There is an ongoing debate I have with my fellow green sufferers. Which would you rather – a close defeat where you give your all but fall just short of the final hurdle, or get smacked to next Tuesday.

This is not a simple question. There are many subtleties and nuances to consider which influence the outcome. For example, it depends who you’re playing.

Getting smacked by the yellow scumbags may not be nice, but it’s much, much worse if it’s against Bangladesh doing the drubbing. On the other hand, a tight loss to India hurts much less than a heartbreaking world-cup screw ups against said yellow scumbags.

The general consensus though is that a smack is way preferable. Much better to get tonked so badly you know early on that it’s in your blood pressure’s best interests that you switch to Parliament TV for the 2nd innings.

It’s just not good for you to spend an entire day obsessed with a game. To be so preoccupied with it that you have to develop a shocking headache (really) and leave work early to avoid annoying clients and park your car by the zoo lake listening to the rubbish commentary on Radio 2000 because you can’t bear to watch, finally mustering up the courage to go home for the last 10 overs because it’s going well and you think maybe, just maybe, today is the day you get to see Shane Warne and Steve Waugh cry, only to stare at the screen in horror as Allan Donald has a complete brain fart and do a perfect impersonation of a statue when all he has to BLOODY WELL DO IS RUN 22 STUPID YARDS TO THE OTHER CREASE!!!!

I think you get my point.

So I’m sitting here trying to work out how to process the drubbing handed out by the poms.

Fist off I must give thanks where it is due and praise the good Lord for Jimmy Anderson’s injury. Though far be it for me to question they way He runs the world, I would like to point out to Him that the request form did say “one month”. I’m not being ungrateful or anything, just saying that news of Anderson bowling in the nets was not what I wanted to hear.

So back to the first test. A loss so bad the turning point was the coin toss.

Speaking of the coin toss, what happened to the old adage that 9 times out 10 when you win the toss you bat. And the 10th time you think about it for a while… then bat? Whatever.

So, by the accepted general standard one would usually choose a defeat like this. We should care less because it is, after all, the first test in a 4 part series and there’s plenty time to get it right.

Yet I cannot write this one off so easily. Something is not right. This team which has dominated the sport for the past four years is clearly in decline. I am beginning to doubt if linking my own sense of self-worth the on-field fortunes of professional sportsmen was wise.

The best way I could express my views on that abject batting collapse in the 4th innings was to ‘retire’ to the loo as the poms were administering the last rites. At least I got a measure of revenge as England lost to South Africa in StickCricket. My beloved greens successfully chasing down 968 runs in 20 overs for no loss.

If there’s any comfort in defeat it’s this. Sport works in cycles. Peaks and troughs. One day you’re on top, the next you’re crap. That’s just the way it is.

It totally sucks but we just have to live through it and wait for the next upswing in fortunes. God knows England spent years perfecting the art of the batting collapse. Stupid running in Birmingham notwithstanding, my pregnant wife tells me that one can forget even the most excruciating pain. I think she’s right and I can totally identify with what she’s going to go through.

So bring on the next three tests. The beauty of sport is that each game starts fresh with the scores level, and a true fan is there. Unless we’ve already lost the series and the last test is dead. I don’t watch dead tests. Never understood them.

Going forward I can only hope that the powers that be will also stop scheduling test matches in Durban. What’s not lost to bad light there usually ends in defeat. How rubbish can a venue be when even Sri Lanka get a test win?

GPF