricketers' heroes usually differ from generation to generation, but in Pakistan it was always Imran. It still remains.

So it was a given that I would not miss Imran delivering the MCC?s annual Colin Cowdrey Spirit of Cricket Lecture.

The address began with an introduction by John Barclay, MCC president, popular for his eccentric behaviour, and who was once Imran?s captain at Sussex.

Imran started off by reminiscing about what made him suggest, back in the 1980s, that neutral umpires be introduced. It was a period when the umpires had become unashamedly biased and partial, so much so that series results were being altered. He even pointed out an interesting example when Pakistan were playing India in Bangalore and had the hosts on their knees at 90 for 4 by lunch with only the inimitable Sunil Gavaskar battling hard.

According to Imran, on a spinning track his slow bowlers were rushing to the umpire, appealing at least three times an over. But the Indian umpires stood stoic and non-committal. With every passing minute the tension mounted, so much so that at one point Imran had to focus on restraining the frequent charges by his fielders, led by the ?suicide bomber?, Javed Miandad.

Jayananda Warnaweera, the Galle International Stadium's chief groundsman, leads a spirited team that puts its heart and soul into the ground's maintenance © AFP

When yet another shower lashed the Galle International Stadium at 2.15pm, even though the Indian bowlers would have been relieved, it was a cruel heartbreak for the groundsmen who had worked hard to get the ground ready - despite heavy showers at consistent intervals - for a 2.30pm inspection and a possible 3pm start. If ever a ground was going to have any action after torrential rains, both overnight and during the day, it is Galle.

What they lack in drainage facilities, the groundsmen here make up for with a massive human effort, acumen and anticipation. They work on the principle of not letting the ground get wet in the first place. On match days, around 150 people work under Jayananda Warnaweera, former offspinner and the chief groundsman. At times Warnaweera gets assistance from inmates from the nearby Boosa detention camp, who are watched over by special security guards as they go about their work. In Warnaweera they have a leader who puts his heart and soul into maintaining the ground, his ground.

It?s his home, he says. He is found here more often than at his house. When the tsunami swept the ground in 2004, it took away all the hard work he had put into maintaining it. The fish tank outside the ground, the model of a hand rickshaw, and other artefacts he had personally got here, were gone. He was at the forefront when the stadium was rebuilt after the devastation. During a Test match, he hardly goes home.

Shahid Afridi walks back to the pavilion after slogging his fourth ball of Pakistan's second innings to deep midwicket: the moment he decided to call time on his Test career © Getty Images

You?ve got to hand it to Afridi, the man knows how to entertain, whether it?s sinking his teeth into a cricket ball, whacking Shaun Tait back over his head for six or hammering 14 from his first five balls in Test cricket in four years.

Even in his retirement announcement, Afridi didn?t tone things down. For most Australian players, farewelling Test cricket is an emotional experience that more often than not brings a tear to the player?s eye. Not Afridi.

Here was a man who was retiring after one comeback game, having slogged his fourth ball in the second innings straight to the man at deep midwicket. He was the captain, he had to set an example for his junior colleagues on putting a price on one?s wicket.

The media were entitled to ask him some tough questions at his post-match press conference. To Afridi?s credit, he didn?t offer any half-baked excuses, he simply stated what everyone watching the game had already realised: he wasn?t a Test player.

Afridi was asked when he decided to retire. ?When I got out,? he replied. Laughter rippled throughout the room, where Afridi was being grilled by a group of about 20 journalists.

Another reporter asked if he simply couldn?t stop himself trying to hit six off every ball. Smiling, Afridi agreed: ?Yes, you are right.?

It was the ultimate mea culpa from a Test captain. He might as well have shrugged and said, ?Yeah, I?m outta control! Can?t do nothin? about it.?

And when he was asked if he could make more money by just playing Twenty20 and 50-over cricket, he replied, dismissively: ?I?ve got enough money.?

So there. It was a refreshingly candid and good-humoured press conference, given the circumstances. Even in retirement, Afridi continues to entertain. Thank goodness he?s still going to play Twenty20. There he can be more Popeye than Descartes.

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