“The moment we win the series,” he said, “that will be when I’ll really want to paint They tell me Cape Town would make a nice picture.”. As West Indies cricket tried to take in Brian Lara’s sudden withdrawal from the team that arrives in Australia tomorrow for the World Series tournament of one-day internationals, the prime concern of officials was understanding the record-breaking batsman’s problems. No one was more amazed than me when they sold out in two days.”Russell has now turned from sketching to painting, and he recently bought a derelict pub in Chipping Sodbury and turned it into a gallery. On this tour he has been painting old Boer War battle sites, and during the last game in Bloemfontein visited Sannah’s Post, where the wiped out British forces were awarded four VC’s.He is also painting the various Test grounds, and – having recaptured the moment of England’s Test victory in Barbados on the last tour to the Caribbean – is hoping for something similarly uplifting this winter. I honestly didn’t know that I had any talent for drawing, largely because I never even did art at school.”Anyway, I sketched away all summer, took them into a local gallery in Bristol to have them framed – just to hang on the wall at home as souvenirs – and the bloke there said he’d like me to do some more for an exhibition.”I went to Pakistan with England that winter, came back with 40 sketches, and they were put on sale for between pounds 50 and pounds 200.

“I’ve seen what lightning can do in these parts” Mitchley said, eyeing the approaching electrical storm, and I don’t want any dead cricketers on my hands.”However, in general terms Russell is just about the last person to complain about bad weather, as it was two washed- out days at Worcester in the summer of 1987 which set him on the road to becoming as accomplished an artist as he is a cricketer.”I got bored sitting around the dressing-room, so I wandered into town and bought a sketch pad and some pencils. Alcohol slows you down, so now I only touch the very occasional glass of wine.”Russell’s value to England with the bat was once again being demonstrated when, on 50 not out during the first Test in Pretoria, he was ordered – protesting – from the field by the South African umpire Cyril Mitchley. I got a great kick out if captaining the side, and having to cope with other people’s individual needs made me far less of an intense person. It’s made me a lot wiser than I was, which is what you need when the bones start to ache – as they do – more and more each year.”For instance, why didn’t it occur to me five years ago to be a more positive cricketer? Why the hell didn’t I? I suppose its all part of life’s learning process, and now I play each game as though it might be my last.

For almost the first time I’m playing for the sheer fun of it.”That might be so, but, as Raymond Illingworth has said more than once on this tour: “If there was a more 100 per cent professional than Jack, I never met him.” Almost everything Russell does is geared to perfecting his game, including becoming a near teetotaller. “I used to hit the booze too much in my early days, and it took me a while to realise how much it affected my reactions. The only things that kept me sane – or as sane as I ever will be – were my benefit year, taking on the captaincy of Gloucestershire, and my painting.”It was because Russell recognised his own idiosyncratic nature that he had to be pushed into the captaincy at Gloucestershire by the man he temporarily replaced last summer, Courtney Walsh. “I was always so tied up with my own game, sitting in the corner worrying about what I was going to do, that I frankly didn’t think I was up to the job.”So it came as a pleasant surprise when it made me what I consider to be a much better player.

It’s the ultimate of ultimates, and when I wasn’t there at 11 o’clock on the Thursday morning, I felt totally depressed.”I had played 36 Tests when I was dropped on the last tour to Australia and I thought maybe that was my lot. He loses his rag, bowls me a couple of loose ones, and I’m winning, aren’t I? Yes, I can honestly say its very rewarding being a pain in the arse.”However, it was pain centred more around the cardiac region which led Russell to reappraise his approach to the game. “I can’t tell you how much agony I felt not being in the side Look at England versus Australia at Lord’s. When I see a bowler getting upset, it gives me a little glow inside. Russell makes John Emburey look like Wally Hammond, and there is more grace about someone shovelling coal into an old steam engine than Russell, hunched and square-eyed, swatting and squirting international bowlers into a state of gibbering incomprehension.So how does Russell feel about his natural ability to get up a bowler’s nose? “I absolutely bloody well love it,” he says “It’s all, as Baldrick would say, part of the cunning plan.