The shift means no more wandering along the Severn River looking at swans or the Cathedral; no more strolls through the city centre admiring the Tudor houses from the 1500s in Friar Street, or looking at the public clocks that all show different times.

Before leaving the New Road ground one day I saw David Leatherdale, the county’s former batting allrounder, walking through the stands and was reminded of one of Steve Waugh’s sledges. While outlining the weakness of county cricket in his 1997 tour diary, Waugh wrote that someone with the skills of Leatherdale couldn’t get a bowl in a Chinese restaurant, even though he had taken 5 for 10 in a one-dayer against the tourists.

Five years later and Waugh, playing for Kent, runs into Leatherdale and is bowled for 3. The Australians aren’t talking so tough on this tour and for a good reason. Unlike Waugh and his men, this group isn’t sure how good it is.

The coach Tim Nielsen, who led the talk on the final day, has had a busy match correcting some basic technical flaws in a couple of his first-choice players. Marcus North admitted he wasn’t watching the ball in his first three innings of the trip, but after some sessions with Nielsen he regained his focus. On Friday he started with a calming century and today he finished with a brutal blast against some declaration bowling to finish with 191 not out.

Brad Haddin chipped in with a bright 25, but his keeping is the discipline needing the greater lift. He lunged to miss two catches in the first innings and at the end of the third day was working with Nielsen on staying low and keeping his weight on his toes to help his footwork in both directions. At crucial moments on the field he had been on his heels and the remedial session continued on the final morning. It’s strange that even full-time professionals forget the basics.

***

The sombre finish to the tour game could not even be sweetened by cakes from the ladies’ pavilion today. Fortunately we were warned that the tea enthusiasts don’t work on the last afternoon so we stocked up on the opening three days.

“It’s a calorie-free zone up here,” one of the women said during the week to make everyone feel better about their indulgence. It’s such a lie. There are cakes everywhere. It’s more like a cholesterol factory than a flour-stained old building, and at 3pm it was the most popular part of the New Road ground.

For three days the line dropped down the steps of the pavilion and moved slowly towards the sort of spread Homer Simpson dreams of when he falls asleep in church. Three types of sponge, cranberry scones, teacake, date cake, normal scones, chocolate cake, lemon twist cake and other cakes without names. All for 80p a slice. There seemed to be an unofficial limit of two pieces per person, but there were people with paper plates in both hands swearing they were fulfilling orders for friends.

“There’s not much to it,” he said. “It’s a little sport in country Australia. With an axe, you stand on top of a bit of wood and the first one through wins.”

He was a good axeman as a child but did it only for a couple of years, thinking more of his safety than the prize ribbons. “It was part of the reason I wanted to get rid of it,” he said. “If I wanted to play sport in the future I thought I should probably give it up. I’d need all my body parts.”

Since then his main problem has been a series of serious shoulder injuries, but they haven’t stopped him from growing into one of the side’s main men. Expect him to cut through a few batsmen in Cardiff.

Perhaps Sri Lankans are too laid back, but that intangible edginess that exists a day before a Test is not there. This state of affairs makes one feel edgy, as if something is not right. There is no banter between journalists from the two countries. Actually there is nobody from the Pakistan media here yet. There are no nosy law enforcers frisking bags at various points on the way to the ground. There is no haughty curator to stop one from taking a look at the pitch, or to watch from up close Kaushal Silva and Tillakaratne Dilshan practise wicketkeeping.

There is no media frenzy either. Kumar Sangakkara comes to a press conference, sits, chats, laughs as if we are his friends. Apart from the sponsors’ board in the background, there is Nothing Official About It. Younis Khan (does he ever get grim?) is his giggly self. Says he will miss Murali’s company, because when is he under pressure, he starts talking to you and you have a good laugh with him. “At least I will miss his company.” These press conferences are reminiscent of a picture from just before the Old Trafford Test of 1987: Imran Khan is sitting on a window pane, addressing journalists barely a few feet away, no mics, media managers or sponsor boards. Where is the edginess that a Test brings?

***

In the night however while walking on the rampart that separates the sea from the town, and while sitting by the water, wind in the hair and sea in the ear, one gets part of the answer. Come to Galle, you’ll understand.

In 1993 Shane Warne was smashed around Worcester by Graeme Hick and then nobody took much notice of him until his first ball at Old Trafford. That day Warne restricted himself to legspinners, not wanting to show any of his other tricks. Hauritz doesn’t have that luxury and is doing his best already, even though he has had some trouble gripping the Duke ball.

