Cricket takes a back seat.

15/08/06- Tuesday

I was woken at 7.15am by a phone call from Sudath Pasqual, the umpire and referees manager for Sri Lankan cricket. He told me that the game between Sri Lanka and South Africa had been called off because the South Africans were not happy to play. They had some issues with security and were not happy to continue in the tournament. Ironically, as I pulled back the curtains it was the most glorious day with almost clear blue skies and hot sunshine, just what the ground needed so that it could dry out. Unfortunately there was not going to be a game today!

The PCT met at breakfast and I had a number of phone calls to deal with in which I was trying to find out the South African position for myself as well as talking to the Sri Lankan board who were trying to arrange some cricket a least.

After languishing in the hotel for the rest of the morning I decided that I had to get out. I needed a pair of jeans so we went to a couple of shopping centres that our local liaison officer knew about. Firstly we went to the House of Fashion which is situated in Duplication Road. Very popular with the local families for all types of clothing for all the family. Very cheap, I didn’t buy any jeans but I bought a polo shirt for 550 rupees which is about £3. Then we headed off to a slightly more up-market centre called Odel which is opposite the Town Hall. Again I looked for some jeans and they had a large selection but I could find a pair long enough to fit my 6’4” frame. The prices were still fair, for example a pair of Levi 501’s would cost 5050 Rupees which would be about £30.
The evening was spent at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel just down the road from the Taj where we were staying. I had a lovely fish supper with a few beers and some wine and it cost me 4000 Rupees which I reckon was about £23.


14/08/06 – Monday, Match day.

On pulling back the curtains all was not well! Heavy rain had fallen during the night and there was still some drizzle in the air.

We all met at breakfast and decided that as this was a day/night match which was due to start at 2.30pm. The Playing Control Team (PCT) would go to the ground early to find out what the prospects of play were. We left the hotel at 11.30am to go to the Premadasa Stadium. When we arrived it was not a pretty sight for cricket fans. Most of the covers were still on, there were large puddles still sitting on the covers. The covers had been pulled back in some areas which revealed some very wet and soggy outfield. There was no chance of play so with a reserve day allowed for this tournament the umpires called todays play off, hoping that we would start promptly tomorrow.

When we got back to the hotel we decided to go and have some lunch. At just after 1pm we all heard a loud explosion of some sort – although Billy Bowden thought it was thunder!
The fighting between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamils had shown signs of increasing, so there was a lot of speculation about what the explosion was. Sure enough it didn’t take long for news to filter through to us that it was indeed a bomb that had been aimed at the motorcade of the Pakistani High Commissioner as he was driving past, which was only 3kms from our hotel.

We were told to stay in the hotel until an assessment of the situation could be done and then we would be told what was going to happen. Now this had ramifications for the tournament because on the last day of the 2nd Test between Sri Lanka and South Africa another bomb had gone off, so this was the second in 2 weeks. The initial thoughts were that Sri Lanka and India were happy to continue with the event but that South Africa had had enough and were ready to take the next plane home. Those thoughts didn’t change for the whole of the day even though there were various meetings and phone calls that were meant to rectify and clarify the situation, the South Africans remained pessimistic.


13/08/06 – Sunday

The final day before the tournament, we continue to have rain.
It has rained everyday since I arrived and the forecast is for the rain to continue for the next week. Let’s hope they’re not right!

The morning was spent recovering from the excitement of Leicestershire’s Twenty20 Cup success of the night before. Breakfast over and it was back to the room to do some work on the computer for the captains meeting which was due to be held at 6pm. I made a couple of phone calls home to speak to my excited wife and to my very excited but extremely exhausted son after his exploits on the field the day before. He said it was the best day of his short cricketing life and that they didn’t get to bed much before 6am! Well you have to party after a victory like that! He was very pleased.

Before the captains meeting I like to get together with all the umpires for the series and find out if they have anything they want to discuss with the captains. We met at 5pm and the group included Billy Bowden, Peter Manuel, Asoka de Silva and TH Wijewardena all of whom I‘d met on my previous visit here in 2003. We also had the 4th umpires come to my room so it was quite a squeeze!
There were some good points raised so with those in mind we headed off to meet the captains. A captains meeting is designed to cover rules and regulations, any new initiatives the ICC have brought in and anything that the captains want to discuss in front of the other participating nations. This is so that there is complete clarity when it comes to match days. These meetings don’t usually last very long, on this occasion we were through in half an hour. Sri Lanka, South Africa and India were all looking forward to getting in some early season match practice, provided we could get some play!