Tour Diary

Despite the fact that he was nearing his 37th birthday, Basil D'Oliveira was considered a certainty when England's selectors met on August 28 1968 to pick a team to tour South Africa. A day earlier, England had managed to draw the Ashes series, with D'Oliveira's first-innings 158 instrumental in a 226-run victory at The Oval. But with many in the corridors of power being fossils from the days of Empire, D'Oliveira's name was left off the list, a display of spinelessness that delighted South Africa's pernicious Apartheid regime.

Those with a conscience protested against the blatantly political decision and when Tom Cartwright pulled out through injury, Dolly - as he was known - was called up. But there would be no triumphant return to the Southern Cape for one of South Africa's greatest cricketing sons. Enraged by the MCC going back on its initial decision, John Vorster's government refused to let D'Oliveira play on its soil. The tour was scrapped and though they thumped Australia 4-0 in a home series a year later, South Africa were soon to feel the cold touch of international isolation.

D'Oliveira, who was born in Signal Hill in Cape Town, never graced Newlands, a venue befitting the stature of a player who averaged 40.06 despite making all his 44 appearances in his twilight years. In an attempt to make amends for that, the Sunday Times Centenary Heritage Project unveiled an art memorial outside the stadium gates half an hour before South Africa and India started off their one-day international.

The massive media interest in this series has been a blessing in disguise for any member of the press corps who enjoys a bit of atmosphere while they go about their work. The modern trend in press boxes is for uber-sanitised sardine cans, usually stuffed deep in the bowels of the stand behind the bowler’s arm, where 50 sweaty hacks seem to breathe the same recycled air for five days on end, and hardly a peep from the stands gets through the sound-proofed walls.

But for this Test the pattern is very different. With every man and his dog wanting a share of the Ashes action, the Gabba authorities have had to erect a temporary gantry high in the Vulture Street End. They’ve obliterated 400 precious seats to do so, but the treasurer’s loss is journalism’s gain, as we perch on our precarious-looking scaffolds and peer down on the action below. A full Gabba is a truly impressive sight, with its uniform bullring seating towering over the players in the middle, and it‘s a blessing to be out in the midst of it, sampling the real atmosphere.

Omar Henry now coaches the university cricket team in Stellenbosch, but as recently as two years ago, he was convener of the selection panel that picked the side to tour India (2004-05). These days, Henry, who became the first Coloured cricketer to play for South Africa in 1992-93, focuses more on his family, and his 14-year-old son Riyad, who aspires to be a seam bowler, rather than a spinner like his old man.

"I loved the work I did with Cricket South Africa," says Henry, "but you spend so much time away from home that you wonder whether it's worth it." It's a feeling that the likes of Graham Thorpe and Marcus Trescothick have expressed in the past, but with the game's administrators interested only in shoehorning in more and more matches, who's listening?

The drive from Johannesburg to Durban is a beautiful one, but once you enter Kwa Zulu Natal, you pass the scene of many a battle. There's Estcourt, where King Dingane's Zulu warriors massacred the Voortrekkers from the western cape, and Volkrust (The nation rests), where Boer soldiers gathered to regroup after the first war of independence. Perhaps it's a good thing that an embattled Indian team subjected to relentless criticism in recent months flew down, even if it meant skipping the chance to pass through towns like Pietermaritzburg, where Mahatma Gandhi was thrown off the train.

Kingsmead occupies a special place in South African cricket lore. It was here that Graeme Pollock scored the last of his seven Test centuries, an epic 274 (401 balls) that inspired a crushing innings-and-129-run thumping of Bill Lawry's Australians. Along the way, he added 103 with Barry Richards, who smashed 20 fours and a six en route to 140 in only his second Test.

	Brisbane: hillier than you might think

Brisbane is an unexpectedly hilly place. For a first-time visitor, brought up on endless brochure photos of Australia's vast and barren outback, it can sometimes seem as though the only hummock in the entire land is at Ayres Rock. Here, though, the streets rise and fall like something lifted straight from San Francisco. Minus the trams of course. They were dispensed with in the 1960s, presumably because the demand for public transport was so underwhelming.

It's an incongruous city. Peaceful almost to the point of self-parody, the locals have their tongues wedgely firmly in cheeks (I think!) when they dub the place "Bris Vegas" or "BrisneyLand". Even the Interstate Highways are unknowingly comical with their large-letter signposts on the slip roads. "No Tractors, No Animals, No Pedestrians" they scream on one side. "Wrong Way! Go Back!" bellows the other in unmissable white-on-red characters. I can't imagine the M25 ever has such a problem.

It's a country town made good. The tuft of skyscrapers in the Central Business District is proof that Brisbane has shrugged off its reputation as a backwater, as indeed is the new-look Gabba – although this vast speckle-seated amphitheatre with room for 42,000 punters is so far removed from its roots that it's almost impossible to recall the grassy banks and dog track that once made the ground so unique. Impressive it most certainly is, and a fitting venue for Thursday's showdown of a lifetime. But the redevelopment is not to everyone's taste.

What remains on the outside of the ground is perhaps as revealing as what lurks within. Take the wonderfully monickered Vulture Street for instance, one of the most evocative names in the game. This is a road that turned out to be exactly as I imagined it. A little bit dingy, a little bit ugly, but strangely majestic nonetheless. Okay, so there weren't any big hook-beaked birds circling over the carcasses of road-killed ‘roos (to give my mind's eye its full and warped licence), but there was a wonderfully grotty 7-Eleven shopping centre, situated just a stone's throw from the main entrance to the ground.

