An extract from Marais Erasmus: The Rock 'n Roll Years; Cricket in an Umpire's Orbit by Telford Vice.

Talented home cooks are not restaurant chefs. Golf's weekend warriors do not turn pro. Burying bottles filled with pineapple peels, sugar and yeast at the bottom of a shoe cupboard for a while does not a beer brewer make.

Our relationship with so much changes when we are expected to produce on schedule, to a high standard and, particularly, in return for enough money to pay the bills and maybe even live a little. It's the difference between amateurs, however gifted or mediocre, and professionals. Umpiring is no different.

While he was a teacher, Erasmus knew he had a safety net. He ended that career in November 2007, and suddenly there was nothing between the tightrope he walked to provide for his family and the ground below. Except being paid to umpire.

"I loved umpiring and it was going well, and maybe that's why I didn't put too much pressure on myself," Erasmus says. "But when I left teaching and umpiring was the only thing, that's when I felt pressure - now this had to work. Early on I told myself I could go back to teaching. But, after five or six years, I knew I didn't want to go...