So first to the good news for Hauritz. Stephen Moore, who top scored with 120 for the England Lions, said Hauritz spun it and bowls with nice shape.

Now for the not so good news. “We went out there to make sure we made life difficult for him,” Moore said. And they did. “Without that X-factor Shane Warne has, you’ve got that area you can attack. There was a lot of pressure on him if he didn’t hold up an end.” In 18 overs he gave away 80 runs, including two sixes down the ground, and unless there’s a big haul in the second innings, Australia will have to go for four fast men in Cardiff.

Shane Watson batted in the nets today as he recovers slowly from his thigh injury that should prevent him from being considered for the first Test. He also delivered his opening balls of the Ashes tour, stopping after some laps of the oval to bowl three deliveries to some corporate spectators having a pick-up game after play. The outswinger worked off a couple of steps and he avoided further injury.

Sixty-one years on from Fingleton’s tour and the trees have grown on the banks of the River Severn, leaving the top of the Cathedral to peek over them towards the ground. At the New Road end there is a restricted view and the best place to sit is in the ladies stand, a quaint, tiled-roof building with a small collection of reserved seats for women. When watching from there the cricket is what interrupts the scenery.

Apparently there have been requests to the local council to trim the trees, allowing all the spectators to idle between the game and the church, but they have been rejected. Twenty years ago there were fears the tower would collapse, but the restoration was completed last year, costing around £10m.

As a budding greenie, there’s no desire to call for the chainsaw, and the foliage encourages spectators to shift their seats for the variety of views. I don’t think the beauty of the ground is exaggerated and it was enjoyed by a strong crowd on the opening day of the tour game, from the moment Graham Onions ran in to Phillip Hughes with the bells chiming to 11.

The Cathedral should stay in sight for the rest of the game, depending on the thickness of the predicted rain clouds, but the ground is as close as the Australian squad will get to it. In Fingleton’s time as a player and writer it was tradition for the side to inspect the church the night before the tour game, but a similar visit was not in Ricky Ponting’s plans. “No, that was the previous captain,” he said, referring to Steve Waugh’s team-building expeditions.

Back then it was tradition in Worcester to play what was expected to be the Test XI. The current team would love to know the first-choice side, but there are too many bowling variables for any certainty until the match is over. Peter Siddle, who should start in Cardiff, has been rested while Mitchell Johnson plays his first match in whites in England since an Under-19 trip when he ran into Ian Bell, the England Lions captain. The real battle is not between the Australians and England’s 2nd XI, but between Brett Lee, Stuart Clark and Nathan Hauritz, who are basically pushing for two spots.

A visit to England ensures many companions and two of my non-breathing travellers are Brightly Fades the Don by Jack Fingleton and Christian Ryan’s Golden Boy. Fingleton’s is the story of the unbeaten 1948 tour and the departure of Bradman while Ryan’s work, a biography of Hughes, contains long passages about 1981, a series of wonder for England and one of horror for Australia’s dysfunctional squad. Hughes led the team but was constantly under-mined by his senior players, something which won’t happen to Ricky Ponting (At 34 he’s the oldest and nine of the 15 players are under 30). Ponting’s men will do well to fall somewhere in between those polarised visits of an Australian cricketer’s most envied destination.

I meet him in the middle of the road in Durban city centre. You first notice the grizzly flowing white beard, the long hair blowing in the wind, the sharp eyes and a lovely smile that light up his 85-year old face. Dennis Brutus is protesting. It’s the story of his life. An activist against the apartheid regime in the 1960s, he played a key role in getting South Africa suspended from Olympics. For his efforts he was arrested, shot in the back while trying to jump bail, arrested again and jailed in Robben Island. Along with a certain Nelson Mandela. He was also banned from teaching, writing and publishing in South Africa and, on his release, settled in the US as a political refugee. He was finally “officially unbanned” in 1990 and currently lives in Durban.

It’s safe to say the fire hasn’t dimmed. In 2007, Brutus was nominated for induction in the South African Sports Hall of Fame. The other recipient was Ali Bacher; Brutus says he was ambivalent about accepting the award but Bacher’s presence nailed it. After Bacher’s acceptance speech was Brutus’ turn. He walked to the stage and said: “It is incompatible to have those who championed racist sport alongside its genuine victims. It’s time - indeed long past time - for sports truth, apologies and reconciliation.” And then turned down the award. That’s the part, he says, the broadcasters didn’t show. “And I believe Bacher walked out in protest,” he says with a chuckle, a throaty infectious laugh.

