Hold on tight! © Cricinfo Ltd

We started well after the break with an early wicket, but the Australians’ powerful hitting took them to the target in 40 overs, earning them the first bonus point of the competition. This was our worst performance of the tour to date and we knew we’d need to improve if we want to have any chance of making the final.

Continue reading "Now we are fighting for pride"

	Charlotte Edwards hands Ebony Rainford-Brent her first England cap © Cricinfo Ltd

The day of our first game dawned and we were all up at 6am to get some breakfast in before leaving at seven. We arrived at Mac A and were escorted to our plush dressing room complete with leather seats. The day started well with me winning my first toss and electing to field.

The Indians got off to a great start with their opening pair putting on 121, but we fought back really well to restrict them to 231 from the 50 overs. We were really happy we’d kept them to that and were confident we could chase it down as it was a good pitch and a quick outfield.

Our reply started well being 82 for 2 off 20 overs. However the loss of key wickets at key times, coupled with Claire Taylor not being on top form and therefore batting lower down the order, we fell 18 runs short. I was bitterly disappointed as we were in a great position and the target was always achievable. Everyone was really disappointed but there were many positives to come out of it and there were still five more games left.

Continue reading "Tough to take narrow defeats"

	A gentle warm-up ahead of a big game © Cricinfo Ltd

We were looking to train early in the first week to get the girls used to getting up early and playing in the conditions. All our ODIs start at 9.30am because it gets dark quite early here, so we’re just getting used to the earlier starts! This means we’ve had some quite long afternoons, so on Friday we organised a trip to the local supermarket where we all stocked up on crisps, sprite, biscuits and chocolate éclairs!

That night we went to an official meeting at the main stadium where we went over the logistics of the tournament – all very amicable. On Saturday morning we held a light training session and gave the bowlers a rest. So instead we had a group of Under-17 schoolboys bowl at us in the nets. It was a great experience for both parties, but unfortunately they came off worse because I hit one of them in the back! I felt awful, but he got some treatment from physio Sue Hughes, so he was happy!

In the afternoon a group of the girls went to a local orphanage to meet the kids. The players were all moved by what they saw and it’s a shame the schedule is so tightly packed because we would all have liked the opportunity to go. That evening was our big night out as we headed over the road to Pizza Hut. Having had rice, noodles and curry all week, it was a welcome change! We all pigged out on garlic bread and “country feast” pizzas! Then we all had an early night in preparation for our first of two practice matches against India ‘B’.

Continue reading "The tension and excitement mounts"

Our preparations for this tour started two weeks ago at the National Cricket Centre in Loughborough, with all the girls eager and raring to go. We had some good indoor practices over the weekend and did some fine tuning to our fielding with our specialist fielding coach, Richard Halsall. It was the first time we had the whole squad together as we were rejoined by Beth (Morgan) and Jenny (Gunn), who have spent the past four months playing cricket in Australia. On the Sunday evening we had a really nice team meal, finished with a piece of birthday cake for our Manager Neil Rider.

On Monday we headed down to Heathrow, after our official weigh-in with all our bags. We each had a limit of 50kg and unfortunately, but not unsurprisingly, I weighed in heaviest due to my tour ketchup supply! (and maybe a few jars of jam…) We stayed in a hotel close to the airport as we had an early start on Tuesday morning to catch our flight.

Continue reading "From the fridge to the furnace"

A terrific day for Kenya, one they fully deserve to enjoy. They were the pre-tournament favourites, undoubtedly, but wanted to win just that little bit extra. It meant a lot to them – that much was obvious.

I’ve been so impressed with their spirit, not to mention skill. When Maurice Ouma needlessly ran himself out today his partner, David Obuya, flung his bat in the air several metres behind his head. Isolated, the incident smacked of the bad, old, petulant Kenya. But actually, it was the new, fighting, don’t-waste-your-wicket-away Kenya; they don’t just want to win, but win well. It is a hugely encouraging sign and Roger Harper deserves credit for instilling in them this new fighting spirit.

The day was blighted somewhat by the news that Darrell Hair was to sue the ICC and Pakistan Cricket Board. We weren’t expecting it (nor was Darrell, to be fair) and the news came through at about 10.30 Kenya time (07.30GMT), around the time Scotland were throwing away the cup. I bumped into a vaguely familiar face, or one I thought I recognised: Adam Mynott, the BBC’s East Africa correspondent who had been dispatched on the same mission: to extract information from Hairstone. I knew both of us would lose, and so we did.

