How Broad bamboozled the South Africans

It's only one game and South Africa can still win the series; when they start again at Newlands, the scoreboard will show 0 for 0 and anything can happen over the following five days; England should not start getting ahead of themselves and believing that it will be a cakewalk from here on in. All that is true, but there is no reason why any England fan out in the streets today shouldn't have at least a little dance about the result at Kingsmead. Only a few weeks ago, South Africa were the number-one-rated team while England bobble around in mid-table, and yet they were utterly crushed. Victories that comprehensive and impressive need to be celebrated.

But they also need to be explained, and explaining this one is a toughie. Of course South Africa can be beaten in a Test match, but they don't get beaten by an innings that easily. Australia did it during their period of dominance, now happily ended, and Sri Lanka did it a couple of times when Muttiah Muralitharan ran amok, but ordinary sides – and England are definitely an ordinary side – do not thrash South Africa like that.

South African batsmen, when in trouble, get their heads down and block for hour after tedious hour. It ain't pretty, but it's effective. They may still lose, but it's after at least a day's batting and they don't get rolled over for 133. No-one exemplifies this better than Jacques Kallis.

So, in company with Sherlock Holmes, we come to the curious incident of the shot which Kallis played at Stuart Broad. And when we point out that he played no shot at all, Holmes replies that that is the curious incident: why would a batsman of Kallis's calibre play no shot to a ball which was going to knock his stumps over? If we can work that one out, then it is probable that the same will apply to AB de Villiers and J-P Duminy, who also failed to offer shots to balls bowled by Broad and departed as a result.

Some will no doubt talk of the pressure caused by having to bat with no prospect of winning the game or of the superb length, direction and movement of Broad's bowling, but these are not factors which would normally cause Kallis' brain to freeze.

Now, if you watch the replay of the whole delivery, it is apparent that Kallis simply did not see the ball until it was too late: after hearing the death rattle he took a long, hard look at the spot where the ball had pitched, as though the ball had suddenly emerged from there without warning.

My theory is that Broad has somehow acquired the ability to make things temporarily invisible to specific people. Most of the time he has to use it on the umpire at his end to hide his ridiculously petulant antics and thereby avoid being reported to the match referee – a far more satisfying explanation for his lack of a ban so far than Sunil Gavaskar's conspiracy allegation – but occasionally he takes the risk of being seen by the umpire in order to bamboozle batsmen. After tea on day four Kallis, de Villiers and Duminy were successively blinded so that they played no shot, with the results we all saw.

The alternative explanation is that the South Africans were simply batting abysmally, and that is so unlikely as to be ruled out by anyone sensible.

Well, that's my theory and even if you think it's baloney, here's wishing you and yours as happy and prosperous a New Year as is possible in these troubled times.