What savages we sportsmen are. Bowling, batting, fielding, it's all the same.

It's nothing more than an excuse to exercise our animal instincts in a way not allowed in normal life.

We are hunters. Our prey, rather than raw, animal flesh, is runs, wickets, catches, run-outs.

But a true cricketer knows where the wildness ends and the civilisation begins. As soon as the boundary rope is crossed, the usual rules of behaviour apply again.

There are no unsightly scrums for the tea, no fighting for the best seat in the changing room, no shunting for the prime car-parking space.

Our five-hour weekly stint as hunter-gatherers on the field is not allowed to transgress on our everyday actions.

Except, that is, on tour. Man's evolutionary progress takes a 300,000-year setback every time a group of a dozen or so men board a minibus together.

Four days of freedom from work, family, friends or the possibility of recognition by the local police create a lawless state in which homo-tourus can thrive.

As soon as the Headliners board the ferry from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight, it begins in earnest.

Like a group of tribal neanderthals, we fight for one of the eight seats around the captain's berth, situated next to the warm, meaty smells of the Cornish Pasty stand.

The other, smaller, weaker, specimens hover like vultures, hoping for scraps from the carcass of a slaughtered wildebeest.

All signs of control fade as homo-tourus runs amok on the island, in scenes reminiscent of the schoolboys shipwrecked in Lord of the Flies.

The minibus ride from Ryde to our B&B leaves a trail of testosterone as thick and pungent as a guided tour through the sewers of New Delhi.

The singing on board is a coded version of a chant of: "We are men, we are men, we are men."

At night, normally clean-living players are reduced to drunken barbarians through the influence of Drambuie, Pimm's and port.

Justin Palmer strips down to his pants and dances to the Spice Girls in a vain effort to impress the Kim Tate lookalike serving behind the bar.

Bruce, our captain, is overwhelmed, like Kurtz in the film Apocalypse Now, by the isolation of the island.

He sits there, surrounded by his acolytes, having an imaginary conversation with a character called Eugene.

Is this Eugene a figment of his imagination or a spirit guiding us on towards further debauchery? Could he be the god of tour cricketers, or a mind-controlling bogeyman?

After my swim the next morning, my pants have been buried on the beach again, by Justin.

Richard Neale celebrates his annual win in the putting competition by giving a yell worthy of Tarzan. Seagulls the length of the Isle of Wight swarm into the air as if called by him.

Even Statto, our horizontally-challenged wicket-keeper challenges a Stallone-like batsman to a fight.

Surely this is the spirit of Eugene.

Despite all the in-your-face machismo, only one of our number has ever pulled on tour. Even then, he politely refused to dance with the lady who asked him, complaining that he was tired.

So all this chest-beating - is it the spirit of Eugene corrupting our values, or a lot of bluster?

Who is to say? All I know is that to be a victim of whatever lurks in the darker recesses of the minds of these men is not to be recommended.

For no apparent reason I was once stripped naked in Shanklin High Street and left to fend for myself.

Arriving back at the B&B, entering the bar and asking the owner for a spare room key is as low as it gets.

Let us remember in future the values for which we play the game - to be warriors on the pitch and gentlemen off it.

Let us pray this year's tour, in two weeks is different. Let us banish forever the spirit of Eugene.