James' i-Touch and Einstein's letter
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013

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Starbucks has been a haunt on the tour so far, mostly because of the free internet which is great when you need to email stories the end of the day. It's not just the odd journalist who spends quality time there, several of the players go there too, to use the internet to keep in touch with people at home. It's a long tour with plenty of action happening so the families want constant updates.
"I spend a lot of time here communicating on the internet," says James Taylor, the England opening batsman, who hasn't been giving his middle-order team-mates a chance to bat. "It's free here. So I keep in touch with people back home on my i-Touch. It's the easiest way to communicate and it's cheap."
So how does Taylor spend his time when he's not playing matches or practicing? "When I have time off I generally just chill by the pool and just try and relax as much as I can. In the tense environment of the World Cup it's important to relax. I spend my time sun bathing by the pool, or
in my room watching DVDs or occasionally shopping."
In a foreign country, the weather and cuisine are favourite topics and the food in Malaysia is extremely different to the bread and meat based staples in England. "It's different [the Malaysian food] but you learn to adapt," Taylor says, before adding that "the odd McDonalds goes down
well."
The players spend a lot of time in the evenings after practice roaming around the mall that is part of the team hotel. The shopping is cheap in Malaysia, at least compared to what it costs in England. As you walk around, you can't help notice several people standing around the railings looking downwards. There's an ice-skating rink on the ground floor and it's always crowded. "I would like to go ice skating," says Taylor. "I'm more likely to get injured because I'm not very good at ice skating."

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Soon enough, I bump another of England's Jameses - there are four in the squad. James Harris is one half of their new-ball attack and he picked up two wickets against Bermuda with sharp bouncers. Incidentally he was the first 17-year-old to take a seven-wicket haul in the County Championship in England.
"Ice Skating? We've been told, if we're terrible, not to go on," says Harris. "So a lot of the boys aren't very good. Just for safety reasons really to avoid a broken arm or something. I've done it before but I'm not the best so I've decided it's probably not the wisest idea." The ice-skating may be off limits but there's plenty of other entertainment to keep the boys occupied. The darts board is a popular pastime as are the pool and snooker tables by the dining area.
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There have been some memorable names in cricket - perhaps none more so than Hogsflesh - but there's one at the Under-19 World Cup that runs it close. Napoleon Einstein, an offspinner from Tamil Nadu, is part of the Indian squad.
"My grandfather was a scientist," says Einsten. "He wrote a letter to Albert Einstein and even got a reply from him. I've got no idea [what the letter was about] even though I've read it. My mother was a physics graduate and she teaches Physics in one of the schools. So I'm Einstein. Napoleon is my father's name.
"We don't believe in God. In our family, we're rationalists. Other people are named Krishna and Ram after Gods, so we were named Einstein and Napoleon after great people."
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo