Watching the water drain at the Kinrara Oval is a spectacle in itself © Dileep Premachandran

The second semi-final to decide which team would play India on Sunday was finely poised. Pakistan had lost two early wickets chasing 261 but Ahmed Shehzad and Umair Amin were rebuilding the run-chase with a plucky counterattack. Each boundary, every outside edge, and even mistimed shots were cheered by several Pakistan fans. The party ended abruptly with the heavy clouds, which had gathered during the dinner break, bursting shortly into the Pakistan innings. The rain was monsoonal and it was relentless until the cut-off time.

The match had to be postponed until Saturday but if you spoke to any of the ground staff, they said that if the rain had stopped in time, they could have got the ground ready for play in a jiffy despite the amount of rain.

The Kinrara Oval drains fabulously. Sitting in the press box, I could see puddles of water gathering near the covers but a few minutes later they had disappeared on their own, seeping through the grass.

The ground staff told me the venue had been designed and built by a New Zealand company and they had installed state-of-the-art drainage facilities. The ground slopes gradually as you move from the pitch towards the boundaries and the grass is planted on sandy soil which is ideal for water to percolate. There are also layers of gravel below the sand but the key to the fantastic drainage are the slit pipes that have been placed about three metres under the soil with a gap of one metre between each pipe. The water from the surface seeps into these pipes and it flows towards the larger drains outside the boundary. With the kind of rain Malaysia gets, the Kinrara needs the best drainage it can get.

	If Tim Southee wins the Man-of-the-Tournament award, the trophy will have to be couriered home © Getty Images

It's preview day ahead of the semi-final between Pakistan and South Africa so the team hotel is a must-visit for journalists. Step into the lobby and you are bound to bump into players, coaches, media managers and several others associated with the tournament. Several teams were in transit today, some were arriving in Kuala Lumpur, others preparing to leave Malaysia, while a few were heading out to see the sights.

India were scheduled to visit the Petronas Towers and were milling around the lobby. They had just emerged from a tight semi-final last night and were quietly confident, awaiting the outcome of tomorrow's game. If you ask a senior cricketer, which team they'd rather face in the final, most would spout the routine "It doesn't matter as long as we play to our potential etc etc".

The India U-19 players have got on splendidly with the South Africans but most of them would rather play Pakistan in the final. The reasons are several: Pakistan are the only other unbeaten side in the tournament, an India-Pakistan final would draw sizable crowds and create
atmosphere, and there's the lingering memory of the 2006 final, where Pakistan routed India for below 100.

When asked whether this Indian outfit was stronger than the side in 2006, the Pakistan coach Mansoor Rana kept a straight face and said "I can't judge, I only saw the Indian team for six overs in 2006."

**

There are only three more matches left in the tournament and the race for the Man of the Tournament is hotting up. New Zealand have no more games remaining and their fast bowler Tim Southee is the leading contender with 11 points. Virat Kohli is second with nine and a game in hand. A Man-of-the-Match performance in the final will clinch it for Virat but if he doesn't win it the trophy will have to be couriered to Southee. Because New Zealand are on their way home tonight.

**

West Indies and Nepal also arrived from Johor today and will contest the Plate Championship final on Saturday. From the interactions with players, West Indies weren't overly thrilled because they failed to make the Super League and have brushed away their opposition in the Plate rounds. For Nepal, however, it's a massive deal for it's their second consecutive
Plate final - they beat New Zealand to win the Championship in Sri Lanka
in 2006.

"We just need one more excellent performance," says Paras Khadka, who's playing his third World Cup and is among the leading wicket-takers of the tournament.

West Indies will fly out of Malaysia early morning on March 3, a day after the grand final, and Adrian Barath wasn't looking forward to the long journey back to the Caribbean. They fly from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai to London to Barbados, and then to Trinidad. He's eager
to get back to playing in the Carib Cup though after missing out on the
mega-bucks that Trinidad won in the Stanford 20/20.

I feel as though I have been in stasis for the past 72 hours. Time has been suspended, inverted, stretched and compressed, with mere snapshots remaining of a ludicrously protracted journey. It all began before daybreak on Monday morning, on the Piccadilly Line in London, onto which I shuffled at six o'clock in the morning, bound for Heathrow Airport. It continued through 13 hours of in-flight poker and serial ipod abuse en route to Singapore, a jewel of a city-state that I have now visited three times, but never for longer than an hour and a half.

