Crate expectations

With Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior and now Jonathan Trott in their line-up, England are heavily reliant on South African-born batsmen. As a tour of that country begins, are England at all worried that these players might run away?

Head coach Andy Flower has few concerns. "Obviously, with any tour, there's always going to be a danger of one of the cricketers escaping. All we can do is take the proper precautions, act sensibly and everything should be okay."

But surely this tour is more problematic than most, with the likes of Pietersen and Trott pining for biltong and wide-open spaces. Won't they become more difficult to contain if they're exposed to these temptations?

"Yes, that's true," agrees Flower. "We have to acknowledge that there are perhaps special circumstances here. We treat every tour as unique and security differs accordingly."

So what's being done on this tour above and beyond normal security measures?

"We've brought in special transportation crates for the four South African-born players. The crates are perfectly humane and meet all international guidelines pertaining to the transportation of cricketers. Experts have examined them and they're sufficiently large to meet legal requirements. They're also robust enough to ensure that the cricketer can't escape, even if it gets agitated - perhaps after smelling a braai."

Which leads us on to the next point: the controversial sensory-deprivation tactics England used to keep their South African batsmen from getting riled in years gone by. It was rumoured that Robin Smith spent two whole months blindfolded when England toured in 1995.

"Obviously I can't comment on what's happened in the past," says Flower, "but we're not going to deny them their sense of smell or anything like that. We think a more enlightened approach is to deliberately expose them to stimuli that they will associate with England. This should keep them placid and remind them that they are, first and foremost, England cricketers.

"We're going to position their transportation crates so that they can see televisions, and we've been recording grim, soul-destroying British television programmes like Eastenders and The X-Factor for the past few weeks. We're going to play those on a loop. They'll get breaks every now and again, and at those points we'll feed them bacon butties and milky tea."

So far, so well thought-out, but is there not a danger that one of the cricketers will bide its time and make a bid for escape during a one-day international?

Flower rubbishes this suggestion. "You're making the mistake of anthropomorphising professional cricketers. They're not like you. Their brains work in a simpler way that's more based on instinct. Any urge to flee to the veld would be uncontainable and they'd just make a dash for it. The only time this might happen is when travelling, when they might inadvertently be exposed to some form of local culture. The rest of the time they're in hotels or cricket grounds, so they've no way of knowing where they are."

"We've also got some tranquilisers for emergencies," he adds.