From Monday we will be flooded by Rugby news. We will hear who is injured , we will hear how well conditioned or not the players are. The debates will start again. Who must be rested. Who did take a long enough break. Light will be shed on how players will be managed. Yes King Rugby will slowly take its rightful place.

But before that, how do we see the England Cricket tour panning out? What can we expect?  Is there a way back for the Proteas?

I saw this article by Kevin McCallum on IOL and wondered how you feel about the referral system.  Does it break the old Cricket traditions? Read it and comment.

Kevin McCallum
December 18 2009 at 04:32AM
When Graeme Smith and his South Africans sat down on Tuesday to discuss the International Cricket Council’s decision review system (in which teams may refer umpires’ decisions for TV review), Ashwell Prince was the only player in the team to say he didn’t much care for it.

On day one of the first match of the Castle Test series against England, when Graham Onions rapped him high on the pad, appealed and Steve Davis, umpiring from the West Lane End at SuperSport Park, stuck him, he wasted no time in finding a little place in his heart for it.

“Obviously, I benefited from it today. I don’t know,” Prince half-laughed. “When we talked about it, I was the only guy who said he would prefer not to have it. It’s ironic that it benefited me. It’s still up for debate. It’s still early days. I’m comfortable if we have it. If we don’t, it doesn’t matter.

“I just feel cricket has been played for years, umpires make mistakes and you have to get on with it. Sometimes you have to take the rough with the smooth.”

Ah, how refreshing. Such honesty, such respect for the traditions of the sport, such unselfishness in the face of popular opinon… er, did he think he was out?

“No, I didn’t think I was out. I knew the ball had struck me quite high on the pads and they were brand-new pads. I looked down and saw a mark above the knee roll.”

Sometimes, tradition can take a running jump when you are in danger of losing your wicket. Sometimes, the generosity of walking when you feel you are done deader than a dodo, when you have less than a 10 percent chance of beating the odds – then, well, turn to the great god of television.

Sometimes you want your wicket to be more intact than being able to celebrate the glory of sportsmanship. Sometimes, getting another chance means more than being able to ramble on about how life is a rollercoaster and how what goes around comes around.

What will the DRS mean to viewers and fans? More drama, for one. Each review will be a penalty shootout, a spike of adrenaline in a version of cricket that can drift through periods of uncertainty, dullness and silliness, and then switch back to sublime.

It’s the waiting that makes it all such fun.

On Wednesday, Prince looked out to the naked eye, then a system devised by a man called Hawkins made a believer out of him.

Yesterday, Morne Morkel looked deader than Cope in the elections, and yet, Hawkins – no relation to the atheist, apparently – showed it was sliding over the top.