Postcard (19 February 1999)

19 February 1999

Postcard

from Juston Langer

After a 60-hour travel marathon, West Indies is worth the wait

No matter how hard you try, it is impossible to get remotely comfortable while travelling long distances on an aeroplane.

The plastic covered brochure, staring at me from the seat pocket in front of my stinging eyes, proclaimed boldly that "You are sitting in the unique cradle seat, one of the most comfortable seats in the air..."

While this may be so, no matter how hard I tried, I could not seem to find that comfortable position that the positive marketing ploy was promising.

My back was crying out for mercy, and my backside, or gluteus maximus muscles, were aching from over use in this extended, unnatural position that I had been sitting in for so long. The pretty blue brochure went on to explain that "...your cradle seat has been ergonomically designed to mould to the contours of your body, its tilting action provides maximum support to give you one of the most comfortable journeys in the sky..."

Please don't humour me!

As far as I am concerned I could have been sitting in a king's throne for two-and-a-half days and I would still be feeling as sore and uncomfortable as I am now.

Having taken the midnight horror, or "red eye", on Tuesday night from Perth to Sydney, we finally arrived at our ultimate destination at 8pm tonight. Although I can never boast to have been a mathematical genius while at high school, my calculations tell me that I was stuck in a plane, or at least in transit, for well over 60 hours. Zonal timings aside, this is a long, long time to be sleeping and living in a cabin apartment of an air-conditioned jumbo jet.

By all accounts my team-mates and I could have taken an aluminium dinghy from wonderful Australia to the shores of the Caribbean island of Antigua and still arrived in the same amount of time. Or at least that is how it felt anyway!

My five-hour flight from Perth was proceeded by an eight-and-a-half-hour flight to Hong Kong followed by 13 hours to London. Fortunately, 24 hours in London was supposed to help control the dreaded jet lag syndrome that is imminent. My gut feeling told me though that when we finally stepped foot into day one of the 1999 West Indian tour at Antigua, we were going to take a little time to recover from our marathon sojourn around the world.

I was right!

London to Barbados was another eight-hour flight and after sitting in transit for two hours in the island paradise of another travel lounge, we finally reached Antigua tonight. Amazingly my emotion was more of relief than excitement when we finally touched down on the island of Antigua, home of cricket greats Vivian Richards, Richie Richardson and Curtly Ambrose, to name a few.

All I wanted to do was have a long hot shower and pull on a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Sixty-odd hours, in and out of a blazer, tie and plane seat, is enough to drive anyone over the edge. I don't know how the Prime Minister does it every day!

While it may seem that I am doing an awful lot of complaining, the long journey is a small price to pay for what we have in front of us for the next two months. Besides, Cathay Pacific are an excellent airline who did everything possible to retain acceptable sanity amongst the team.

The West Indies tour is one of the most cherished tours for an Australian cricketer. Like the Ashes tour to England, we look forward to this tour like none other. Not only are the paradise islands, or at least countries, a wonderful place to visit, but playing the West Indies at home, provides for the greatest of Test match challenges.

On the surface it may seem that West Indian cricket is currently in decline, but Australian cricket teams know from history that they should never be taken lightly, especially at home. A very proud race of people, we can expect that from ball one of the first Test match in Trinidad, the West Indians are sure to be coming very hard at us.

Any team boasting players of the calibre of Ambrose, Walsh, Lara, Hooper and Chanderpaul must always me treated with the appropriate respect at all times. These guys demand respect and they will be desperate to regain the admiration of their adoring fans here in the Caribbean.

It is going to be a tough tour and after a couple of days recovery, the starter's gun will be fired to set us on the path to another successful tour.

Feeling tired but relieved to be here, JL