CENTURION (South Africa) - As a rule the nearest a rugby writer gets to ``sledging'' someone else in the sports office is when he comes up with the sort of chirp laced with the ribald undertones you would expect from ``rugger bugger'' types.

After all, pinching column space from the summer game in the middle of a heat wave to belabour the forlorn state of mind over a match in far off Invercargill which was my first postings and where I wrote my first match report in December 1957, is as relevant as is a discussion on low tide times at Vaal Dam.

So there was my rotund colleague Brenden Nel emerging from the ``scrum'' on Monday night as the systerm ``bombed'' yet again (blaming the email server for its lack of delivery - slower than Nicky Boje's loop - has become an easy excuse these days for our IT boffins) and asking how I ``enjoyed'' Daryll Cullinan's batting performance.

``He now holds both South African records against your teams,'' he was quick to remind me with a cherubic grin. ``Northerns (337 not out) and New Zealand (275 not out).''

Forget that the latest innings was put together on a surface looking like treacle pudding and held together by glue; that he was dropped around 140, and batted against a bowling attack condemned to slave labour by their captain, Dion Nash, on who winning the toss did the most imbecile thing: he elected to field first. It was a monumental effort.

So, while Simon Doull, Geoff Allott and all were consigned to bowling for six and a half sessions, and Nash had plenty of time to reflect on his folly, Cullinan wrote his own particular paragraph in Test history. Hansie Cronje did not have the luxury of time on his side otherwise Cullinan might have become the first South African to reach the 300 mark in a Test. And the slowest too reach that figure, no doubt.

Being privileged to see Jackie McGlew's 255 not out against New Zealand at the Basin Reserve, in March 1953 and in temperatures akin to Monday's 34 degrees (he was dropped on 99 and 199 both times by Eric Fisher), Graeme Pollock's 274 against Australia at Kingsmead in Durban and Cullinan's 337 against Northerns, memories of some of the strokes employed to score the runs in those innings jostle for attention.

McGlew's performance was an etching of artistry: precise and with many touches of colour; Pollock's was all power and aggression and spared nothing, although his fluency was more obvious in those years than it was during the last few summers of the 1980s. McGlew always admired Pollock's genius: he had an inherent ability to place the ball into gaps the way few could. It put him in a class only occupied by one other South African in those years, Barry Richards.

There are those who remember McGlew as a stodgy push and prod batsman linked forever to the slowest Test century by a South African. For me he was a humble yet thoughtful player: a strong driver and fearless cutter with an acute sense of timing and an incisive mind when it came to captaincy. He had fancy footwork too and combined this skill with soft hands and wrists to make runs on some of the most treacherous of surfaces.

On his Test debut at Trent Bridge in 1951 there was so much water seeping up through the surface it went over McGlew's instep and deliveries from Alec Bedser fizzed off the surface, the seam biting into the pitch and the ball skidding and kicking. Cullinan bats in an era when pitches are covered.

It was mid-May in 1960 on South Africa's disastrous tour of England, when I had my first conversation with Jackie. There had been a post-match briefing on the growing rumblings over Geoff Griffin's action and he was under enormous pressure. During that first chat he privately admitted concern about the strength of South Africa's batting for that series. It was thin and brittle, lacking the substance which would have come from a Russell Endean to help bolster the top.

Six years later, when we met again in South Africa he was much happier about the batting. There was Graeme Pollock and Barry Richards and others coming through. Yet as isolation bit deep into the game and the well of talent was a growing problem, he wondered what sort of side a post-isolation team would have. The emergence of Jonty Rhodes, Hansie Cronje and Kepler Wessels quitting Australia were pointers.

In the 18 months between April 1992 and October 1993 as we collaborated in writing the book on South Africa captains (From Melville to Wessels) the subject of South Africa's batting depth (circa 1966-1970) arose when writing on Peter van der Merwe and Ali Bacher. We pondered who would be the future greats when writing on Wessels and Cronje.

Then one chilly autumn afternoon in the Wanderers tea lounge, the first draft with the publishers and the team for Sri Lanka already named, McGlew drew up a list of those he felt would give Wessels the support he needed on the Australian tour of 1993/94. Typical of his batting style economy, the list was uncluttered: Hudson, Cronje, Peter Kirsten, Gary Kirsten and Cullinan. Amazingly neither Kirsten made the initial side to Ozland.

Yet he was cautious about Cullinan. It was because of the young man's susceptibility in facing spin had been noted when a schoolboy and McGlew, convener of the SA Schools (Nuffield Week) selectors in the 1980s. Yet there was a hint of optimism.

``I hope he can sort out this problem as I can see him breaking records,'' was his thoughts when he had come back 1993/94, shell-shocked from the Shane Warne factor.

McGlew did not fret as he had faith. Even last summer he talked of Cullinan's revival and how, if he sorted out his footwork, the big innings would flow again.

Sadly my old friend did not live to see his Basin Reserve record eclipsed, but I know how from his pavilion chair in the sky he is smiling on Cullinan, penning a note in his well-scripted hand to say ``Well done, congratulations.''