Ian Henschke: Well, Gideon, you started out as a business journalist and then had moved into cricket. Is there any connection at all?

Gideon Haigh: Well, I used to think that there was no connection at all. And people used to say, "Oh, what an extraordinary concatenation of circumstances, you writing about business and sport." And strangely, over the course of the last 25 years, the two have grown closer and closer together until actually having some sort of awareness of business is almost a prerequisite for writing about sport. Sport and business seem to have just completely interpenetrated. And when cricketers are changing hands for millions of dollars and when franchises are being bought for tens of millions of dollars, then pretty soon you're talking about real money. And you're actually talking not so much about sport, as about trying to develop an economic model of sport that can be sold to the public.

Ian Henschke: You also are a practising cricketer, aren't you?

Gideon Haigh: Practising and not really getting very much better. Tell us about that. Well, look, I've been a cricketer, a practising, active cricketer - probably less active these days than I used to be - for about 35 years... ..and with brief periods of not playing due to pressures of work and social pressures. But I've always thought that it's useful to have an understanding of how difficult it is to do...to perform the cricket skills to the pitch of perfection that you would like to attain. And there's also something unduly satisfying about doing those skills when you do actually get them right. I've always thought that I get more value out of playing a cover drive than, say, Mark Waugh ever did, because he expects to do it properly, and for me there's still the enchantment of surprise.

Ian Henschke: What's your greatest personal cricketing moment?

Gideon Haigh: Well, I think my greatest cricketing personal moment, the most sort of ecstatic and euphoric moment was about 10 years ago. I was playing in a game of cricket at a suburban oval, late in the day, dimming light, the dying embers of the first day of a two-day game. And in the classic Australian tradition, a player from the opposition couldn't come back the following week 'cause he had to go to a wedding. So he came in, he opened the batting for his club. And so the field, naturally, was spreadeagled. We were sent to all points of the compass, and I was delegated the job of going out to the extra cover boundary. And I can remember, quite vividly, almost like being a witness to a traffic accident, that sense of time standing still, him assaying a shot, the ball rising into the ionosphere, and me feeling that, yes, this was going to be my catch, knowing it from the instant that ball left the bat, that this was my task and my task alone and also feeling a great sense of confidence and mastery of the situation, knowing that I'd done this a thousand times in training. I could catch this ball. There was no reason why I couldn't. And I didn't have to move a muscle, so I was able to contemplate the physical experience of coordinating mind and body and ball for those few seconds, which seemed to stretch on for aeons. And the ball dropping into my hands like a bird landing in a nest, as securely as that.

Ian Henschke: And it didn't hurt your hands?

Gideon Haigh: Didn't hurt my hands. Didn't even feel it. And, look, I've dropped plenty of catches in my time. But just for some reason, that day I knew it wasn't going to happen. And ever since then, I've been able to understand cricket on the level of being the game that I think is probably the best one for companionship, because you spend inordinate amounts of time doing nothing in cricket, and doing nothing more than getting to know your fellow man. But also these experiences of great loneliness, of great purity, of an almost...a longing, a longing loneliness, those senses where it's just you and the ball and the moment.

Ian Henschke: Do you have any theory as to why cricket, then, is so popular in Pakistan and India, and yet it's never taken off in America?

Gideon Haigh: Well, I guess... From the point of view of... India does have something in common with Australia in the sense that cricket in those countries served both nationalist and imperialist ends. To play the game of cricket in India and in Australia was to express a kind of a fealty or a loyalty to the mother country. But there was also... It also served that desire for separation and for proving oneself to what was perceived to be a kind of a higher culture. So it was actually the game for all seasons and for all ends in those...

Ian Henschke: Will it ever be popular in America, though, or a world game?

Gideon Haigh: Certain forms of the game might be popular, but they will not be the forms of cricket that have become popular in those countries. We have a taste for duration. We have a taste for endurance. We have a taste for the ups and downs, the fasts and slows of cricket. I think if you were to introduce cricket to a culture now, there would be more of a pressure on it to be spectacular and immediately accessible and simple, because cricket is actually quite a complicated game on a...kind of a legislative basis.

Ian Henschke: Well, thank you very much.

Gideon Haigh: My pleasure, Ian. Cheers.