Continue reading "Chasing Hair"

	No time to wait © Will Luke

Last night’s closing ceremony was a big, loud, extravagant feast of an occasion. Suitably hosted at the Safari Park Hotel – a hotel large enough for me to lose a taxi driver inside its grounds – it was a luxuriant way to end the tournament. Tom Tikolo did his very best to control a hungry audience once the half-dozen speeches had finished, by letting the teams go up to the buffet in alphabetical order. Bermuda went first (cue wry jibes from cynical hacks on the media table), then Canada...but the decorum ended there and, led by the scavenging media, we descended on the mountain of food like a pack of hyenas. Apologies to the diplomats and dignitaries present for queue-jumping, but well done for joining in.

The food was magnificent, waiters serving meat, cut from the bone, off giant forks, right onto our plates. It was not the place for squeamish vegetarians – a meat lover’s paradise. Beef, lamb, chicken and even some I didn’t recognise, but it all tasted damn fine.

	A baby elephant at The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust © Will Luke

The Nairobi Hospital is a big, beasting building which most Nairobi taxi drivers seem proud of. “One of the best hospitals in Africa” they tell me. Until yesterday, I muttered my approval but hadn’t expected to visit it. After being struck down with the finest food poisoning Africa can serve, I did visit it – and very good they were too.

Runs a plenty. Before the proverbial hit the non-existent fan, I went to one of the many sports clubs to speak to Scotland prior to yesterday’s game. Their training session was to be held at the Sir Ali Muslim Club (SAMC), a run-down and rather decrepit, sad looking place. Khan, the manager, stood motionless inside the gloomy hallways and spoke at length of the club’s ailing fortunes. Like many, they need money. Desperately. And they don’t know when it will come, nor how much they will get.

The money is there though. Each of the grounds that I have seen all deserve their ODI status. The pitches are good and true (the outfields, as one Ireland player told me, are “pretty shoddy” in some cases) and the facilities, on the whole, are impressive. However, the problem facing Kenya has more to do with the link between schools and these clubs. The better the facilities these clubs can offer, the greater the chances of producing more Kenyan internationals.

As I should’ve suspected having spent a week in Africa, Scotland’s planned training session, at 9.00am, was moved. “Maybe they’ll be here at 3, maybe 5,” Khan told me. So on the way back to my hotel I stopped off at The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (who rely on donations). They only open for one hour each day, between 11 and midday, as the orphaned elephants aren’t yet used to human contact. You wouldn’t have believed it, though, as they marched around, oblivious to the 40 or so onlookers, and wallowed in the mud beneath our feet - even spraying a group of Americans who got a little too close with mud and water.

	Groundsmen lift water from a soggy outfield at Ruaraka © Will Luke

Travelling in Nairobi is an exercise in patience. Fortunately, I am now on brilliant terms with nearly every taxi driver in the city – all of whom, somehow, seem to know me. I certainly know them. Daniel knows Joseph who knows Albert who knows...and so on. A trip that should take five minutes invariably takes 40 and, in that respect, it’s not unlike driving in London. Without the white vans.

But it’s much, much more fun; people casually walk across the main road, stopping cars with an invisible force field. Roundabouts are more stopabouts, or jamabouts, and everyone is relaxed about the whole affair. They're relaxed about everything in fact. A five-minute delay in Britain reduces some drivers to quivering, shaking wrecks, spitting venom at anyone who will ignore them, although perhaps that’s just me. I realised last night that tapping the dashboard with my angry fingers was going to get no one anywhere, least of all me and my driver to our destination.

I’m at Ruaraka today, a ground more English than many in England; an almost perfect circle with mature acacia trees around the boundary, broken up by the advertising boards around it. It took some finding, though, as there are two clubs called Ruaraka within spitting distance of each other. In fact, this whole area is chock full of sporting clubs, often sponsored by various banks – squash, cricket grounds, gyms and others all crammed into a small area – which is terrific to see.

I was reminded by a player yesterday that my comparisons between Britain and Kenya aren’t very instructive. There are problems in Britain, problems in Africa – problems everywhere and, in that respect, he felt it was pointless highlighting them. True enough. But there is a fine line between comparisons and criticism. For a Briton visiting Nairobi for the first time, comparisons are inevitable...but I’ll keep them as just that: comparisons.

Hakuna matata.