The 2010 football World Cup, the cause of all this activity, is seen as the dark side of a big flashy World event every country desires on its CV. The chant is unambiguous: “Stop the traditional elitist approach to building cities in preparation of the World Cup. Include us”. The protestors, under the umbrella of streetnet.org.za, walk through the city (myself included), past the speeding cars, past the curious onlookers, past the hawkers who sing out their voice of support, past the homeless man who squints at us before breaking into a smile before the police stop us at the entrance to the market.

While representatives engage the police, Brutus’s friend Patrick Bond, director of UKZN Civil Society, offers a wry joke: “I don’t think they will teargas us here in the middle of this busy place.” Brutus laughs again as he shakes his head. Perhaps he’s recalling one of his own lines: “As usual the ministers will wine and dine, and protesters will suck teargas.”

The sky is slowly turning grey. The breeze had turned chilly and strong. There is rain in the air. Talks with the police are still on. Brutus continues telling me the story of his fight for racial equality on the sports field. “The first successful anti-apartheid movement in sport was in table-tennis. Our first victory was in 1956. When I came along in 1958 to SANROC (South Africa Non-racial Olympic Committee) I was working on what had been built by George Singh. Then, very significantly, Brazil were scheduled to play in a football event in Durban. They were told that the black players had to stay on the ship while the whites could come on shore. I sent a cable to Brazil’s president, Kubitschek [Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira]. ‘You cannot tolerate this racism against the black players.’ And he immediately responded by cancelling the match. That was exactly 50 years ago: March 1959.” Then Basil D’Oliviera happened. “In table-tennis, in football, and in cricket, the process gradually quickened.”

Meanwhile, in the here and now, the police relent and we turn into the bustling Morning Market, with hundreds of shops lined up next to each other. The shopkeepers join in with the protestors and the decibel level rises. Leaders of the different groups voice their concern. Henry Ramlal, the chairman of the market committee and a short fierce man, expresses his amazement in strong language. “This is ridiculous. You can beautify the entrance of the city; knock us out, take us down, but what you going to do with the heart of the city? The crime rate is already high and what will you achieve by demolishing our market. What will all these families do? Won’t crime go up?” He says the municipality has offered them a different location for four months. “What after that? What sort of plan is this? Isn’t our site a heritage site? Won’t the tourists come to this spot as a tourist attraction? More importantly, where are the poor people going to buy their stuff? You can’t clean the city of its people”

The other groups like formal black traders and the informal traders put forth their own concerns about disruption to their livelihood. The South African elections are on Wednesday. Much as in India, the chief concern here is the gap between rich and poor. The country, says Dennis, is at a crucial tremendous crossroads. “You’ve got to keep fighting. Keep fighting.”

You ask how I got there in spite of my safety worries? Blame it on the four-channel television in my apartment. The first thing any traveller does on checking in is checking out the toilet and switching on the TV. Mine was all ghostly image and spluttering audio. Through it all I could make out a movie was being shown – Blade: Trinity, replete with screams, vampires and more gore. Stuff the safety advice that I got from my landlady, I was out of there.

Another thing you notice here, as you would in any big city, is how the nightlife is a celebration of er… night life. Gerald entertains me with stories of his conquests, occasionally converting Rand into Euro to emphasise the difference and the economic benefits. In response, I offer my typically Indian middle-class inhibitions.

All this happens within five minutes of our conversation. Sadly, this is what most men do when they travel. This is the way of saying hello to a stranger, how’re you doing, what’s up with life. Gerald is a 40-year-old divorcee, I have less than a decade to reach his age, if not his marital status, and mid-life crisis looms large. Gerald breaks the spell. . “Two more beers, please,” he orders. He taunts me for slowing down, I challenge him to a contest in good old Indian rum. Laughter.

Booze. The beach. Attractive people. A loud, friendly German for company. Slash horror on the telly. What do you do? Order another beer, of course.

It’s high time one of Cricinfo’s unheralded members receives a worthy plug. Robin Abrahams (aka The Oracle) has worked for us since the dawn of time, when Yahoo! were king of the interwebs, John Major was in office and the term credit crunch hadn’t been invented. Without Robin, Cricinfo would probably not exist. In fact, he hasn’t slept since the mid 1990s – too busy ensuring our tables are up to date, scorers have internet access, and a myriad of other vital things besides. So I called the Abrahams Hotline who immediately had the details. And the details of the details. And the reasons behind the details. And something about a flag? Just in the nick of time, the cheery Steindl loped over as I hung up, and the first question? “Well, Pete, a good win today – and you’re into the top six I hear. You must be relieved.” Almost as relieved as I was. Thanks Robin.