Queensland amply lives up to its billing as the Sunshine State. This is a land where summer lasts for six months, spring and autumn compete for four, and winter is a moveable feast that seems to have been abolished since the turn of the Millennium. Aside from the odd insubstantial cloudburst, there has not been a significant downpour in these parts since 2001, and in that time, the wicket at the Gabba has stepped out from the crowd and been officially anointed as the fastest strip in the land.

The sun tends to rise at 4.30am up here (a habit that plays havoc with those suffering from jet-lag) and hangs high in the sky for hours on end, beating down mercilessly on anyone who ventures out in the midday heat – people such as the knot of journalists who rocked up to the Brisbane Grammar School ground in Northgate today, to watch Australia's latest training session.

If the battle of Waterloo really was won on the playing fields of Eton, then England might as well surrender forthwith in their battle for the Ashes. The Grammar School grounds, situated just off the motorway and a stone's throw from the airport, consist of a vast expanse of yellowing spongy grass, sculpted into three immaculate ovals and overseen by a grandstand pavilion that wouldn't look out of place at The Rose Bowl.

As the drizzle continued and an expectant crowd gradually emptied out, the stadium’s sound system keeps up a steady stream of modern rock hits to keep the feet tapping, even as the skies above the beautiful green outfield become ever darker. There was not much to do at the Wanderers but sample the grub and wander the corridors, bumping into a childhood hero or two. With so many cricket luminaries on commentary, the easiest thing to do to pass the time was to think up a dream team based on those present, either with SABC, SuperSport or ESPN-Star.

The first name on the teamsheet was invariably the easiest. For most Indians of my generation, and especially those fortunate enough to watch that matchless 96 in his farewell Test, the very idea of anyone else opening the batting is almost sacrilegious. Alongside Sunil Gavaskar would be a man who many reckoned was in the same league, someone who scored 508 runs in four Tests before South Africa’s dubious politics ended his international career. Barry Richards’s attacking ways would also be the perfect foil for Gavaskar’s more studied approach.

With rain dampening the spirits and chilling the bones, South Africa's cricketers have to traverse the 35km to SuperSport Pak in Centurion to get some outdoor practice in. As we follow the same trail, we see vast empty plains that are a far cry from the organised streets and bustle of Sandton where the Indian team is staying.

As you approach the ground, you begin to see glimpses of South Africa's unsavoury past. Centurion itself was formerly Verwoerdburg, named after Hendrik Verwoerd, prime architect of Apartheid and a man whose tenure saw the Sharpeville massacre and Nelson Mandela's trial for treason. The road to the stadium is also redolent of the past - John Vorster Drive being a tribute to the prime minister whose intransigence over Basil D'Oliveira's inclusion in England's tour party (1970) led to the Springboks feeling the cold touch of isolation for two decades.

The streets are nearly deserted as we drive towards the stadium gate, and a journalist who was present for the India-Pakistan clash during the 2003 World Cup summons up memories of the day when the entire area was awash with flags and banners from the subcontinent. Centurion is now home to the Nashua Titans, formerly Northern Transvaal, and a franchise that has traditionally been one of the lesser powers in the domestic scheme of things. As you walk into reception, you're greeted by pencil sketches of some of the stars, both yesteryear and current, but apart from Fanie de Villiers, who scripted that epic win in Sydney in January 1994, there are few names that would be recognised the world over. The Wanderers or Newlands it certainly isn't.

It can’t fail to impress you. You might have seen the beauty of the Adelaide Oval, the colourful chaos of Eden Gardens and the awe-inspiring amphitheatre that is the MCG on Boxing Day. But there’s something about the Wanderers, even with the stands empty and the field abandoned, that makes you aware of the history of the place. For the Johnny Come Latelys, it’s where South Africa chased down 434 to win a one-day match against Australia last March, but for those who like to go back a little further, it’s a venue graced by the likes of Dudley Nourse, Hugh Tayfield, Neil Adcock, Graeme Pollock and the legendary Transvaal sides of the 1970s and ’80s, many of whom never got to play an international game.

Greg Chappell played here with an invitational side in the mid-70s, and has no doubts about the quality of the team he faced then. “I’d say that West Indies [of the late ’70s and ’80s], the current Australians and our lot in the mid-70s were the best sides that I’ve ever watched. This bunch was as good, definitely in that bracket,” he said, referring to the likes of Pollock, Barry Richards, Clive Rice, Vincent van der Bijl and Garth le Roux.

With a mere smattering of people inside the grounds, we can afford to walk in through the players’ tunnel, and the grassy embankment on one side offers a breathtaking view, both of the pavilion on one side and the building that houses the media centre on the other. As some of us shake off our jetlag, we pose for pictures, and even lie down on the grass. Player or journalist, most of us were fans first, and when you stare up at the view and the sky above, your faith in the beautiful game – shaken by the scandals of the past few months – is restored.

At Hawa Mahal, that most famous of Jaipur landmarks, in the heart of the district known as the Pink City, a procession straight out of a mini zoo held up traffic. There were two elephants, decked out in finery at the head, a clutch of camels behind them, and then horses, giving way to people on foot. They were celebrating – quite obviously and noisily, oblivious to the fact that they had brought traffic to a grinding halt – and part of the celebrations was some genius setting off firecrackers. One particularly loud boom, and the elephants had taken it enough, they began to backtrack, and the camels, fearing for their lives, followed suit, sending the whole procession into pandemonium. If he had scripted a scene to capture with his camera, Imran Khan, the West Indian media manager, could not have come up with something better.