Tour Diary

There are few better settings for a cricket ground than Newlands. It doesn’t matter how many times you come here (and sorry if you've read similar entries before), the backdrop of Table Mountain and the surrounding scenery still takes the breath away. Lord’s is a special ground because of its history and grandeur and the MCG is inspiring due to its sheer size, but Newlands matches them as one of the finest grounds in the world.

The evening before the third Test the media were generously entertained by the Western Province CEO Andre Odendaal for ‘sundowner’ drinks on the boundary edge. Down at ground level you really get an idea of the impact the mountain has over the ground and as the sun began to set it created a wonderful glow across the stadium.

Other than the gathering of journalists on the boundary (I wonder what a collective noun for a group of journos should be?) the ground was almost deserted with preparations complete for the next day’s Test. However, one other person very much still there was the security guard who kept a beady eye on those who dared encroach on the playing area.

To write about the fireworks display in Sydney on New Year’s Eve is nearly futile. Really it just has to be seen. We were right at the harbor in North Sydney for it, a piece of good fortune at par with being dropped on 99 when a maiden Test hundred beckons.

But for 15 minutes, to celebrate the end of the decade, the night sky exploded with colour and shape and hope. The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House stood proud in the backdrop though possibly bored for having seen it before. At times it was like being at those 3-D movies; sparklers bloomed out of the sky, right at you, coming closer and closer and yet not coming close at all. What anyone on hallucinogens might make of it I only wonder. The night might change their heads forever. It’s difficult not to feel good about any year that begins like this.

But almost as impressive was the aftermath.

Well, not many people expected that. South Africa routed by an innings and plenty. It’s not often England fans have been able to finish a year with such a celebration, and it won’t be surprising if some haven’t quite sobered up by the time the Newlands Test begins. There’s a New Year party to be had in Cape Town.

This job means I need to be a neutral observer of cricket but yesterday, and especially the fourth afternoon, will go down as something pretty memorable. England don’t win many Tests overseas – in fact, this was only their fourth since beating South Africa in Johannesburg in 2005. They've come a long way since Kingston and their demise for 51.

England’s success (and South Africa’s failure) was still being digested as the roadshow moved west to Cape Town – the highlight of any trip to these shores. Visiting fans had logged on to online copies of the papers from back home, while South Africans pored over their own media’s reaction to the innings defeat.

What heat came upon us in Melbourne. Having been a resident, at various times in my life, of Libya, Saudi Arabia and now Karachi, logic dictates I should be used to this. After all, I’ve played school football in the midday heat of Jeddah and Riyadh, apart from cricket in the summers. On summer vacations, we played tennis on outdoor courts in Karachi. Heat is the one thing I should be used to.

But as I went out for an early evening walk by the Yarra river yesterday – and it’s not a long walk from where we are – I had to turn back barely 300 metres into it. The sun is brutal here, absolutely brutal: Ashes to Ashes, dust to dust, if Lillee doesn’t get you then the sun must? It is at you all the time, with absolutely no respite, much like the best Australian fast bowlers I guess. It was the kind of day on which to exult in the very ineptness that prevented you from becoming a cricketer, for otherwise imagine playing in this heat.

In my defense, it is a dry heat and I am used to stickier, more humid conditions. And it probably wouldn’t have been such a shock to the system had it not been such a steep jump in temperature from previous days. The temperature rose 13 degrees in one day, to 38 degrees and that was at seven in the evening.

“Which team do you support?”

It’s one of the questions I’ve been asked most frequently in South Africa and it’s rarely asking about the cricket. Wherever you go people want to talk about football, and it isn’t only because the World Cup is quickly approaching.

The English Premiership has a huge following out here - and not just because of the Barmy Army. It helps that there are more TV sports channels than you can throw a stick at – seven at the last count from Supersport alone - which means almost every game is shown on the box. Because of the restrictions placed on broadcasting Saturday afternoon games back in the UK it’s actually possible to watch more games in South Africa.

There is something so revitalising in the way Australia goes about Test cricket, and not just on the field. They care deeply about it and it is as woven into the country's social fabric as it is in India and Pakistan - though in a very different way.

The Boxing Day Test is an instructive experience. To call it an institution might be doing it a disservice, only because institutions in some parts of the world also imply a monolithic staleness, rigidity and heaps of red tape. This is more a vibrant, moving event, and people of all ages and colour give it a real hum. It is a date for the social diary. Breakfasts and lunches are organised around and during the Test, spectators make a real day of it, and it is a day for family, a day for friends, and probably a day for love also. It's in the papers, on TV, floating around on the net. It could even be Glastonbury for the life it brings, but without the drugs and maybe more suits.

