Tour Diary

Comptons connect across Indian Ocean

Cricket tours are like mazes - mazes of tunnels actually. Weeks are spent in a foreign country, discovering new things and working hard. The hours melt into days which spill over into weeks.

25-Feb-2013•Firdose Moonda

A sporty paradise

There is one thing South Africans and Australians have in common. People from both countries love sport. And for the most part, both are pretty good at it

25-Feb-2013•Firdose Moonda

Masterful menu for would-be Test masters

Duck was not in the menu but Derby County Cricket Ground has probably never seen such as a spread

25-Feb-2013•Firdose Moonda

Lonely Hambantota, lovely Pallekele

Hambantota and Pallekele. Two names we had heard frequently and always together in the run up to the 2011 World Cup, as the locations for the new stadiums Sri Lanka was building

25-Feb-2013•Abhishek Purohit

Time for a ladies tea

It's not often that something in cricket is done with ladies in mind

25-Feb-2013•Firdose Moonda

Always connected in the world of cricket

It does not matter how small the world gets, it will never get smaller than cricket. Like a large, extended family, everyone knows everyone else, because they know somebody who knows the person they are meeting, somehow

25-Feb-2013•Firdose Moonda

The English crowd experience

Generosity. It's not what you expect from a crowd that has paid to get something. But it is what The Oval crowd was all about

25-Feb-2013•Firdose Moonda

The colourful drive to Hambantota

Slight trepidation as I queue up in immigration at Mumbai airport for my first international flight. The bureaucratic expression of the officer turns into a broad smile as I answer 'cricket' to his question 'purpose of visit'

25-Feb-2013•Abhishek Purohit

The Pakistan journalists go AWOL

Not surprisingly, a question I was often asked, especially in the smaller towns like Hambantota, Galle and Kandy, was "are you from Pakistan?"

25-Feb-2013•Kanishkaa Balachandran

On to Canterbury after the trials of Taunton

It was raining in Canterbury but the weather cleared sufficiently for both cricket and sightseeing - a tour of the magnificent cathedral

25-Feb-2013•Firdose Moonda

A South African touch to Somerset

So this is it. The tour everyone wants to go on. The visit to the country that is the home of cricket which will culminate with a Test at ground known as the home of cricket

25-Feb-2013•Firdose Moonda

Riding the Queen of the Sea

One of the better ways of travelling with the locals is to hop on a train. Having done the Galle-Colombo route several times by road, including the flashy new Southern Expressway, I decided it was time for a change

25-Feb-2013•Kanishkaa Balachandran

The myths and realities of the Josephian Mafia

Think of Sri Lankan school cricket rivalries, and the first thing that comes to mind is Royal-Thomian annual clash, now 133 years old. Another rivalry, though not as steeped in history, is the Battle of the Saints, between St Joseph's College and St Pete

25-Feb-2013•Kanishkaa Balachandran

A reptilian visitor

Slithering reptiles are not uncommon in this part of the world. In fact, Sri Lanka is known for its overwhelming population of snakes and high incidences of snakebites.

25-Feb-2013•Kanishkaa Balachandran

A ride through the 'Gateway to Miracle'

Quite often, the quality of roads and highways is seen as an indicator of a nation's development. If that yardstick is applied to Sri Lanka as well, then the Southern Expressway has given everyone a good reason to brag

25-Feb-2013•Kanishkaa Balachandran

A warm, secure welcome for the 'British Universities'

Careful planning came to fruition this week as we arrived in Lahore for the first cricket tour of Pakistan by a foreign team, apart from Afghanistan, since the 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka team

25-Feb-2013•Kamal Alam

Dhaka gives Asia Cup a life

Most one-day tournaments get a bad rap. Even the ICC's global tournaments come in for flak, with the structure and duration of several World Cups questioned, and the Champions Trophy is deemed an irrelevance

25-Feb-2013•Siddarth Ravindran

A veteran gets to shoot Tendulkar's big moment

As dozens of reporters watched Sachin Tendulkar wend his way towards the 100th, from the terrace of the media centre, a chair was brought out and placed near the safety railing so that it provided an almost perfect straight-on view of the action

25-Feb-2013•Siddarth Ravindran

Sampling rugby in Dunedin

"Rugby is to New Zealand what cricket is to India," Nathan McCullum said, when talking about the difference in following between the two sports in the country

25-Feb-2013•Firdose Moonda

Ian v Greg at the Chappell backyard

The Chappell brothers' has to be the ideal childhood, one every lover of cricket would commit heinous crimes to enjoy

25-Feb-2013•Sidharth Monga

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Tour Diary

Vithushan Ehantharajah

Alagappan Muthu

Osman Samiuddin

S Rajesh

Mohammad Isam