I'm generally permitted to go where the current takes me in my Tuesday columns. It's both a blessing and a curse. On my ride home this afternoon I found myself caught in a vicious rip heading towards the elusive aisle of Peter Roebuck.

Perhaps it's testament to the man in the iron mask that I've been staring at a blank computer screen for the past 30 minutes, wondering what angle to take?

I had hoped to meet Peter this summer. Like many of the great literary protagonists - Kurtz, Raskolnikov, Meursault - Roebuck has always been a figure, or figment, of interest to me. Over the past 12 months I've been fortunate enough to rub shoulders with the likes of Gideon Haigh, Jesse Hogan and Dan Lonergan.

I enjoy watching Gideon talk about cricket. He speaks the way he writes. It's like watching a Shane Warne leg break rip out of the rough on a crumbling fifth day pitch in Madras. I had hoped to extract a similar enjoyment from watching Roebuck in the press box. I wanted to understand what made him such a proficient writer and what made him an outsider. I also wanted to understand whether these qualities were one and the same.

In any form of writing it strikes me that honesty is the key. If I'm not permitted to write honestly, I shouldn't be writing at all. I dare say Peter Roebuck would agree.

It's difficult to know how much credence to place in Roebuck's indiscretions. This mightn't be the right time or place to mention it. Yet I see no way of writing an honest article without mentioning it. If I am to celebrate Roebuck the writer, I must also pay heed to his darker side; a side that almost certainly played a part in his passing after a creative innings of 55.

In the weeks to come Roebuck will inevitably be judged in an unfavourable way by many people. As insensitive as this may seem, it might prove equally as insensitive to judge him on his accolades.

Another insight might help you understand where I'm coming from. I come from good cycling stock. Both my grandfather and great-grandfather won the Austral Wheel Race; the oldest track bicycle race in the world. I remember watching Gary Neiwand - a distant relative - race for a medal at the Barcelona Olympics. He was pipped for the gold by Germany's Jens Fiedler. I was as proud as punch to be related to the broad-chested behemoth of the Australian cycling team.

However to this day I remain unsure as to whether I should appraise Neiwand as an incredible cyclist or a man who spent nine months in prison.

We all have skeletons in our closet. We'll never know the full extent of Roebuck's skeletons. As facetious as it sounds, it's possible that his true worth to cricket owes to the fact that he was able to assuage certain disreputable desires. How on earth can we quantify a modicum of indiscretions alongside three decades of insightful output?

Perhaps Roebuck was neither the sum of his output nor the sum of his indiscretions, but a third man?

This concept evokes images of Orson Welles playing Harry Lime, briefly exposed by a shaft of light before escaping through the sewers of Vienna.

I admire Roebuck the writer. I know this much. If I can write half as prolifically as him, I will have played a commendable innings on this mortal coil. His amalgamation of analysis and ‘colour' writing made his regular cricket columns eminently readable. He was the king of the metaphor. His metaphors were more fantastic than Gene Wilder's portrayal of Willy Wonka.

Last Saturday night I received an e-mail from my friend, and fellow cricket writer, Jonathan Howcroft. He was chuffed that I had likened his summation of the opening day in Cape Town to a Peter Roebuck column. Jonathan critiqued Roebuck's description of Australia's innings of 47; the final innings he would ever see the Australians play.

Since learning of Peter Roebuck's passing I've found myself wondering whether I would permit myself to be Jonathan's friend if he shared Roebuck's chequered past. I probably wouldn't. But nor would I ignore his writing. Often the most poignant writing comes from those who innately understand the horrors of the human condition.