South Africa

Feeder club for the England National Cricket Team. Appears to have recently decided to form some sort of breakaway country, governed by a large man with thirty seven wives. Specialises in wicket-keeper/batsmen who like to send the ball into orbit (see de Villiers, AB, Kieswetter, Craig and Prior, Matt).

Identity crisis

Early days in the domestic season, but Essex all-rounder Ryan ten Doeschate has emerged as an early contender for MVP award. He has a lot in common with much of the England limited overs side insofar as he was born in South Africa and is quite good in the limited overs formats. That has led to understandable suggestions that ten Doeschate could be next in line. Not so, says the Essex tyro in an interview with BBC Sport. "There's nothing English about me", he said, which is fair enough. However, he then goes on to add "I'm South African through and through".

Short memory, then, about his 26 ODIs and 9 T20 internationals for the Netherlands.

Insight you cannot buy

In today's Guardian, Duncan Fletcher is back. The former England coach has been a regular in the pages of said periodical since he left his previous post and, frankly, his column has been as full of the same banalities as his press conferences and the same loyalties to the same, small coterie of players as typified and, ultimately, brought down the Fletcher era.

This week, Fletcher is talking about the South Africans and the threats that they will pose. His three players to watch were the most eye-catching part of the piece, the rest of it being the sleep-inducing rubbish we're accustomed to. With his wide ranging knowledge of the game and tactical insights, could we expect him to highlight someone that's maybe slipped under the radar a little? Perhaps an up-and-coming youngster unknown to English audiences? Yeah, right. Instead he's gone for Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis and Dale Steyn. That's 241 Tests combined scoring 17102 runs and taking 436 wickets between them. Hardly going out on a limb. Why not inform us about Wayne Parnell, even if he is well known to county audiences, and Yusuf Abdulla, the two young left-arm seamers who look the real deal? No mention of Roloef van der Merwe moving from a one-day specialist to the Test arena or the exciting batting of Loots Bosman.

He played it safe, too safe at times, as a coach, and so it continues as a columnist.

Next test for England

It's South Africa next for England and the touring parties were announced yesterday. Dare we suggest that common sense seems to have broken out at ECB headquarters? Gone are Steve Harmison and Monty Panesar and about time too.

Harmison's been a good servant for England, but looking back on his career, that patch from the West Indies tour in 2004 to the Ashes in 2005 looks like the blip rather than the dross he's served up at other times. On a hard, bouncy track - an archetypal Old Trafford wicket for instance - there are few better, but there's always that nagging doubt that the next ball will go flying over second slip's head and away for four wides. Harmison is yesterday's man and the time is right to leave that behind and move on.

Monty isn't yesterday's man. Neither does he look like tomorrow's. His lack of variation means he's very easy to read - compare and contrast to the unreadable Ajantha Mendis - and he's fallen behind Graeme Swann and Adil Rashid. Finally, Rashid is in the squad and though it looks unlikely that anyone would play two spinners in South Africa, his progression is something to celebrate.

The main headline is the inclusion of four South Africa-born players now that Jonathan Trott has become a fixture. Kevin Pietersen is in, as expected, though it remains to be seen how fit he'll be.

This tour represents England's first since the retirement of Andrew Flintoff. In comes Luke Wright to the Test squad. Luke Wright. Test player? Really? I don't see it myself.

Collapse in Centurion

What a difference a few days make. On Friday in Durban, South Africa collapsed something awful, routed by 141 runs with Nathan Hauritz taking 4 wickets (what happened to Jason Krezja? I thought he looked quite promising!).

Fast forward to Sunday at SuperSport Park, and the signs weren't good. Australia winning the toss on a superb batting track, full of confidence off the back of their big win where Michael Hussey had finally got in gear. It was seemingly all set for a high-scoring game.

Only it didn't work out like that. In a display that can only be summarised as woefully un-Australian, the Ocker top order completely folded, surrendering to some masterful pace bowling by Dale Steyn and the precocious 19-year-old left-armer Wayne Parnell. Brad Haddin played on in the first over, Michael Clarke continued his awful run of form that has seen many Aussie fans call for him to be dropped, and Ricky Ponting, after getting off the mark first ball with a pull shot for six, edged behind off the former U19 skipper Parnell.

Things got worse. David Hussey, who might score lots of runs in county cricket but is plainly not up to it at this level, played an awful thrash to give his wicket away (when he's not running his partners out, as he did at Kingsmead). His older brother was completely flummoxed by a Parnell slower ball. In truth, only Callum Ferguson (a patient 50) and Mitchell Johnson provided any resistance as they limped to 131 all out. On a pitch that good, it was criminal and South Africa showed how easy it was to score on this pitch by knocking the runs off at 5-an-over.

While Australia shone in the test series and are probably still good value for their number 1 spot in the five-day format, they are proving themselves to be less than coherent in the 50-over game (although not nearly as deficient as England, steady on). South Africa appear simply more dynamic, with more bowling options and batting further down as well. After so many retirements of star players, a bit of a transitional period is to be expected by Cricket Australia will be worried by successive ODI series delivering problems as looks to be the case here.