The last white man (2) - Live from the first test

Today is the twenty-fifth day since Tariq and Inga went to BigTown. I have no sense what day of the week it is, what month it is, as for seasons, I have yet to witness anything bar high summer. My only reference points are the 25 days that Tariq and Inga have been gone and the consequent 23 days that they are late returning.

Without Tariq and Inga I am cut off from the world, no emails from family and friends, no knowledge of world news, with the language barrier I don't even know what's going on in the next hut. Except, miraculously, I awake to the voices of Christopher Martin Jenkins and Jonathan Agnew discussing whether the Tiflex ball is more conductive to swing and pondering how Stephen Finn will adjust to the type of ball used in test cricket.

I am in Oblonguland, the most desolate, out of the way village in the most desolate, out of the way part of Africa. So obscurely hidden it borders five African nations and none of them lay claim to it.

I crawl out of bed and dress, to find the entire village sitting excitedly around a wind-up radio. Jumbo gestures and babbles at me, from which I gather that hunting, gathering and all other essential activities will start late today, for today is the start of the first test, England against South Africa, playing to decide which is the greatest cricket team in the world.

I point to the radio. “English,” I say, mimicking CMJ’s voice, “they don’t talk Oblongu.” Jumbo shrugs his arms in a universal gesture of ignorance.

I try with other members of the tribe. “Do you think Strauss should try Finn with the new ball and hold Anderson back for first change.”

I am ignored by all.

How can a tribe who consistently refuse to understand a single word of English, even when I gesture, point and do everything in my powers to describe, sit and listen to Test Match Special?

“It looks like Strauss is experimenting with Finn,” announced CMJ, “he’s going to open the bowling from the River End.”

Mass cheers go up from the Oblongu. Clearly they are all Stephen Finn fans, or, more likely, they love the sound of Christopher Martin Jenkin’s voice, even though they don’t understand a word of it.

The cricket commentary goes on and on and on. For an entire ten minute sequence there is no commentary at all on the actual match, as Aggers and Tuffers engage in heated dispute over which of the 17 cakes they have received that morning is the best. At the end of the exchange we are informed that the Dundee cake from Mrs Lowton in Suffolk is the champion by majority verdict and that ten runs have been scored.

Seventeen types of cake, shared between half a dozen of the BBC’s plumiest ex-cricketers. Whilst here in Oblonguland we subsist on a cupful of rice each for every meal. Every day the men go off and hunt, and every day they come back with nothing, save the stories of the great game that got away.

Bored with listening to a rather dull game from the other side of the world I suggest to the village that we play a game of cricket. I am watched with amusement as I find stump-sized sticks to place in the ground, a baseball bat used by Tariq for knocking in tent-pegs and a tennis ball I was given on the plane for no reason, in place of the meal I had been expecting, because that is the way African airlines operate, random sports goods in place of food.

Through gestures and CMJ impersonations I engage the children in a game almost, but not entirely, unlike cricket. Though I started it I soon have no idea of the rules, who the teams are or why I am running like crazy in searing heat.

The drought is forgotten, in the cascading afternoon sun we play on, just as England play on the radio. How is it even possible I wonder, surely it is nightime in England now, but night or day Martin-Jenkins gabbers on and great cheers go up in the village every time there is a cheer on the radio.

I bowl despite my arm and it feels good to be exercising. After a full three weeks prostrate with fever I realise I have barely used my muscles for over a month. Tomorrow I will be stiff and sore, but today I share the village’s vigour. I am alive. Whatever tomorrow may bring I am alive today.

Suddenly, mid-delivery, the reception dies and the plummy voices of England are replaced by a fuzzy mix of seven different types of music, including jazz, some mexican madness and R&B. For this is Africa, and nothing lasts in Africa.

With the test match thus postponed the village quickly returns to routine, within a few minutes my cricket side are ready for the hunt, and the women are engrossed in a thousand different tasks.

A smile from Jumbo, a signal, I am to go hunting with them. A crazy decision, I am already exhausted from the Oblongu version of cricket, but I quickly change into a clean shirt and am ready. Test Match Special has worked it’s universal magic once again and I, the one who sounds a bit like Christopher Martin Jenkins, have earned the right to become an honorary Oblongu for the day.