Postcard from Sri Lanka: Andrew Hall

This is my first tour away with the national team following my other excursions to the Super 8's tournament in Malaysia and an SA Invitation team's trip to Malawi back in 1995. So, I was quite thrilled to be included in this touring party of Sri Lanka seeing as it's my first full tour away and it is part of the subcontinent of all places.

I heard a few stories from the 'A' side guys who toured here 2 years ago and the troubles they had back then. But so far, I've experienced nothing that they did and in particular I've had no problems with the local food or the Sri Lankan hospitality.

The one thing which is different here to playing back home has been the heat and humidity, especially coming from the dead of winter in Jo'burg. My body is not quite used to it yet and I have struggled with really tight quadriceps muscles during the one-day tournament. So much so that 'the fizz' has been working on them day and night and using his new LPG suction muscle massager, his acupuncture needles and a lot of stretching to try and get them to settle down.

The days that we've had off have been spent relaxing and trying to restore energy levels to prepare for the next game ahead. I think it is like this as the heat and weather conditions really sap it out of you and rest is the only way to recover enough to perform adequately, especially if you're playing back to back games or with only one-day's break in between.

The team spirit has been good and Makhaya and Polly had recent birthdays for which we got them each a birthday cake. In recent times with the former captain I'm told, the cake would have ended up on the head of the birthday boy but as the team changes so too do the jokes and pranksters. Neil McKenzie has got to be top of the new list of mullets (people who are not quite a full box of chocolates) with all his habits which include getting in and out of bed three to four times until it is done perfectly and feels right.

Last weekend after the final we took a chance on the local nightlife to see what it was all about and ended up at the Blue Elephant at the Hilton hotel. Things are a little different here but it was good fun all the same. It's amazing how wherever you go, the price of drinks always seems to out-weigh anything else that you can purchase.

My first taste of sub-continent matches was the opening one-dayer down at Galle. After being set a target of about 250, Gary and myself got off to very good start with a 151 partnership. You should back yourself to get 100 runs in 20 overs with 10 wickets standing, but we managed to muck it up and get bowled out for about 20 short.

Its been great to see Neil cracking 180 just prior to the first test match and us bowling their president's team out for 100. This should give the guys some confidence and with the good morale in the team and anticipation of a good test match series, lets hope we can continue from where the Pakistanis left off and go home with another test series win over Sri Lanka on their home soil.

This is Andrew Hall signing off for CricInfo and cheers until another time.