Next stop, Auckland. The City of Sails by day; the city of room service and snatched winks of sleep by night. Seven hours in an airport motel were enlivened by a non-functioning room key that refused to let me into my room in the first instance, then refused to allow me to leave thereafter. Then it was down to Dunedin, so far south on the South Island of New Zealand that the next stop would appear to be Antarctica. And then, as I touched down, I realised. The further you travel, the more things stay the same.

It was raining when I landed, but not the sort of rain I've previously associated with the Southern Hemisphere. This was a dank, drizzly type of rain - the type that turns hillsides a lush green and leaves sheep feeling waterlogged and morose. In other words, it was rain that might have been imported direct from the United Kingdom.

The scenery might have been imported as well. Were it not for the suspiciously Antipodean touches en route from the airport to town, I might have believed I was driving through the Peak District or the lowlands of Scotland. Rolling hills and golf courses on either side of the road, with each new landmark being pointed out by Tony, my comically lugubrious taxi driver. It was the bright yellow gumboot on the hard shoulder that did it for me. Apparently, my guide informed me, it had been lying there unclaimed for all of two days.

The pace of life out here, I surmised from that comment, is pretty relaxed. "We're going to hit rush hour head-on," added Tony. "It shouldn't worry you too much." Sure enough, we chugged through town with scarcely a break for a traffic light, past the sprawling Carisbrooke Stadium where the Otago Highlanders are due to take on the Waratahs on Saturday night, and on into the centre of town. Dunedin is the fifth-largest city in the country, and second only to Christchurch on the South Island. But with a population of 120,000, it is barely a quarter of the size of Edinburgh, the city from which it derived its name.

Dunedin's Scottish influence is abundantly clear, and not just from the weather and scenery. Propped up in the window of the first bookshop I passed was a copy of the 2008 Broons annual, a comic-book I rarely imagined I'd find so far south of the border. Or have I journeyed so far south I've ended up in the world's northern-most reaches? Right now, it's a little hard to tell.

	New Zealand U-19 bowlers Trent Boult and Anurag Verma before their semi-final against India © George Binoy

There were two players born in Kanpur playing the semi-final between India and New Zealand. One was Tanmay Srivastava, India's No. 3 batsman, while the other was New Zealand medium-pacer Anurag Verma, whose family migrated when he was nine years old. And by coincidence, Tanmay bowled Anurag during the final overs of New Zealand's innings and Anurag duly returned the favour by having Tanmay caught in India's chase. Were they aware that they were born in the same city? You bet.

Anurag's family moved to New Zealand in 2000 and he says that he never played serious cricket while he was in India, only after-school games with friends. After his shift to New Zealand, a friend asked him to play for his team on Saturdays, and he's been playing ever since.

"Everything was quite different at first in New Zealand but I adjusted pretty well," Anurag says. "When I started playing cricket I didn't make representative sides. I didn't make my first regional side until the Under-15 level for Northern Districts. Then I moved on to U-17 but didn't make it the first year. I did play the second year and then broke into the U-19 side in 2007-08."

If India thought they could talk shop on the field in Hindi without the New Zealand team getting wise to their plans, they thought wrong. Anurag can converse fluently in Hindi and says they still speak it at home. His early years in India made Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid his favourite cricketers and he still looks up to them and follows their progress with the senior Indian team. When he's asked the inevitable question - whom does he back when India plays New Zealand - Anurag has this to say.

"It doesn't really bother me," he says with a laugh, "but I'd go for New Zealand first. I'll be supporting New Zealand first when India visit in 2008 but it wouldn't really bother me. I wouldn't mind if Sachin scored a 100 and New Zealand won."

Incidentally, Anurag also has the scalp of an ex-Test cricketer to show off. He played in a Twenty20 game against a Masters XI in New Zealand and picked up Matt Horne's wicket. "He's played around 35 Tests, so I was pretty pleased!"

	Pakistan players mingle with their fans after the match © George Binoy

When the dust settled on the quarter-final between Australia and Pakistan, Imad Wasim and Ali Asad might have felt a bit of déjà vu. They had been here before: winning a knock-out match against Australia at an Under-19 World Cup by bowling them out for a low score.

In 2006, Pakistan qualified for the finals by scuttling Australia for 124 after setting a target of 288. Wasim took 3 for 16 with his left-arm spin in that match while Asad had helped rescue Pakistan from 80 for 5 with 69 from 86 balls.

