Over 15,000 spectators made their way to Kingsmead yesterday and discovered entertainment galore. For starters, they could watch the outfield grow or the heavy roller rust.
Then, by way of diversion, they could turn their binoculars on the England dressing-room and see the stubble gently sprouting from Mike Atherton's chin. Finally, if all this proved too racy, with local cardiac units on red alert, there was the cricket.
Bad light curtailed the first day of the third Test just under half an hour early, but in the 85 overs that preceded it England, taking first use of the pitch, had made their way, as if crawling on hands and knees blindfold through a minefield, to 135 for the loss of two wickets at the end of play.
It has taken 331 minutes, used up 551 deliveries, contained as many as 12 boundaries (some of them off the middle of the bat and in front of the wicket), hacked off the locals no end (to judge by the cacophony of boos as the players left the field) and has got the South African team thinking about the ifs and buts of the second day; as such, it was utterly glorious.
Leading the way, as he has done all tour - not least on this very ground where, against KwaZulu-Natal, he made England's first century of the year in five-and-a half-hours - was the captain, Nasser Hussain, who applied himself doggedly for all but the first 35 minutes to reach 51, his third successive half-century of the series and probably as hard as any runs he has ever worked for.
After tea, as the hours of batting in 90F heat and high humidity took their toll, he suffered cramp in his hands and might have been vulnerable to the second new ball, taken immediately it was available.
But he was still there last night, and how he and Darren Maddy cope with it first thing and then how the next batsmen can cash in and crack on will be the key to whether the first-day effort was a doughty exercise in foundation building or one in futility.
Maddy made a tentative start, during which he was dropped twice at slip off Paul Adams, but he acquitted himself well. He did not panic, shrugged off some unwholesome sneering from Lance Klusener and struck a couple of nice boundaries towards the end.
His 24 has taken three hours, the duration of the third-wicket stand with Hussain worth 53.
Earlier, Mark Butcher spent the same time as Maddy assembling 48 before he top-edged a cut to backward point.
Instead, for the fourth time in five innings, Atherton was first out, this time for a single as he played Nantie Hayward's fifth ball from inside edge and thigh on to his stumps. A sequence of nought, nought, 108, three, one has an odd look to it.
The England batsmen had to contend with a pitch that was slower than anticipated - it is expected to gain pace today - and an outfield that was so quagmired during last week that two runs accrued from shots that would normally have produced boundaries.
They also faced disciplined bowling from the seamers (though Allan Donald, who took the first new ball, did not bowl again because of a stomach upset), who assiduously stuck to their off-stump line to fields set characteristically deep, and an excellent spell from Adams who sent down 22 overs for 26, took the wicket of Butcher and might have had more if Mark Boucher had been more up to the task behind the stumps.
