Post Card from India: 'The Mark and Jacques show'

Well, once again we're sitting at the airport, waiting for another delayed flight. Something you get used to when traveling around India. However, this time It's a bit different cause half the team has stayed at the hotel as this charter plane only seats 15 people so we have to do shuttle runs to get the team to Jamshedpur. The reason we are held up here is because of the weather, fog to be exact. Although it looks a bit more like smog to me.

A 15 seater wup-wup (prop job) does not lend itself to you feeling that safe and with the threat of fog and the knowledge that a few planes went down when the team was last here in, we're still hopeful of getting there.

Right, we've just seen the plane and the boys first impression was, no way, we're not going up in that. Some broke out in song like I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again.. 'A' team picture in front of the plane was necessary to preserve our images for those we may be leaving behind.

Time on tour seems to be going by quite quickly now. The boys are starting to count down the hours till we see the girls in Dubai, especially the married boys, not sure why..?!?

After losing the first one-dayer quite dramatically, it was surprising that Jacques was not fined for his hostile words towards the umpire after he was called for a wide in the second last over. Now he wants to sue me for defamation of character; all I'm doing is telling the truth about my roomie.

Our relaxation downtime off the field has been spent sitting and sunning around the hotel pool with a few cheakies being put down the hatch. After the Bangalore test, we spent the afternoon drinking in this manner and celebrating not only the test win but also AD, Darryl and Clive's departure back to SA that evening. It seems now that AD has gone the cheakies have stopped flowing as profusely. How us youngsters miss the older, wiser fellas!

We try and go by the theory passed on by the legendary Symmo, that those who consume a few cheakies each day avoid the perils of the belly in the best way. Similar to the theory about a glass of red wine each day improving your longevity.

AD and Darryl started bragging in the dressing room about their imminent departure home that night after the test. This had a certain effect on Gary. We call it the 'mullet effect'. Gazza started doing 20 metre sprints in the change room in the hope of pulling a hammie and being sent home!!! Fortunately for us, unfortunately for him, he failed to do so and has continued to grace us with his presence, or might we say, mulletness, and went on to produce a flawless knock of 115. It seemed the 20 metre sprints helped him like a fitness session as he easily outshone the usually very fit Herschelle Gibbs in their record-breaking opening stand of 235.

That's all folks..