Fast forward two years and there are two significant differences: it was a quarter-final and Australia were batting first. Wasim took 2 for 21 today as Australia were bowled out for 129 and, after Pakistan were reduced to 32 for 3 during their chase, Asad struck an unbeaten 63 off 70 balls to take Pakistan into the semis.

The Australians were understandably downcast after their defeat - their campaign had been weaker than in 2006. The Pakistan team, however, were bubbling with excitement. They cheered loudly as Asad went up to collect his Man-of-the-Match award and raised their volume while he answered questions with a smile that would not go away.

After the formalities had been completed, the Pakistan players did something that I haven't seen so far in the tournament. They went up to the tents and shook hands with the few fans who had vociferously supported them through the match. Two security guards went with the players as they mingled with the crowd and you couldn't help but feel that, although it was better to be safe than sorry, the measure was a bit unnecessary.

The deputy president of the Malaysian Cricket Association, P Krishnaswamy,
who is also the chairman of the organising committee of the Under-19 World
Cup, had told me that he expected crowds, relatively speaking, to turn up
from the quarter-finals onwards. And sure enough, apart from the school
children who were being brought to the game to spread awareness, there was
a sizeable Indian contingent cheering their team on in the match against England.
There were a few English supporters as well but you had to search for them
because they weren't heard. They didn't have much to cheer about all day.
I haven't been to a Bangladesh game in the tournament but word is that
their support has been strong.

The press box at the Kinrara Oval has also been sparsely populated during
the first round of the tournament. Apart from the ICC officials,
television, and radio commentary crews, there are only a handful of
journalists: three from India, one from South Africa who works for the
official website, and a few from Sri Lanka. I've heard that there were
several Pakistan journalists in Johor so they should arrive at the Kinrara
for their quarter-final against Australia tomorrow.

However, there was a stack of uncollected media passes in the press box. I
spotted one belonging to a Mumbai journalist, who had applied for
accreditation but not yet made the trip to Kuala Lumpur. While travelling
by taxi, the journalist I was with got a call from a TV reporter in India
asking for sound bytes from Malaysia regarding India's progress. I had
heard that in 2006, the press box gradually filled up as India advanced in
the tournament and it was a packed house for the finals. There's no reason
to believe that 2008 will be any different if India are one of the teams
playing on March 2.

	Paul Baldwin (right) oversees a washed-out game in Scotland © Donald MacLeod/The Scotsman

On one of my first days in Kuala Lumpur, I met a man who said he was an umpire at the Under-19 World Cup. His name was Paul Baldwin and he said he was from Germany. An umpire from Germany? Paul Baldwin certainly wasn’t a German name. I had to wait nearly a week and made a trip to Penang to find out more.

Paul’s father was in the British Royal Air Force and he was posted in Germany so Paul moved there when he was 17. He didn’t play cricket for about five to six years because he says he just wasn’t interested.

“One day I saw a game of cricket at the air force base,” Paul says. “I then started playing and ended up being captain of the side.”

Paul took his first steps towards becoming an umpire during casual club games in Germany. Someone from the batting side would often stand in as the umpire. So one day when Paul was officiating, the opposition appealed for lbw when the batsman was miles outside his crease. Paul concurred. Paul's team-mates were livid and said he couldn’t umpire again until he took an umpiring course.

And he did take a course. “In 2000, I went to England and did an umpiring course – the Association of Cricket Umpires and Scorers part 2 exam – after a week of studying,” Paul says. “The test was for two-and-a-half hours on stuff like rolling, mowing and watering - when it’s allowed, when it’s not, how long you can do it for, who has to supervise it. I literally scraped through that.

“I went back two years after that and took an oral exam with three senior members from the Umpires and Scorers’ association and they fired questions at me for an hour and a half.”

Paul then went back to Germany and played his last season with Krefeld Cricket Club, a local German team, in 2000. He gave up playing in 2001 because that year Germany went to the ICC Trophy in Canada and the policy at the time was for each participating country to nominate an umpire. There was no one else in Germany so Paul was almost an automatic choice. One of the first people he met in Canada was Darrell Hair. And so his umpiring career began.

