New cliques will form, fresh grievances will fester, but for now, as spring erupts into summer and the winter’s constrictions fade into long evenings, South African cricket seems to be genuinely, impossibly, happy. A little pragmatism, it seems, goes a very long way.

“And you, and you,” said cricket’s chief selector Omar Henry on Wednesday. “And you, and – not so fast, Mark. And you, and maybe you. And you, Adolpho. What’s that? Alphonso? That’s what I said.” At least, that seems to be the spirit in which the squad to tour India was selected: shirts versus skins for a quick six-a-side thrash.

When the appointment of a new coach elicits a response unapologetically laborious and manufactured, the end is near. Outrage, finger pointing and name-calling in media and public debate indicate the presence of a pulse. But the plastic, listless response to the appointment of Ray Jennings suggests that to most who care about the game, South African cricket has flatlined.

Not surprisingly for a competition forced by its pool structure to go through the motions for a week, relevant cricket has been thin on the ground at the International Cricket Council Champions Trophy. The predicted poor turnouts and disconsolate weather have materialised, but where there’s a deadline there’s a headline, and frostbitten captains have been herded into press conferences to shrug and grumble about this and that.

Cricketing Anglophobes have been struggling to disguise smiles of smug vindication this week. Indeed, even for those without an axe to grind it does seem extraordinary that the English press, having been handed a baking summer of spectacular victories, comic-book heroes and now a mini-World Cup, should be as lugubrious as it is.

Next Sunday South Africa will play Bangladesh in the ICC Champions Trophy, and unless the cosmos is controlled by an excitable Bollywood screenwriter, an 11th consecutive one-day loss will be averted by Graeme Smith’s team, a ghastly record dodged, and perhaps a moment of clarity achieved.

The triumphant Springbok rugby team has demonstrated an extraordinary talent for winning in recent months. It has shown a determined flair, a focused exuberance, that has come like rain to the parched sporting hopes of the hinterland. But more importantly, it has proved that a coach needs to coach.

Sri Lanka haven’t been cricketing rabbits for a decade, but still, as the South Africans poked through the ashes and cinders of the Test series, one couldn’t help recalling a certain Pythonian fuzzy bunny, one moment grazing sweetly in a pasture, the next tearing the throats out of screaming knights errant.