Rains are a blessing and curse

Cricket/Fifth Test: "I bless the rains down in Africa." This was one of cricket's dog days, where players, spectators, everyone, hung around in the hope that at some stage the rain that had fallen on the high veld throughout the night and into the morning would relent and play could begin.

And then, when it did ease off, the hazy distance became crystal-clear and the players began to go through their warm-up routines, back came the drizzle so that the whole process should begin again.

The covers hardly came off at Centurion yesterday. Instead they lay there, green and shiny in the wet, while a dozen or so weather-suited ground staff went through their forlorn process of squeegeeing the water away, knowing only too well the exercise in futility they were undergoing as the next dousing washed in. Sisyphus was a bundle of optimism by comparison. There was no chance.

The umpires made their inspections at regular intervals, which inspired a faint hope in some of the cricket followers who steadfastly refused to leave, but by 3.30 the obvious became fact and play was abandoned with the hope that it can start, half an hour early, today.

Whether Michael Vaughan and his side blessed the chorus of Toto's 1982 hit, played on the PA shortly before the abandonment, is debatable.

Every hour lost is one hour nearer to a memorable victory in a series they had to take if the team were to be seen as credible challengers for the Ashes next summer. From the outset, it was the intention first and foremost to put the game beyond the reach of the South Africans. No declaration, Vaughan had said, not in the first innings, not in the second - not in any bloody innings.

Against that, though, they would not wish to be seen ducking a challenge. It is all very well taking a 2-1 win back to England, with the knowledge that a further one was there for the taking in Durban. Blessed the rain might be as far as England are concerned, but how much better 3-1 would sound. A rain-ruined game and the hypothetical will always remain: with a flirty pitch in the offing, South Africa might just have come back at them to square things off.

There is, of course, still time for that, despite a discouraging forecast for the weekend. Weather predictions here appear to be about as reliable as the tyres on the local minibuses, and the pace of the modern game dictates that a day's play can be retrieved, particularly on a pitch where wickets can tumble. We may yet see some great entertainment to round off a fascinating series.

As far as England's final XI is concerned, the management was giving little away yesterday. But it is clear already (simply from observation of who goes to bed early and who has licence to hang around the bar a little longer) that James Anderson has been rejected after one match, although his replacement, either Simon Jones or Jon Lewis, has yet to be announced.

Anderson was seen as ideal for The Wanderers, with even better conditions pertaining for him here. That he endured a measure of humiliation in the last match is, to most observers if not the team hierarchy, a product of the system in which he now finds himself.