Paul explained the game’s structure in Germany. “We have what is called the German Cricket Board,” Paul says. “There are six regions in Germany and we have regional authorities that run cricket within those areas. So for example, in my region, Nordrhein-Westfalen, which is to the west of the country and includes places such as Dortmund, Dusseldorf and Cologne, there are about 13-14 teams registered to play this season. So if you multiply that by six we’ve got about 70-80 teams that play every weekend.”

So are the players predominantly German? Paul says that a sizeable number of Germans are interested though there are several second-generation Asians on the circuit as well. In Bavaria, cricket has spread to a few schools because of teachers who have holidayed in England and brought the game back to Germany and introduced it in their schools. That’s were a substantial portion of Germany’s Under-17 and Under-19 talent comes from.

How hard is it to teach cricket to someone who hasn’t a clue about the game? “We have brochures in English and German explaining what cricket is, what it’s about and how you can get involved,” Paul says. “And there are people who go about distributing it whenever we play.

“There are small groups of Germans who will come and watch. On one ground in Bonn on the banks of the Rhine, within five minutes of the game starting people will stop, watch, and then try to imitate the bowler because they can’t work out how he releases the ball without bending the arm. It’s funny to watch.”

Cricket in Germany is sold to newcomers as a social game and an opportunity for friends and family to get together and spend the day. “It is getting together at the interval, having a great meal with friends and family. We are trying to spread the message that there is more to it than just winning.”

And at the end of the day, the numbers in Germany are growing gradually.

	I was personally pleased to finally score my first ODI hundred earlier against Netherlands © ICC

The players came into this tournament knowing qualification was an absolute must for South
Africa, so I'm almost as relieved as I am happy that we are going to the Women's World Cup in 2009.

I expected a slightly tougher game against Ireland in our semi-final, but once again we put in an outstanding team effort, with our bowling attack in absolutely superb form.

We've obviously had some interesting matches, against teams of very different standards, but everybody has to start somewhere and I hope teams such as Papua New Guinea and Bermuda would have learned some lessons.

I think the Papua New Guinea opening bowlers have been one of the most difficult attacks we have faced this past week. If they continue to work on their game, there is no reason why they can't be more competitive in the future.

For us, there have been many star performers, although I have been really proud of the way Olivia Anderson has adapted to international cricket.

Given she made her debut in the tournament, to capture two Player-of-the-Match awards says something about her character and her ability.It's great to have her as part of my team.

I was personally pleased to finally score my first ODI hundred against Netherlands - it's been a long time coming and it would be great to get a couple more in the future.

The team were delighted to be invited to Newlands on Friday night as guests of Cricket South
Africa, and spend an evening in the President's Suite. People there seemed genuinely delighted for us that we have made it to the World Cup and were interested in the results of our matches.

It's great to know people in South Africa are behind us and I was excited to hear Graeme Smith and the boys in Bangladesh have been following our progress. It really means a lot to me and the team to get a congratulatory message from them during their Test match.

We need to take this support forward and transform it into generating even greater media interest in the sport. It's not always easy to generate coverage of women's cricket in South Africa but it has been great to see the newspapers, radio and television taking interest and pride in our performances.

It would be brilliant to get to a situation where we can use this exposure to get lots of girls wanting to play the game and for them to beg their parents to take them to watch some cricket and learn from their heroes.

We have 12 months to prepare for the ICC Women's World Cup in Australia and we have a lot of work to do if we want to compete with the very best.

Given most of us have full-time jobs, it is hard to fit in playing and training around our work, but we have all made a commitment to do well for South Africa and with that commitment comes a number of sacrifices.

Hopefully we'll have an opportunity to play some Twenty20 cricket. We don't have much experience of this in South Africa, but the skills you pick up in the format will really help us when we are playing in the World Cup.

The teams that have played more Twenty20s than us seem to have really benefitted from their experiences and are applying the skills picked up in that format of cricket to the 50-over game. We know this is an area that we need to work on and I'm really looking forward to playing alongside some of the other girls in our domestic Twenty20 competition later this year.

The tour to England in a few months' time will be a good measure of how far we have to go to be competitive at next year's Women's World Cup, but all I can ask of my team is to show the same levels of dedication and commitment they have in the build-up to and during this event.

If we keep up the level of performance we have shown this week, then I am sure we should be able to beat Pakistan in the final of this tournament.

	Pakistan celebrate their victory over Netherlands and a place in the Women's World Cup © ICC

It’s still hard to believe that we’re going to be on the plane to Australia for the Women’s World Cup next year.

