He may like to remember this when yet more matches begin to be played in Asia. The expansion of a congested fixture list seems certain after the formation last week of the Asian Cricket Foundation. This will have as chairman for the next five years the outgoing president of the ICC, Jagmohan Dalmiya, whose tenure was wreathed in controversy. He was heavily criticised for his alleged part in selling TV rights.Dalmiya said the intention now was to take the game to every nook and cranny of Asia and give the continent, cricket's biggest market, a bigger place in the scheme of things. Although the ACF have already secured more funds from the ICC's development committee, up apparently from £300,000 a year to something around £8.3m a year, Dalmiya warned that they would raise their own funds by staging their own events.More events, of course, will mean more TV rights, probably not involving World Sports Group, who were last week awarded the next two World Cups and some ICC tournaments for $550m (£365m). The amount of money swirling around in the sport can never have been greater, and Asia is unquestionably the key.

Compare that $550m, which includes sponsorship as well as TV rights, with the £36m grossed for both by the England and Wales Cricket Board in last year's World Cup. Not, on this occasion, a case of an ECB missed opportunity so much as the burgeoning of the game to fill TV airtime. Eventually, internet rights may involve so many oodles of unthought-of dosh as to make match-riggers mere cream- skimmers.It is possible to overdo the lack of racial harmony within the ICC. Was not, after all, the appointment of the Englishman Condon eventually unanimous? But it would also be a mistake to be naïve enough to think it does not exist.Pakistan can feel aggrieved. True, some players there might have escaped the net, but nobody has yet come up with an inquiry report quite as thorough and painstaking as that of Mr Justice Qayyum. (In South Africa, Judge Edwin King may like to re-read Qayyum's words of wisdom as he deliberates on whether the weasel words of Cronje to his inquiry deserve immunity.)The most recent race card was played by Zee TV, who lost out to Rupert Murdoch's WSG in the battle for the 2003 and 2007 World Cups despite bidding $116m more. WSG's global base apparently swung it, but Satish Mermon, Zee's deputy chief executive, said the outcome reflected age-old discrimination.

"The whites feel that with Asia taking charge of cricket's destiny it will keep them in the long-held pecking order." Now, with the ACF's establishment, Zee may not have long to wait for some cricket of their own On with the motley.. Test match days probably do not come any more extraordinary Twenty-one wickets, all four innings represented Remarkable stuff marked by remarkable bowling on both sides. One side out for 134, the other tumbling for a barely credible 54 Fascinating to watch, extraordinary to play. Test match days probably do not come any more extraordinary Twenty-one wickets, all four innings represented Remarkable stuff marked by remarkable bowling on both sides. One side out for 134, the other tumbling for a barely credible 54. Fascinating to watch, extraordinary to play. There were no quiet periods It went like this England needed one wicket to end West Indies' first innings. We did not want them hanging about, adding a few more runs, irritating us.

It lasted no longer than one ball.Within a quarter of an hour England were in deep trouble Both openers were out I went in the first over, Michael Atherton in the second Both could be said to be misguided strokes. Both were probably the result of the knowledge of how difficult it is to score against this attack.Curtly Ambrose is relentlessly accurate, and when I saw one coming that was just a bit further up I went for the drive. Hit in the middle and it was four, enough bat on it and it was probably two through the covers. But it held its own up the slope and instead it was a catch at slip.Atherton did something that was very un-Athertonlike, pushing at a wide one. But as he observed later, there are so few scoring opportunities you feel you have to take one when you think it has come along.Against this attack it is aconundrum. Try merely to stay in, do not score; or try to keep the board moving when there is nothing on offer.

It is not the Walsh and Ambrose way to try to bowl too many magic balls They keep it just at the back of a length or on a length. Only Glenn McGrath of Australia rivals them for sheer, persistent accuracy. You can find yourself constantly in no-man's-land, wishing to get forward, knowing that if you go back it can nip back and get through.Briefly, England rallied. Graeme Hick went on the offensive, Alec Stewart thought that it became slightly easier when the ball softened.