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Have the Ntini of Your Life

Those of us who chose watching the England cricketers’ recent trip to South Africa over the upcoming FIFA World Cup can be smug on a few counts; firstly, we could watch the game lying down on one of the sloping grass banks and throw five pints of Castle down our necks for the sum total of eleven quid. Then there was the fact that we were caking ourselves in Factor 25 while those in the UK braved the coldest winter since weather was invented. Maybe most importantly though, those of us who picked the Durban and Cape Town tests saw an underhyped Three Lions side play with pride and grit as England landed a thumping win and a courageous draw from the two fixtures.

If our two weeks in the sun are anything to go by the football travellers will have a great time. The only proviso is that people are wary and streetwise – stick together in groups, take taxis when it gets dark, bring the minimum amount of cash out with you, that sort of thing. The only unpleasantness we saw was a lone English lad of about 20 getting threatened outside a newsagents. “Buy us some biscuits or we’ll knife you” is probably an unconventional threat but it isn’t exactly what you want to hear when you step off a plane in a foreign country.

If you can afford the eye watering air fares then the cost of living once out there may ease the pain a little. No doubt prices will be jacked up all over the place but with lager at just over £1 a pint and nice meals available for under a tenner there’s plenty of room for manoeuvre until they reach Middlesbrough never mind Mayfair prices. It was refreshing to hear that taxis would remain metred during the World Cup in the cities we visited too, although whether that happens in practice will be an interesting one.

What cricket can never match football for though is the feeling that you’re at the focal point of the planet when the matches are being played. It being a minority sport (congratulations here to Giles Clarke of the ECB for taking it off terrestrial TV), the 1,500 England fans at Durban and 5,000 at Cape Town were, however, rewarded with a more relaxed South Africa away from hordes of police and officials. The locals that we mixed with in the grounds were friendly to a man - and stunning almost to a woman - and the opposition’s legendary bowler Makhaya Ntini even laid on free beer for the England fans to celebrate his 100th Proteas appearance. The famous Spitting Image sketch never felt less apt.

Enjoy the scenery, absorb the sun, get behind the side. If you respect South Africa it may just wow you.

Tom Bright