It was a World Cup win for Pakistan’s men team in Australia back in 1992 that inspired me to take up the game, so to think that I am going to follow in the footsteps of some of my cricketing heroes is amazing.

I don’t think anybody in my family would have thought that when I first picked up a cricket bat aged six-and-a-half and played against my brothers and cousins in the backyard that I would go onto lead my country in the sport. After yesterday’s result, when we beat Netherlands by 94 runs, even Dad might forgive me for all the plants we used to destroy in those backyard games. I don’t think there could have been prouder parents in Pakistan last night.

I tried to treat the semi-final against the Netherlands in the same way as I would any other match. After waking up and getting some breakfast, I finished praying and then did some visualization work to help me with my batting and bowling.

The ground is about half an hour by bus from the team hotel, which gives you plenty of time for mental preparation. We share a bus with the opposition on our way to matches at this event and they normally play their music as well, which keeps everybody’s mood upbeat as it is always interesting to hear what music other girls around the world like to listen to.

There were some girls who were pretty jittery, but I just try and relax and reassure the girls – that is the captain’s job.

Although we didn’t get as many runs as we would have liked, we have such a great bowling attack and I was never really worried that we weren’t going to win the game.

The Netherlands squad were really great to us after the game and even though they were so disappointed, they even joined in some of our celebrations on the bus on the way back to the hotel.

Helmien Rambaldo, who captains their team, even lent her music player to us for our party last night which shows what great spirit there is amongst the players within the women’s game.

Hopefully our victory will lead to some important changes within the sport in Pakistan. Not a lot of people were expecting us to qualify, so it is so exciting to have qualified with so many comprehensive victories this week.

Growing up, we’ve always looked up to other players and it would be nice to think that girls in Pakistan will now be able to look up to us.

I was very lucky that I had the opportunity to play lots of sports, I’m a black belt in karate, I swam for the national team until I was 16 and I enjoy playing golf and tennis as well, but lots of people never have had the chance to play cricket.

Hopefully our win will help improve the domestic structure of the women’s game in Pakistan, creating more leagues across the country, so the participation base can grow and grow. It would be nice to think we might be able to get some of our matches on television as well.

It really was an amazing day on Friday and I still keep thinking back to the final ball of the match when we finally knew that we had won the match. I was so excited I ran straight for the stumps and took them out of the ground, although the umpires made me give them back after the game.

I may have had to give up the stumps, but I am so proud of the fact that nobody will ever be able to take away from me the fact I have led my country to qualification to the Women’s World Cup. If only we can repeat the achievements of our countrymen in 1992 when we play in next year’s event.

But first we have to play South Africa in Sunday’s final and it would be nice to get into habit of winning some silverware then. I already can’t wait to celebrate our World Cup qualification with all my friends and family back in Pakistan – to come back with a trophy as well would be the most incredible feeling ever.

	Members of Australia's Air Force Base and their families watch the cricket ... © George Binoy

I’ve been to a fair number of grounds at the Under-19 World Cup so far and there haven’t been many fans coming to watch the cricket. The few that do show up are mostly schoolchildren who have been brought in for their first cricket experience, or the families of players who have traveled to Malaysia to follow the cricket.

So when I saw a few people coming in nearly an hour early to the
Australia-Sri Lanka game at the Penang Sports Club, I assumed they were
related to the Australian cricketers. They had come well equipped with two
massive Australian flags, an over-sized ice box full of beer and soft
drinks – but mainly beer – an inflatable Wallaby and a pump to inflate it.
They were enthusiastic enough to haul a football goalpost about 50 yards
towards their tent so that they could drape their flags from it. I went up
to ask which cricketer’s family they were.

It turned out that they weren’t family. There’s a Royal Air Force base in
Butterworth, Penang and these fans were stationed there. There were about
ten before the start of the match but Grant, who appeared to be the chief
enthusiast, said he expected about 80 to come in. They have an Australian
Defence Force (ADF) cricket team and its banner, which has a pouncing tiger with
claws bared for a symbol, was signed by all the U-19 cricketers and hung
over the tent. The icing on the cake, however, was a “Bay 13” sign which
hung between the Australian flags, in honour of the famous stand at the
MCG which is renowned for its not-so-sophisticated behavior.

