The news last week that Matthew Maynard is going to retire at the end of this coming season came as no great surprise.

As long ago as the middle of last summer I had spoken to him about this possibility because he felt that there was some spark missing from his game.

If there was, he certainly didn't show it, batting as well as ever in amassing 906 runs in first class cricket at a healthy average of 43.14 (fractionally above his very impressive career average) and 673 in one day cricket at an astonishing 61.18. But he says his body had had enough, that at 39 he cannot maintain the rigorous training schedule he has always set himself.

There are two ways of looking at this. One is it's good he has announced his intentions now so that Glamorgan can plan ahead- that the six weeks he is missing mid-season to coach the England one day team can be used to try out potential suitors.

The other viewpoint is that this is ridiculously early to be announcing such things and that so much can happen between now and the end of the season. Maynard has expressed his intentions to coach and apparently he made a fine job of being assistant to Duncan Fletcher during the winter in South Africa. But, of course, there is no guarantee there will be a permanent post for him when he retires. Or is there? I don't honestly know, even though there has been much speculation recently, indirectly linked to me because I am currently ghosting Fletcher's autobiography.

The very fact that Fletcher is writing a book has led many to assume that he must be thinking of finishing as England coach. That is wild speculation as far as I am concerned. Sometimes books are years in the making, sometimes a lot less. I wouldn't read too much into it. That Fletcher has enormous respect for the cricketing brain of Maynard cannot be denied. He has long wanted to get him involved in the England set-up and it was no surprise when he did so last winter. They work well together even if they are essentially very different characters.

As I wrote in my autobiography of the two of them when they were coach and captain at Glamorgan: "On the one hand, the quiet, conservative, reflective, sober (mostly!) and calculating coach; on the other, the extrovert, impulsive, hard-drinking and slightly crazy captain." Very different characters, but always bouncing ideas off each other so that the maximum benefit can be found for the team in which they are involved.

The announcement of Maynard's intended retirement was almost as badly handled as my retirement two years ago. Maynard has a regular column with a Cardiff-based evening newspaper, who were somewhat bemused - and no doubt a little angered - to find him telling his story to their sister daily paper. There would have been no malice intended by Maynard, just a bit of absent-mindedness.

Of course, he did have other things on his mind because his testimonial year has just begun and I was privileged enough to be at the launch of that at the Celtic Manor last Thursday. As you would expect from Maynard it was a typically boozy evening, with a host of stars such as Ian Botham, Robin Smith, Gareth Edwards and Max Boyce attending to show the level of respect with which Maynard is held within the sporting world.

There were some special auction items too, none more so than a case containing two bats -- the one with which he scored his debut century against Yorkshire in 1985 and the other with which he crafted his record-breaking 53rd century (beating the 52 by Alan Jones and Hugh Morris) for Glamorgan against Leicestershire last season.

That fetched a very healthy sum, as did a Wales rugby shirt signed by the grand slamming heroes. That particular item was bought by a current Glamorgan player, who plays a bit for England. Must be getting paid too much these days!!

I doubt if I was the only one who privately expressed concern pn Monday night when it was announced that there had been another earthquake off the Indonesian coast. The fear of another tsunami was almost too scary to contemplate, especially when one considers that Mike Powell and David Harrison were still in Sri Lanka at the end of their tour with England A, albeit in Colombo, one of the areas least affected by that terrible disaster on Boxing Day.

Thankfully for all concerned there was to be no wave this time and our two Glamorgan players were able to return home safely yesterday afternoon. Clearly Harrison had a much better tour than Powell, bowling well by all accounts, reserving his best figures (4-36) for his final match, despite being ill on the field due to the intense heat and humidity.

I was there at this time of year in 1998 and had warned them both about how bad it was, but it seems the whole tour party still struggled with coming to terms with such alien conditions. I thought Powell, with his hard hitting, might do a bit better than I did on my A tour, because my game was obviously based on urgent scurrying between the wickets- not the best idea in those temperatures.

But he struggled on some spicy pitches, though he has an immediate chance (as does Harrison) to make an early impression this season when he plays for MCC against Warwickshire at Lord's next week.