Players leave tours for plenty of reasons, a common one being the birth of a child, but Kevin Pietersen had a novel one for wanting to leave the Caribbean during the Test series against West Indies. The Sunday Telegraph reported that Pietersen had asked for permission to return home between the third and fourth Tests in order to watch his wife Jessica Taylor, a former Liberty X singer, take part in the television show Dancing on Ice.

He only wanted to go home for 48 hours but his request was refused by the team management. “It was deemed best that he stayed on tour,” said an ECB spokesman. Perhaps it contributed to Pietersen being at the “end of his tether” by the time the ODIs arrived.

	Security and maintenance personnel try to break down the restroom door at the Kensington Oval © The Nation

Then Wayne Daniel, not the West Indies fast bowler but a reporter with the Atlanta-based Carib Voice, found himself unable to get out of the women’s washroom that he had entered after finding the men’s room locked. The rescue team assembled once again and this time a crowbar and some well-aimed kicks did the trick. The Oval’s maintenance manager said the two locks had malfunctioned due to ‘wear and tear’ and not because of lack of maintenance. Just how many people had to struggle to hold on as the rescue team grappled with the door?

By all accounts, Sir Viv Richards left the ground that bears his name angry and upset on a day that brought shame to his beloved island. "This shoots me straight through the heart," he said. "This is not shooting me in the foot. This is shooting me straight through the heart."

It should have been a memorable day for Richards and his former team-mates Andy Roberts and Michael Holding, as the three were meant to be presented with ICC Hall of Fame caps during the lunch interval, with a five-a-side match afterwards.

As it was, the day had ceased to have any sense of celebration long before then and embarrassed ICC officials, including chief executive Haroon Lorgat and media manager Jon Long, were forced to pack up their goodies and sneak them off to the Recreation Ground where they will all try again on Sunday.

You won’t find many British punters willing to risk £50 on England beating West Indies following their calamitous collapse on Saturday. But clearly the debacle hasn’t affected clients’ confidence overseas, even one torn to shreds by war.

“We have taken just one £50 wager for England to beat the West Indies, from an internet client with a Baghdad address,” said a spokesman for the bookmakers William Hill. “I suppose compared with some of the problems affecting that part of the world, England's current cricketing plight is somewhat trivial.”

So there you have it. The only country in the world who has any confidence in England's cricket team is Iraq. Friends, at last.

Attendances at Tests across the world are not so good that spectators can be treated poorly, and anyone watching the first three days of the first Test would have noticed banks of empty seats at Sabina Park.

It seems, however, that the administrators in the Caribbean learned nothing from the farce of the 2007 World Cup. The concept of pass-outs is well established. It enables people to pop in and out during the day … for an office worker, for example, to amble in at lunchtime and then come back at the end of the day. Unlike some triumphs of poor planning, Sabina Park is close to the heart of business area of the city as well, making the drop-in, drop-out option a popular one.

But that all changed for this match, and once anyone had stepped foot inside the ground they either stayed all day or paid to get in again. The reasons were not clear, although there was a feeling that this was a hangover from the ludicrous rules imposed during the World Cup.

The end result was more obvious. Spectators, increasingly at a premium in the Caribbean, were given yet another obstacle if they wanted to watch cricket.

	© Getty Images

The passengers apparently had no clue about the detour, and the flight crew did not know its purpose until the pre-flight briefing. "It's very exciting isn't it – the England players on board and all that?" one of the crew told the Guardian. "It reminds me of the time we had the James Bond lot on board and we went to Panama."

To mollify the passengers for the two-hour delay, they were given England-branded cuff-links and an autographed picture of the Test squad that played the home series against South Africa in 2008. Not everyone was happy. "I think it's a bloody cheek, I do," said one passenger. "I found out last week that we were going via St Kitts, and then only because I phoned Virgin to confirm my flight. They didn't phone me. I would rather give up the cuff-links and arrive on time."