	... while some Sri Lankan fans support their team from another part of the ground © George Binoy

Soon more people turned out – and some families of the cricketers as well – and as the beer flowed the shouts of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi” grew louder. No day at the cricket is complete without a barbie, said one of them and so as lunch approached they set up a grill. We were over at the buffet at the press tent but their set-up looked infinitely more inviting. Several Australian players went over to the barbeque during the break though the Australian captain Michael Hill got waylaid by photo requests on the way. It began with two girls asking him to pose and then everyone wanted their pictures taken.

It wasn’t all one-way traffic. The Sri Lankan fans, athough they were less
conspicuous, had a tent of their own with a buffet and bar. “We drink
Australian beer but we beat them,” said one fan. They have a club here
named Oceans XI and claim they beat the ADF XI twice last year. They were
unnoticed early on but as the match progressed; they had more to cheer
about and made themselves heard.

	Nepal's players leave the field after completing a tight three-wicket win © George Binoy

Nepal finished third in Group C after a thrilling three-run victory against Namibia at the University Sains Malaysia. It was a finish meant for packed stands yet there were only a few Nepal supporters cheering on every dot ball towards the end of the Namibian run-chase. Overs were not an issue but the pressure had been mounting because the Namibian batsmen were simply not able to get Nepal’s spinners away. They were chasing a target of 165 and the equation had boiled down to six runs to win with two wickets in hand.

Morne Engelbrecht, the No. 9 batsman, swept the spinner in the air towards midwicket but the ball fell safe. The batsmen ran one but wanted another, the second run was fraught with risk. The throw at the bowler’s end was good and No. 10 batsman Elandre Oosthuizen was run out. The last pair added two more but with three runs to get, Engelbrecht was bowled by Gyanendra Malla. Nepal’s players converged on each other and celebrated in a heap before getting up to shake hands with the Namibians. As the jubilant Nepal players walked off, it was hard not to feel for their young opposition.

And right through it all, Paras Khadka, the Nepal captain, was egging his team-mates on. After each dot ball you could hear him clapping hard and shouting encouragements in Nepalese. He’s been in such situations before, most memorably during the 2006 Under-19 World Cup Plate Championship semi-finals against South Africa, when Paras bowled the last over with ten runs to defend.

“The batsmen didn’t get enough runs today,” Paras said. “But we needed two wickets and there were ten runs left. We knew if we could get one wicket the pressure would be on them rather than us.”

Paras is 20 years old [Associates countries can field players a year older than Full Members] and a veteran by U-19 standards; this is his third World Cup appearance. “I qualified for this World Cup by one-and-a-half or two months [within the age limit],” he says. “I just made the cut off date.”

What has been the most memorable moment of his career so far? “Winning the Plate Championship [in 2006],” he says without a moment’s hesitation.

“The reception was huge [when they returned to Nepal]. The boys were really felicitated well. There were lots of people and we were made to go around the city in a vehicle. The people were really proud of us. The sport has given me a lot of recognition and fame.”

Roy Dias, the Nepal coach, said Paras was an extremely bright student and feared he would leave Nepal to pursue higher studies. Paras was understandably hesitant while answering the question. “I would like to play cricket but you have to study because we’re not so professional in our country. We have to think of our careers. I don’t know, let’s hope for
the best.”

	Cricket anyone? © George Binoy

University Sains Malaysia in Penang is one of the biggest educational institutions in the county: it has about 20,000 students and is spread over 500 acres. And nestled on the border of its campus, by the main road, is the cricket ground where the Under-19 World Cup matches are being staged.

Nambia are playing Nepal today, a match which will decide the third and fourth spots in Group C. There are between 100-200 schools kids in the tents so I head over to have a chat. Malaysia beat Zimbabwe on Wednesday so I assume they'll be pretty excited about it.

There's a solitary net with a matting surface in one corner of the ground and a couple of boys, who are about 13, are having a hit. A red plastic chair is being used as a makeshift set of stumps and the batsman isn't wearing pads. "Aren't you afraid of getting hit in the shins?" I ask. "No!" says Farhan. Soon enough, the bowler, Nasiruddin, bowls one on the legs and Farhan gets hit on the thigh. He rubs it off, smiles, and is ready to bat again.

Farhan, Nasiruddin and another friend, Amar, are from Penang Free School, which was founded in 1816 making it the oldest English school in Malaysia and the South East Asia region. Amar is 15 and he says he plays for the schools Under-19 team. The games in the Under-19 World Cup are the first international games he's watching live.

