The one was played joylessly by one of the two sides, the other was played with an edge but an almost Victorian sense of etiquette by one player in particular.

The second was a club game - Pirates v Wanderers at Sunday 1 level, third league, in other words. The first was at SuperSport Park, where the Titans played the Dolphins in a match that decided the SuperSport Series.

The match was played with such all-encompassing spinelessness by the Dolphins that it almost slipped my mind to become angry. If the Dolphins had such little respect for the verities of the game, if they cared so little, it just didn't seem worthwhile getting too het up about it.

By far the more interesting and deeper experience was at Pirates last Sunday afternoon. My wife and I went along to watch Jake, our 15-year-old, play for Wanderers. His side were chasing 195-odd in a time game and, on a slow wicket surrounded by a thick outfield, they struggled to hit a gallop.

Jake batted at four, scoring 21 in about an hour-and-a-half. He batted well in an obdurate, things-will-get-better kind of way, before being a little recklessly caught-and-bowled.

With his dismissal, Wanderers' hopes faded. They hung on bravely to draw at the end but Pirates were clearly the better side, although they were unable to force the issue sufficiently to get the win.

What caught my eye in all of this was the performance of an English medium-quick bowler who was playing for Pirates. He was quite a character. He had a booming voice and occasionally sung extracts from hymns on the boundary.

He bowled brilliantly. He was a right-arm bowler who drifted it away from the right-handed batsmen, forcing all manner of edges and outside edges and singularly unimpressive scuffs down to the third-man fence.

Throughout what must have been an afternoon of exquisite frustration, he kept his composure - mostly. When what he felt was a legitimate leg before decision was turned down close to the end, he muttered and remonstrated. Later he seemed to feel guilty, and apologised to the umpire.

He was forever encouraging his teammates and putting in a good word and behaving as he believed the game demanded.

I was impressed with his spirit and pluck. More than this, he seemed to understand that cricket is an institution. It has its codes and way of doing things and it has its higher values, like fair play and decency, and the ability to recognise worth in others.

As I stood beneath a bluegum watching the match in its death throes, the light softening, the ibis jabbing at the outfield, I realised a sport offers the opportunity for dignity - it can confer dignity on those who play it. But those who play it can also confer dignity on a sport.

It was disappointed that Jake didn't score more runs, but he played an innings with no false shots. I tried to explain later that an innings is sometimes expressive of more than its worth in just runs. I clearly didn't explain it well enough.

The two days before that, I watched the Dolphins capitulate to the Titans, failing to score 100 runs in either innings and losing 15 wickets on the Friday. I was not exactly aware of my feelings at the time, partly because they were complicated by a good interview with interim coach Lance Klusener.

I now know what I felt - and what I feel now, a week afterwards. I felt affronted. I felt affronted that this great game could be played with such callowness. The wicket was sporty, the Titans attack spunky. But there are ways to play the game, as an anonymous club player demonstrated so eloquently a day later.