Delight in the downfall of one's own

One of the many ways of taking your mind off the facts that you're hurtling far too fast down a South African freeway, your driver is on his mobile phone, his hands are only roughly in the same postcode as the wheel, and he is liberally overtaking on the inside - or am I just being an uptight Englishman? - is to construct a list of reasons why the Indian Premier League is a Good Cricketing Experience. I find this works a treat, especially when, as my taxi did the other day, you pass a car in the fast lane… on its roof.

The idea that Twenty20 cricket is not, in fact, cricket at all has taken hold among those who compare it continuously to Tests, as if chalk and cheese ever had anything to do with each other. But one of the most intriguing aspects of the IPL is the chance for players to get one over their compatriots and thus establish a lifelong advantage in the highly competitive realm of dressing-room banter.

Generally this works best when the successful combatant is less illustrious than his victim, although Fidel Edwards' pumped-up pleasure the other day when he dismissed Dwayne Bravo, one of his closest friends, suggests some pecking orders are very much up for grabs. But the idea that top-class cricketers are getting high on the misery caused to their fellow countrymen has made for compelling viewing. You should try it.

Yesterday in Centurion, where the locals felt so at home that by the end of the evening some of them were drunkenly assailing Muttiah Muralitharan with witless cries of "no-ball", the phenomenon was in full swing from the first over of the double-header. When Dirk Nannes got rid of Adam Gilchrist, it felt like the stuff of wild dreams for a bloke who, although born in Mount Waverly, will represent the Netherlands at the Twenty20 World Cup this year. (Just imagine if there's a bit of juice in the Lord's wicket on June 5: England could be 10 for 3…)

Nannes' pinch-me-quick demeanour is heightened on a daily basis by the fact that he is currently keeping Glenn McGrath out of the side, but his delight may have been nothing next to the animal roar emitted by RP Singh after he was grateful to see Herschelle Gibbs get in the way of Virender Sehwag's hand-wringing cut in the fourth over of Delhi's reply. For sheer joy it was up there with Morne van Wyk, standing in as Kolkata keeper in Durban the other day, catching his fellow South African Jacques Kallis, now of Royal Challengers Bangalore.

It's not always easy to look at the details when the IPL is forever hammering you with the bigger picture, but - as with last year - the competition's subplots remain one its greatest assets. As for the English (and at the risk of repeating myself) we've had to make do with a couple of very tame head-to-heads. First, Kevin Pietersen kept out Dimitri Mascarenhas' hat-trick ball on the tournament's opening day. Then he sent down four offbreaks to Andrew Flintoff. Breathtaking it was not.

I'm sure the games of poker between Paul Collingwood and Owais Shah have been the height of tension, but somehow it just isn't the same.