The farewells and testimonials have been effusive, befitting someone of the stature of Brian Charles Lara. But, behind the carefully complimentary prose and the staggering, almost numbing, statistics, there have been both a tension and a hollowness, writes Tom Eaton.

For now, at least, there is justice in the world, and it looks like this: Pietersen, caught Smith, bowled Nel. The World Cup has given the Proteas plenty to chew on, but nothing would have been sweeter than the sight of the rash faux-Englishman in his little blue pyjamas scratching his way to 3 before being force-fed humble pie by his two nemeses, writes Tom Eaton.

Can it go on like this? Can South African hearts take the pitching, heaving, surging progress of the Good Ship Protea across the Caribbean? Tom Eaton wonders how any cricket lover, however salted, stands being run on to reefs one day, only to be plucked to safety the next, and gusted onward as if nothing had happened.

At last, the real World Cup has begun. Bantamweights and basket cases have been sent home and, after a fortnight of anarchy on the field — and tragedy off it — the tournament now has a chance to settle into some sort of rhythm, writes Tom Eaton.

There are many reasons why Australia will continue to be better at cricket than South Africa for the foreseeable future. Most of them have to do with the psychological, emotional and intellectual differences between the white populations of our two countries; but sometimes the chasm can seem infinitely wide.

It is somehow fitting that cricket should have got the concept of ratings so badly wrong. It is, after all, a sport in which a draw is as noble as a win, and in which rivalries can exist simultaneously over 10 minutes, 10 hours, 10 weeks or 10 years.

It was clear, by the time South Africa annihilated Pakistan at Newlands in the fourth one-dayer last week, that the Proteas will attempt to win the World Cup next month without a spinner. Robin Peterson is travelling to the Caribbean, and he might even get a game, perhaps against Holland. But there is almost no doubt now that spin, as a strategic option for the West Indian showpiece, is off the table.

Before Wednesday night, Aamir Sohail’s voice was a lonely one — that of a prophet howling in the wilderness — and had he suggested that the cricket series currently under way was a dress rehearsal for a possible World Cup semifinal, he would have been ridden out of town on a rail, writes Tom Eaton.

On the second afternoon of the final Test of the summer, as Pakistan softened and dribbled into the cracks like an ice-cream cake in the Sahel, a debate raged in the Newlands’ Railway Stand. The issue of the hour was the correct pronunciation of Ashwell Prince’s name, and while the poses of the rival camps were identical, their positions were diametrically opposed.