Graham Taylor has been blamed for many things over the years but all of them relating to the fortunes of the England football team. Yet it was Taylor — or rather the area where he was sitting — that might have contributed to the downfall of Jacques Kallis yesterday and a bizarre row about the visibility for batsmen at Edgbaston’s Pavilion End.

Described recently by Bob Willis, the former England and Warwickshire fast bowler, as the best spot to watch cricket in the world, the committee room balcony affords a perfect wicket-to-wicket view of the action. Which is great for the people lucky enough to be sitting there but not, it seems, for batsmen trying to see the bowler’s hand as he delivers the ball at more than 80mph.

It was Andrew Flintoff’s spell on the second evening to Kallis that sparked concerns in the South African camp about how well their batsmen could see the ball when it was bowled from the Pavilion End. Flintoff worked Kallis over with a superb over, eventually bowling him with a yorker that the batsman palpably did not pick up. The problem is that, from the batsman’s point of view, Flintoff’s hand, as he delivers the ball, appears to come out of the dark seats above the sightscreen rather than the white sightscreen itself.

Mark Boucher was also struggling to pick the ball up on the second evening so asked the umpires to do something about it. But since the game was already under way, the only way the sightscreen could be adjusted was if both captains agreed. Clearly there was no way that Michael Vaughan was likely to accede to that. Vaughan could legitimately claim that it is the same for both sides and Morne Morkel, the South African fast bowler who is taller than Flintoff, had also bowled from the Pavilion End yet no England batsman complained.

It was the dismissal of Kallis yesterday that really sparked the row and prompted Mickey Arthur, the South African coach, to complain to Ranjan Madugalle, the match referee. Kallis ducked into a short ball from Flintoff which he obviously did not pick up, was hit on his thigh and given out lbw. The batsman did not want to leave the crease and shaped to smash down the stumps before trudging off. In the dressing room, Arthur was doing a passable impression of Sir Alex Ferguson in full hairdryer mode.

So it seems that it was only Flintoff’s bowling that caused the problem and predominantly only Kallis who struggled to see the ball. Why? Even Sir Ian Botham, in the Sky commentary box, was stumped. He commented that it was only the right-handed batsmen, such as Kallis, who struggled. Botham speculated that Flintoff’s flick of the wrist as he delivers the ball might cause trouble and that it was often his slower ball, which has a higher and deceptive trajectory, which Kallis struggled with.

Whatever the merits of Arthur’s complaints about the sightscreen it was apparent that Kallis had allowed his concerns about it to play fatally on his mind. For a man of his vast experience who is usually so unflappable, it was an uncharacteristic lack of professionalism.

John Stern is editor of The Wisden Cricketer