If only one of those men could be the real person, which was the one with the mask on? Or is it possible to be different people in different settings? It must be difficult but then Glenn McGrath was and I am fairly certain Mathew Hayden was too. No more than a week after he told Harbhajan Singh what he thought of him in Sydney, I was to meet him in Perth. It was to be one of those friendly, hopefully warm, conversations and we wanted to put him in a different setting. Sure as ever he mailed the producer, “See you at Gogo’s Madras Curry House at 6. I’ll cook a meal for you guys.”

Not quite sure of what to expect, we got there in time, the cameraman investigated the kitchen, tut-tutted about how little space he had to frame his shot and might have said a word or two about the producer and anchor which we didn't hear. Meanwhile Hayden had already told Gogo, our Perth superchef, to have some vegetables chopped and make preparations for the dal. He was taking it seriously!

On camera, as we talked about his life and, thereafter, the events at Sydney, which he was game to talk about, he put some parsley in warm oil and coated our naans, did a nice little tadka for the dal and chopped onions with the finesse one didn't quite expect from a marauder on the cricket field. He was excellent company.

It wasn't just Indian food he liked. He liked India where he announced himself to the world in 2001. And as late as last year he played three Tests and scored hundreds in each of them. When Jaques and Rogers walked out to open the batting at Perth, we might have seen them but we noticed that Hayden wasn't there. He had that kind of effect. In his pomp he took away hope from the opposition, he made bowling look like the profession of last choice!

He has chosen the right time to go, if indeed the choice was his. Australia have always reminded people if they noticed them overstaying and maybe there was a little conversation about his future. Australia will look weaker without him but had he continued, they would have stayed weak for that much longer because he would have borrowed time from a younger man. Irrespective of all this though, he can be sure he will always have the cricket world's respect. As a great batsman and, for some, as a decent cook.

Away in England, Kevin Pietersen is the closest you can come to Hayden. Like the Aussie, Pietersen exudes that right mix of arrogance and confidence, he is a big fellow who likes to get on with things and he is not afraid of telling the opposition what he thinks of them. Unlike Hayden though, Pietersen seems to be someone you need to handle carefully. England knew what they were getting into when they gave him the captaincy, indeed it seemed a bold move then, and so it seems strange that they should yank it away as quickly as this.

And yet they simply had to solve the captain vs coach dilemma. And whichever way you choose to look at it, they had to go with the captain. One fear was that the new coach, whoever he was, would either be a Pietersen nominee or a lame duck. I suspect though that the real fear was they were afraid they wouldn't be able to dismount the tiger. But when you appoint a chief executive you let him run his ship because he has to deliver. And Pietersen was precisely the kind of character they needed to take on a slightly wary Australia.