Part of it, as one MCC member put it, is because cricket has a fixed place in the Australian calendar; things can easily be built around it, or organised towards it. At the hotel I'm staying in, people are already trying to book in accommodation for next summer's Ashes Test. Indeed, it is a constant gripe about the subcontinent that their calendars are in no way fixed; there is no equivalent to the Boxing Day Test or the Lord's Test in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh. It is not entirely a problem of their own making, of course, but it isn't as if there are no solutions to it.

With the bad-light issues that often plague Durban Tests it’s tempting to suggest a few more days would be useful to engineer a result. But 70 years ago there was an occasion when even 10 days wasn’t enough.

Kingsmead is famous for having hosted the last timeless Test, where South Africa faced England from March 3 to 14 in 1939. There was play on nine days, there were two rest days, and one was washed out before further rain ended played at tea on the 10th day with England 42 short of an unthinkable pursuit of 696. At that point the tourists had to say enough was enough as they had a boat to catch in Cape Town – a 1000-mile train journey away – and the two captains, Wally Hammond of England and Alan Melville of South Africa, agreed to a draw. All that effort and still no result.

Among the many pictures that cover the walls of the main stand at Kingsmead there a few commemorating that game, including the famous image of the scoreboard showing England’s final score of 654 for 5. Spare a thought for the bowlers, too. Hedley Verity sent down 95 overs (766 balls) and Norman Gordon, the one survivor from the match, bowled 92 in the game.

It's taken three days to do a diary, and it's not that Melbourne is dull – far from it, in fact. But what can you really write about a beautiful city with a bright and humble skyline, naturally built for walking, home to more cultures than is generally thought, where everything seems to work, the queues are orderly, the people mostly polite, the electricity on, and water can be had from the tap? Only the weather is tempestuous.

There was a certain drunken weekend boorishness to proceedings in the city centre over Christmas and that can be intimidating if you're not drunk yourself, or new. I'm told it's harmless, and I think most of it might be good-natured, but there is a fine line to these things. And as I walked down the spookiest bridge I've ever walked down, late one night, with a man of no hair and much drink jogging to nowhere in particular along the same path for much of my journey, I shivered and scuttled a little. Newspaper headlines about attacks on Indian students here.

The William Barak footbridge improves the link between the MCG and the Rod Laver arena to the heart of Melbourne CBD (Central Business District). Barak was an early, influential aboriginal advocate for social justice, and also an artist; the 525m bridge named after him is actually is as pleasant as things of concrete can be.

A belated Merry Christmas from Durban. I hope those back home enjoyed their turkey and stuffing. It was steak from the braai out here.

Both teams trained on Christmas Day but it’s fair to say there wasn't an outpouring of festive spirit. There was only the one Santa hat on view as Graeme Smith got into the act, but with England it looked like any other training session. Cricket, it seems, is a serious business whatever the time of year. Stories have been doing the rounds of what it used to be like on tour at Christmas before players and media became much more segregated. Nowadays it’s very much them and us.

However, Boxing Day Tests are a special occasion whether held in Melbourne, where Australia are facing Pakistan, or here at Kingsmead. It's a focal point in the calendar and for South Africa it's their first at home in two years after being down under last Christmas.

But's it's probably more of an event for the travelling fans. Durban has been steadily filling up with England supporters in recent days and they all made a bee-line for the grass banks. Santa hats and tinsel were in good supply, but sunscreen and sunglasses were equally important.

It’s 10 years ago that Kevin Pietersen’s life changed forever. When England were touring in 1999-2000, Pietersen lined up against Nasser Hussain’s team for KwaZulu-Natal. He scored 61 at No. 9 and took 4 for 141 with his offspin. He also began enquiring about opportunities in county cricket and soon set off for a new home.

Pietersen is trying to insist this forthcoming Test will be like any other game, but a match-winning performance at Durban, his former home ground, would come pretty near the top of his career highlights. Meanwhile, Graeme Smith hopes the emotion gets to him and South Africa can take advantage.

There are a host of stories about Pietersen’s early years growing up in KwaZulu-Natal and almost everyone involved has had their say in the intervening years, especially since Pietersen made his England debut in 2004 and his first return to South Africa in early 2005. But it’s still fascinating to recall that he wasn't expected to crack the big time.