Day out at the football Souce: BBC Sport - 28-08-03 - Neil McKenzie

After a long, hard tour, we finally had a couple of days off this week after our win in the Headingley Test.

We all played golf on Tuesday and then on Wednesday night we went to Old Trafford to watch Manchester United take on Wolverhampton Wanderers.

I had been to Old Trafford before but never to watch a game. It was a magical night to get involved with a different sport for a change.

The game is obviously a lot more professional over here than in South Africa and the following is so fanatical, with all the singing and shouting.

Report: Man Utd 1-0 Wolves

There are quite a few of guys in the squad who support Man Utd - Jacques Kallis, Herschelle Gibbs, and a few others - they were in their element.

Graeme Smith was invited onto the field of play before the game. His family support Man Utd though, like me, he is more of a Liverpool fan.

We have not really managed to do a lot of sight-seeing on this tour - a few nice views through the windows of the tour bus is as far as it's gone.

Of course, we are all on quite a high after winning at Headingley.

When I was caught behind by Kabir Ali on the first morning, the score was 21-4 and I did not think there was any way we would win the Test match.

That's what made the victory over England all the sweeter - that we could get ourselves out of so much trouble and actually go onto win the match.

It's easy to get hundreds when the score is 200-2 but what Gary Kirsten achieved was very special.

Monde Zondeki showed no fear of failure and applied himself so well too.

When the team most needs him to, Jacques [Kallis] can really run in hard and bowl superbly

Although he had no first-class record to speak of with the bat, he has a better technique than Makahaya Ntini or Dewald Pretorius.

That is why he batted above them at number nine. It was magic watching the partnership between Kirsten and Zondeki from the pavilion.

On the second evening, Mark Butcher and Marcus Trescothick hit the attack all over the shop and the wicket didn't look like it was doing anything at all.

We got a bit lucky because if England had not accepted the offer of light on that evening I think they would have been in a great position.

Jacques Kallis was our hero with the ball at Headingley.

He's got a really big workload as an all-rounder because I regard him as a full-time batter who sometimes has to bowl a lot of overs.

Onto The Oval

When the team most needs him to, he can really run in hard and bowl superbly well.

Now we move onto The Oval for the final Test.

I think the pitch takes spin so we will probably use either Paul Adams or Robin Peterson and Shaun Pollock obviously comes back too.

We are not really worried about England bouncing back like they did at Trent Bridge.

We still feel the result there owed so much to the toss but by the same token we have to be fully committed to the cause at The Oval.

As soon as you start thinking you have done enough to win a series you will only come undone.