Unlike a lot of the cricketers who have actually brought out autobiographies, a lot of the Associate players actually have life stories worth reading about. Look at Rizwan Cheema, who thumped 93 from 70 balls in Canada’s warm-up against England. He played a bit of cricket as a teenager in Pakistan, but then gave the game up when he moved to the USA because his family, who were Shia Muslims, were being persecuted. For six years he did not pick up a bat at all, but was busy earning a living as a taxi driver in Toronto. Then he went to watch a club practice in a public park and asked if he could have a go. He duly started slogging the ball all over. Six years and a string of blistering innings later, he found himself on the shortlist for the 2011 IPL auction. He didn’t get picked up, but if he plays many more knocks like that one against England in the next few weeks then he surely will do next year.

My favourite character in this competition may just be the leg-spinner Balaji Rao, Cheema’s Canadian team-mate. He unleashed such a vicious torrent of invective on England’s close fielders when they appealed against him for an LBW during that same warm-up match that umpire Asad Rauf had to step in and tell him to cool off. That despite the fact he was batting at No11. One of the England team told Lawrence Booth that Rao “had a strange look in his eye”.
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