QUOTE : There is perhaps no examination in sport more exacting than opening the batting in Test cricket, certainly none more extensive and probing. The Tour de France might be harder, but is repetitive and principally a suffering competition, most of those involved simply trying to finish. Fighting is more obviously dangerous, but lasts a maximum of 33 minutes, tennis more physically arduous, but without the variety of opponents and frisson of harm. Opening the batting, on the other hand, demands from every faculty, physical and mental, that a sportsman can possibly be forced to employ: speed, skill, strength, bravery, application, instinct, intellect and improvisation.