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At its best though we do get the opportunity to get to know the players a little. Some conversations can be rather bizarre. The other day, came up to me at breakfast and said "You work in radio so you are bound to know this: what is the name of the elderly woman who has a hearing aid in that brilliant episode of Fawlty Towers?" By some chance I did know that the answer was Mrs Richards. "Oh brilliant, that'll save me two hours on Google" he said. I have no idea why he needed to know, but I was glad to help!

On Monday morning at breakfast at around eight o'clock I said hello to England's chairman of selectors who was having a chat with captain and coach . Graveney looked exceptionally fresh considering he had arrived overnight to join up with the tour. Around eight o'clock on Monday evening I met Graveney again, this time at the hotel gym. He was making impressive progress on a piece of machinery that to be honest I haven't yet had the nerve to tackle.

But in those 12 hours between seeing Graveney at breakfast and in the gym he'd certainly had an eventful first day on the tour with no time to recover from jet lag.

On Sunday afternoon I was chatting with some of the other journalists about how smoothly this tour was going for the team, with so few problems. The squad have seemed very relaxed with a fairly , aside from the snakes and a couple of pairs of missing boots.

But Graveney hadn't even adjusted his body clock before England were down to and dealing with a batting collapse.

We had already grilled Graveney during the lunch period about whether he was "putting his hat into the ring" for the new version of the job he already holds: "The question of reapplying probably hasn't happened in cricket all that much but I have no problem with it. It's always been an honour to do the job and I want to stay involved in the England set-up," he said.

But he may have been having second thoughts when, first, he witnessed England being skittled out for only 134 and then found out James Anderson was joining Steve Harmison on the injury list five days before the first Test. But cometh the hour cometh Matthew Hoggard! With great support from Ravi Bopara, who was forced to take the new ball, of the day with five quick wickets.

I'd noticed before the innings started that England coach Peter Moores put his arm around Hoggard and had a chat with him. When I interviewed Hoggard at close of play I asked him whether Moores had said some inspiring words like "Come on Hoggy, you have got to do the work of three bowlers but I know you can do it". "Oh no" answered Hoggard. "He was talking about the lunch we had eaten, great spaghetti bolognaise".

Hoggard had also spoken at the end of the day to the other journalists - but they needed to know more about the fitness of Anderson and Harmison plus whether England may need to call up a replacement bowler. So who was dragged to talk to the press and discuss this potential selection crisis? You guessed it, David Graveney.

He certainly earned his money on his first full day on the tour and as I mentioned earlier he still managed to find time to make it to he gym before lights out. What is certain is that after he witnessed my pathetic attempts alongside him on the rowing machine, no matter how desperate England may be with injuries on this tour, I won't get the call up.