Caribbean sea venture leaves cricketers worse for wear

South Africa's cricketers completed the latest island hop of their West Indies tour with a 24-hour leg from Montserrat to Montego Bay in Jamaica, where they are due to take on a Jamaican XI in a two-day game on Easter Sunday and Monday.

The contrast could not be more stark, from the barren, rocky outcrop of Montserrat, via a night back in Antigua and then on to one of Jamaica's top tourist destinations, full to bursting with American visitors as the Easter weekend begins to take off.

It has not quite been planes, trains and automobiles - more planes, boats and buses. The return ferry from Montserrat proved a test of strength for those with shakier sea-legs, as the conditions deteriorated with the fall of darkness. Coach Graham Ford and his assistant Corrie van Zyl both gritted it out down below, while most of the squad spent the hour-long crossing out in the open air riding a serious Caribbean swell.

Finding it most difficult of all was none other than the man honoured in South Africa's four-wicket win over the University of the West Indies Vice-Chancellor's XI in Montserrat, Curtly Ambrose. To the enormous amusement of his younger team-mates, the retired Test star was re-acquainted with his lunch.

With the series decided thanks to the 82-run win at the Antigua Recreation Ground earlier in the week, the squad has a happy, relaxed air about it. The trip to Montserrat, which could have been treated as a chore, was instead celebrated as an adventure.

On Friday, as the players arrived in the Jamaican capital Kingston, there were some goodbyes to be said. Left-arm spinner Nicky Boje left the party to continue his journey home via London for surgery on his troublesome left shoulder - and to rest his right knee. The decision to send him home was taken as the last wicket fell in Antigua and the series was won - he had done his job.