They hesitate when I ask who their favourite cricketers are - they haven't watched much of the sport on TV. After further coaxing, one of them says Brian Lara, another Andrew Symonds while Farhan picked a Malaysian cricketer - Thomas Mathew - who once came to his school to talk about cricket.

There is an older group of boys near by - one of them is sleeping - from the SMT Technical School. They're hostelites and they hadn't heard of Malaysia's win against Zimbabwe. This is their first exposure to international cricket too and they haven't watched the Malaysian national
team play either.

Curiously, there are a large group of schoolgirls as well but most of them are talking among themselves or fiddling with their phones and cameras. "Do you play cricket?" I ask hesitantly. They said that they didn't even know what cricket was. So I sit for a while and begin to try and explain the game. Where do you start when you have to explain what a run is? They were eager to learn, though, and asked more than a few questions but they were aghast and amused when they learnt that a one-day match spans seven hours.

For them the visit to watch Namibia and Nepal was a field trip. They clapped when the ball crosses the ropes but they didn't know that it meant four runs for the batting side. They were clapping because the boys next to them were! The girls play a multitude of sports at their convent school - hockey, netball, basketball, volleyball, squash and even golf, I was told - but not cricket. Not yet.

	Urooj Mumtaz claimed a hat-trick in Pakistan's game against Zimbabwe © International Cricket Council

I couldn’t have dreamed for a better start to the tournament – played two, won two, and confidence in the side is sky high.

We have a really strong side – we have a very good bowling attack, with pace and spin options, and we have worked really hard on our fielding which has been good in this tournament so far. We know we have some more work to do on our batting, especially after six run outs in opening game against Ireland, but we showed some good form in our victory over Zimbabwe.

I am really enjoying the playing conditions in Stellenbosch, although the strong winds are a bit different to those back at home, but I have tried to use that to my advantage when I have been bowling. I also love the fact the outfield is soft – it hurts a lot more to dive around on the hard, dusty fields of Pakistan.

I was so proud to take a hat-trick in the game against Zimbabwe, although I was a bit worried that my third ball was going to be dropped as it was only caught at the second attempt.

It was great to speak to friends and family back at home straight after the match on my mobile, although many of them knew that the scores already as they have been following on the internet back at home.

I had taken a hat-trick for Pakistan before, but have yet to do so in a game which has ODI status, so I will have to add this to my to do list for the coming year – although qualification for the Women’s World Cup is certainly the top priority.

We are staying at a coastal resort called Strand, which is about 30 minutes from Stellenbosch, and I absolutely love the awesome views from my room. The sea looks absolutely fantastic and the mountains in the distance are very beautiful.

All eight teams are sharing the hotel and I love having the opportunity to talk to the players from the other teams.

My second team at the event is Bermuda, who we really bonded with when we played a practice game against them before the event started. After the game we shared the bus back with them and we had such fun singing together – we would sing our songs and they would then try and copy us which was so funny.

They are really great girls, who are trying their very best at the event, and it is a massive thing for them to even be playing here considering many of them only took up the game in the last couple of years. They have fantastic team spirit and we have learnt a lot from them in this area and I am sure they will get stronger in the future.

We haven’t toured much abroad before outside of Asia, although we did come on tour to South Africa last year, and I think we all appreciate how lucky we are to be able to travel as not as many girls back at home have that opportunity.

If we qualify for the Women’s World Cup in 2009 it will be the biggest thing that has ever happened in the history of women’s cricket in Pakistan.

Hopefully qualification may create opportunities to improve the support women’s cricket receives in Pakistan and by qualifying for the World Cup I hope that we may be able to generate more sponsorship as well.

It’s a big few months for me as well as once I have finished playing in this event I have my final dentistry exams – both my parents are dentists as well – so hopefully I will have double reason to celebrate in 2008. It’s certainly not been a quiet start to the year.

Tomorrow we are going to relax in the morning and see some of the tourist sites in Cape Town. I really wanted to go diving to see the sharks and I would love go to fishing, which is how I relax in my spare time, but there isn’t time, so instead I’m going to have settle for enjoying the views at the top of Table Mountain. I just wonder if the view will be as spectacular as that from the window of my hotel.

	James Harris: "Ice Skating? We've been told, if we're terrible, not to go on" © Getty Images

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."

	Napoleon Einstein's grandfather wrote a letter to Albert Einstein ... and got a reply © Getty Images

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.