But anyway. IPL. I wanted to find out from Pienaar his thoughts on South Africa’s infrastructure, given that all of a sudden it is the go-to country to host world-class sporting events. “The IPL has been a journey and a half,” he said. “To put this tournament in place in 20 days flat has been inspirational, to be honest.”

Colleagues and residents of Johannesburg have shown a little less enthusiasm, in particular at the road networks. Yes, they’re being modernised, widened, and coating a layer of western tarmac over the top of the concrete (which doesn’t split as easily in the heat, I’m told), but there is so much to be done. Recently, the Australia (cricket) team were politely mobbed (oxymoron spotters, pat yourselves on the back) at an airport, so lax was the security. I naively enquired about the train infrastructure to a taxi driver when I first arrived. “You’d be dead man, dead,” was the chilling response. There is a train for tourists with tourist-like prices, but suffice to say that it’ll be cars and planes which transport people over the next few weeks.

What will it be like in 2010 for the (football) World Cup, though?

Well, judging by the successful events they have hosted in the past – 1995 rugby World Cup, 2003 cricket World Cup and the inaugural World Twenty20 in 2007 – the answer is: it’ll be fine. It’ll probably be better than fine, to witness the steady progress of all the new stadia being built. As Telford Vice wrote a few days ago for Cricinfo, “neither airlines, hotels nor the cricket industry seemed flustered by the prospect of the gathering storm of glitz, glamour and glorious cricket.”

Pienaar, too, acknowledged the country’s sticky issues and congested roads but, like Telford, he just expects it to happen. And after three weeks here, I do too. “The country has a can-do mentality. We are a nation who holds up its hands and gets things done.”

It has been fascinating hearing from other teams, players and coaches about Bermuda’s stumble-and-fall from this competition and, without exception, not a single one of them has any sympathy. In fact, their responses have often been a mixture of envy and anger – anger that a team of handsomely-paid full professionals could consistently perform so poorly while they (be it Ireland, Namibia, UAE) all struggle on a pittance and yet outperform their higher-paid opponents. It’s unjust, but sport is often so. Scotland have begun professionalisation (they have three contracted players and promise to double that number should they qualify) while Ireland are also hamstrung financially and only possess semi-pros.

As an indicator to Bermuda’s apathy, one coach told me he saw many of their players either in the bar or, on the first night of their trip, in the local casino. Not the ideal preparation to qualify for the World Cup Qualifiers (WCQs), you might think, and you’d be spot on too. As Gus Logie told Cricinfo a few days ago, the desire and hunger just hasn’t been there. It’s all been a bit of a jolly for the past four years.

It is a lesson, though, and not just for Associate cricket but for the ICC. Huge sums of investment (Bermuda received US$11m from its government) simply cannot buy success. Or, it seems, desire. The ICC, of course, are well aware that they can only do so much, as Richard Done told me last week. But the more time I spend with these players, the clearer it becomes that, Bermuda aside, the desire and hunger is absolutely rampant among them. The four who qualify for the 2011 World Cup will have a potentially winning combination of belief and money, and Bermuda’s four-year listlessness will look even more shameful.

It’s a quiet, subdued place to stay and is currently swarming with international cricketers. The Associates were here first, but the Indian Premier League players have started their unerring swagger into the city and the hotel, and soon it will be theirs - if, that is, they can drag the Afghanistan team out of the pool. The battle will be long and hard I fear, and my money is on the Afghans.

It’s a nice place to work, too. A couple of interviews with an Irish and Namibian player happened randomly over coffee outside, a relaxed environment which helps both interviewee and interviewer.

All sorts have been spotted. Owais Shah and Ashish Nehra (remember him?) ambled in for a late brunch, neither of whom were keen on being interviewed – understandably so given your reporter’s Keith Chegwin-esque doorstepping method. Glenn McGrath, in flip-flops and t-shirt, did a spot of shopping in the equally brilliant shopping centre which adjoins the hotel. Dave Warner, Paul Collingwood and other Delhi Davedevils are floating around too, invisibly so far. Red-and-white Europeans, of which I proudly claim membership of its sunburnt fraternity, make up the rest.

Leaving the Sandton Sun Hotel in Johannesburg is rather like leaving after lunch at a rich relative’s house in the shires. Digestion aside, you can’t help feel a little jealous at their pad.