In the waiting room with Jakes, Chef and Broady

The door opened. Jacques Kallis entered and spoke to the receptionist.

"I have an appointment about my rib problem," he said.

"Certainly, sir," said the receptionist.

"I got to the buffet and Graeme Smith had been and had the lot," said Kallis, visibly upset. "There was hardly anything left and it's not fair. I've written a letter. I had to make do with just a few steaks and some chicken in jam and a trifle."

A figure looked up from playing Grand Theft Auto IX: Downtown Joburg on his Portable Nintendo Wii 360.

"Hiya Jacques," said Alastair Cook. "What are you in for?"

"I'm wasting away here," said Kallis. "Ribs. What about you?"

"I've picked up a bit of a back niggle," said Cook. "It's probably the pressures of leadership. A lot of great leaders have suffered from dodgy backs - Atherton, Brearley, Alexander The Great, the Green Power Ranger from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers."

"Oh ja," said Kallis. "Trotty was saying that you were not feeling too great."

"Trotty?" said Cook. "When did he tell you that?"

"Yesterday," said Kallis. "In the team meeting. Trotty was walking down the corridor. He heard Smith shouting in Afrikaans about mentally disintegrating Andrew Strauss and got confused. He thought it was Pietersen showing his full support for the England regime, went in the wrong dressing room and there you go."

Another patient looked up from his BlackBerry.

"I'm in a right old state," said Graeme Swann. "It's my side. I fear it may have split from all these hilarious tweets."

"You think you've got problems," said Stuart Broad. "First I had that operation to transplant in a really good cricketing brain for a young lad, then I had all those problems with my buttocks."

"Oh yeah," said Cook. "You did have to put up with a lot of kissing in that area after you bowled those three good overs in just the one match last summer."

"Too right," said Broad. "And now it's my shoulders. I can't keep carrying this team for ever, you know. Now I understand how Fred felt."

"Mr Flintoff?" said the receptionist. "One of our best customers. At least, until that unfortunate incident with the oxygen chamber and the stolen canister of helium that led to his rescue by the South African air force."

All present stood to salute the talismanic allrounder (or at least all those who could stand without feeling a niggle), before a nurse dispensed isotonic sports-recovery drinks to the England players and a small jug of gravy to Kallis.