In the shadow of big brother

More than a few English cricket writers have developed an ambivalent relationship with football over the years. The chances are they grew up supporting a local side, followed them through thin and thinner, then watched in dismay as money came into the game into the early 1990s and paved the way for the grim monopoly of the Big Four. Now football is that thing which keeps cricket off the back pages. And it's weird to find yourself thinking the same thoughts at the far end of another continent.

When I arrived at Kingsmead yesterday, the first three replica shirts I saw belonged not to the good men of Chennai Super Kings or Delhi Daredevils but to the England football team. It has been ever thus since landing in Cape Town 12 days ago and being assailed with a series of posters advertising the 2010 football World Cup, which South Africa - in case you missed it - are hosting. Of the Indian Premier League there was not a squeak.

If that could be put down to the tournament's short turnaround time, then the passion here for all things football - and especially English football - is remarkable. When the taxi driver hears your accent, he will ask which team you support (and he doesn't mean Rajasthan or Punjab). So far, I've been driven by three Liverpool fans, and two each who root for Manchester United and Arsenal. In a hotel bar in Durban three nights ago, grown men - South African, Indian, English and plenty of others - all but cried as they followed the ups and downs of Liverpool's 4-4 draw with Arsenal on the big screen. Only last night's Super Over in Cape Town generated a similar frisson.

Lalit Modi is quite open about his desire to turn the IPL into a brand to rival England's Premier League. If English cricket regards football with envy bordering on jealousy, Modi views it as something to aspire to. Not that he was expecting to be in South Africa now, but - with the country gearing up to 2010 - South Africa may not be the best place to start.

The tournament looms supreme. In Cape Town the freeways are undergoing all manner of repairs - English drivers feel at home among the cones - to get the roads ready. In Port Elizabeth the talk is of little else. And air travellers arriving in Durban can't miss the huge construction - a more imaginative, imposing version of Wellington's Cake Tin - that will play host to the city's World Cup games.

Not everyone shares the excitement. Some believe South Africa is heading for a post-World Cup fall, as migrant workers brought in to get the country ready are left without jobs and a struggling economy fails to adapt to life post-football. But for the moment it's hard to move for nouveaux fans of Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and, yes, England. I feel strangely at home, yet not really at home at all.