Changes

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself" - Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist and mystic (1828-1910)

"'Underprepared' is how I would describe this pitch," comments Sir Ian Botham, explaining to the already tortured Sky viewers just how difficult it will be to bat on a green Johannesburg track, "and any captain worth his salt will want to bowl first on this. He'll be asking his bowlers to aim at this area, just short of a length, where you can see a bloom of mushrooms has grown under the plastic covers."

Well, Graeme Smith is worth his salt as captain, and when Andrew Strauss calls incorrectly, he does indeed insert England. Smith sneers as Strauss looks him in the eye, thanks him and adds that he is looking forward to a good match. Smith goes back to his dressing room and tells Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn that he wants to hear Alastair Cook squeal with pain.

Smith's plan bears fruit very quickly. Strauss and Cook defend as well as they can, but debutant Wayne Parnell rattles Strauss' stumps with a ball that holds its off-stump line. Well done that lad: Wasim Akram would have been proud of that ball.

Cook follows the next over to a good one from Steyn, and Kevin Pietersen is brought to the crease. As he plays and misses his first three balls, he is left to reflect that the angry mob of young men who tormented his walk through the tunnel to the crease could just as easily be a metaphor for the demons running around his head.

"Out here, we either fight or we die" says fellow batsman Jonathan Trott. Pietersen pauses a moment, and then stops shaking. He walks back to his mark to face Steyn once more. The ball is on a length just outside on off-stump; the audience pause to see if he will play or leave. But a moment later they gasp, as he gets down on one knee, and sweeps the ball for six, in the style of England one day great Malachy Loye. As the ball flies through the thin air, the anxiety is almost visibly seen to leave Pietersen, like a cloud passing from a granite Welsh hilltop. By lunch, England are on 147-2 (Pietersen 85*, Trott 32*). Smith berates his bowlers.

Although Pietersen falls soon after lunch for an entertaining 109, his innings has by itself directed the flow of the match, and by close of play, England are looking in good shape on 347-5 (Trott Pietersen 109, Trott 128, Parnell 3-48).

On the second day, the ground is abuzz with speculation, following Paul Collingwood's inflammatory comments in The Johannesburg Telegraph that he is planning to "set his stall out" and bat out for the remaining four days for a draw. The South Africans are rattled, and the Sky cameras spy heated exchanges between Smith and Mickey Arthur before play. In any event, the conclusion of Smith and Arthur's "discussion" is that the England batsmen will be surrounded by close fieldsmen. This aggressive field placings enable overnight batsmen Collingwood and Matthew Prior to get off to a flyer, scoring 74 off the first ten overs, before Collingwood eventually starts giggling and admits the whole story about batting out the match was just a wind-up. Normal field settings then resume, but England have the initiative. They press on through the day, with Stuart Broad clouting a quickfire 72. England declare on 646 for 8, with ten overs of the day remaining.

Back in the Proteas' dressing room, Smith is furious with his bowlers. But he looks slightly foolish a few moments later, when he is trapped in front by a splendid ball from Graham Onions, that dips into the South African captain's pads at the last moment. Hashim Amla cannot do anything with the next ball, which pitches on middle and leg before swinging late to glide past his defensive shot onto his off-stump. Jacques Kallis keeps out the hat-trick ball though, and the South Africans are on 32-2 at the close of play. Back in the dressing room, Kallis jokes with Smith that even if Collingwood won't bat out the match, Kallis might; Smith guffaws, before pausing a moment to check that Kallis is actually joking.

By day 3, the sun and the wind have combined to relax the pitch at the Bull Ring, and the local South African crowd are treated to some excellent cricket. England bowl well, with Graeme Swann intelligently exploiting Parnell's foot-holes; but the South Africans bat better, and in the course of the day, England are only able to take four wickets. The accuracy of England's bowlers enable them to restrict the scoring, however, and whilst Jacques Kallis does score 124, he does take almost the entire day in doing so. It's not quite clear which team this benefits, but South Africa look safe at 378-6 (Kallis 124, Prince 99). The more significant question seems to be whether they can put England under any degree of pressure in the remaining two days.

Day 4 also seems some interesting cricket. The South African lower order bats with enterprise, and it's not long before the surpass the follow-on target 447. Since by that stage, South Africa are nine wickets down, there seems little point in continuing and Smith declares. So: England are 199 runs ahead, with five and a half sessions to play. South African hopes of victory are soon raised, as Strauss and Cook again fail: surely Collingwood won't be required to play another long one? Well, not immediately anyway, as Trott and Pietersen once again play enduring innings. This is a different sort of an innings from Pietersen though - it is clear he wants to grind the South Africans down. Likewise, nothing seems to break Trott's concentration. Even when tempers flare between Pietersen and Ashwell Prince (following some unsavoury "sledging" from Prince about Pietersen's golden retriever), Trott gazes calmly into the mid-distance, with that Mona Lisa half-smile so reminiscent of Duncan Fletcher. Trott is finally dismissed for 99, but following a rare Collingwood failure Ian Bell accompanies Pietersen to the close.

The final day is a miserable one for the South Africans. England finally declare an hour before tea, setting the South Africans exactly 500 to win in exactly 50 overs. James Anderson sees that Smith completes his pair, before the game is declared a draw as a thunderstorm rolls in. Smith wonders if the reaction by The Johannesburg Telegraph to the series defeat will also be thunderous.

Smith smiles politely at the presentation ceremony, but somewhere inside, he is suddenly struck by sadness. He realises he's been a fool for the previous seven years. Yes, he'd been trying to improve his team; perhaps even to inspire the Rainbow Nation as a whole in some way. But where has is left him? An embittered man, playing bitter and ill-spirited cricket. Was this it? He suddenly realised that despite all that history: the early years with the Pollock brothers, international isolation, re-emergence, and the Hansie Cronje affair, no lessons had been learned. But there it was, before him: the Basil D'Oliveira Trophy. The name said it all. Suddenly, Smith understood why people played cricket, and resolved to make a change.