When the Cape Town Test was moved from Boxing Day to the New Year I was pretty gutted as I was hoping to go, and the teacher holiday would have allowed for the Boxing Day Test but not one starting on the 3rd. As things turned out I was to return to England for another hernia operation anyway, so it was all academic.

When Test Matches go to the full five five days, and especially deep in to the last session, it is a treat. I left school after a pretty good workshop (to be fair) on Dyslexia, and drove the Toyota Colorado up to the local bar Smileys. I need to reboot my DSTV (Sky) subscription but that requires jumping on the back of a ‘boda’ (motorcycle taxi), scooting into town, queuing, and paying money to kick start another month or so. The lazy and time saving option was to just drive to the bar.

It was 4 months ago, and in the same place that I watched Ben Stokes keep the Ashes alive at Headingley. This time it was his bowling at the death that won through. For a few minutes I believed he might just do it with a hat-trick. It was a superb team effort, and I’m sad I missed watching us beat the Saffers at Cape Town for the first time since 1957, but at least the hernia operation is over with.