**
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."

	The celebration after his first wicket in Trinidad © Getty Images

For almost all the players involved, the Under-19 World Cup is the most publicised event they've been part of on the international circuit. But there's one who has had a bigger experience: this is Malachi Jones' second World Cup but unlike others who played the U-19 tournaments in 2004 and 2006, Malachi's prior World Cup experience was in the Caribbean in 2007.

Bermuda have just been thrashed by ten wickets in their Group D match against England at the Royal Selangor Club. Malachi scored 2 and didn't take a wicket in 5.4 overs. Believe it or not, he feels the heat more in Malaysia than he did in the West Indies, both literally and figuratively.

He was the youngest member of the Bermuda squad in the Caribbean and not much was expected of him then but he's one of the senior boys in the U-19 team with international experience. "I have to produce more than I did at the senior level, so I feel a little more pressure on my game," Malachi says. "I think it's getting to me a little bit. I'm trying to settle down and not worry about the team looking up to me so much."

Malachi's World Cup debut in 2007 was magical. Seventeen at the time,
was given the new ball against India and ran in to bowl at Robin Uthappa.

"I was the youngest in the team so nobody was really expecting much from
me," Malachi said. "So I didn't have many nerves in my system. So I freed
up and tried to just get the ball as close to the stumps as possible."

It was a full delivery just outside off stump, Uthappa poked at it
nervously, the ball flew towards first slip where the massive Dwayne Leverock defied
gravity by diving full stretch to his right to pull off a stunning one
handed catch. The players converged on Malachi, and after he emerged from
the bottom of the heap, you could see that he had tears in his eye.

"It was a good catch," Malachi said. "I thanked him [Leverock] for the
catch and the effort he put in. I took it as a stepping stone in my
career."

So what was that World Cup like for Malachi? He says it was a great
experience from which he learned a tremendous amount from all the Test
players - Sachin Tendulkar in particular - around him. "I took it as a
training camp and took the opportunity to learn as much as I could about
the game."

Malachi spent his time between that World Cup and this one training and
going on a few senior tours. He's 18 now and by the time the next U-19
World Cup comes around he might be too old. However, he would have to play a part if Bermuda harbour hopes of qualifying for another senior World Cup. Malachi, who wants to
study liberal arts, will be striving to mix it with the big boys once again.

	Half of Ireland's current squad played in the last World Cup including Caitriona Beggs, who also featured in the 2000 edition of the tournament © Cricinfo Ltd

Preparation for this ICC World Cup Qualifier tournament started at the end of the last World Cup, which was also in South Africa. But intensive training began once our squad of 20 was chosen in September.

To say that we were disappointed when the tournament was cancelled in November would be an understatement. All of our preparation was done with a view to travelling to Pakistan. Pakistani cricketers in Ireland spoke to us about conditions and traditions in their home country, and everybody altered their diets to prepare for the change there would be in available food.

Two of my brothers, Dom and Ed, have toured in Asia before and they were able to give me and my sister Cecelia an idea of what to expect, what food we should eat and what to bring with us. Not to be however, and training began again a few weeks after the tournament was cancelled.

We found it difficult training in the months when we did not know where and when we were going to be travelling. Our fitness instructor Rachel Ormrod welcomed us back to fitness every Thursday in the increasingly cold winter weather, and indoor nets got back into full swing.

I suffered a broken index finger on my bowling hand the weekend after Pakistan was cancelled, and the first thing my mother said? “That never would have happened if you were in Pakistan.” When I heard the tournament would not be until February, I was relieved, knowing I would be back playing in time.

Half of our current team played in the last World Cup three years ago, so we are more aware of what to expect this time round. Our assistant coach Thinus Fourie is also from South Africa, and so could tell us more about what we could expect.

Our training week went well, although there were a few tomato faces roaming the streets of Port Elizabeth for the first few days, and some interesting tan lines have started to form from sweat bands and the like. But now we have become accustomed to the heat, and are ready for the even hotter weather of Stellenbosch this week. The rusty edges on our fielding and throwing have been knocked off and we are confident that we are ready to play our first game on Monday.

We have played against four of the teams in this tournament before, and two of those are in our group – Pakistan and Scotland. Zimbabwe is the unknown quantity, but judging from reports of their progress they appear to be a confident side. We have not played Pakistan since this tournament four years ago, so it will be interesting to see what strides they have made in their cricket.

We will be keeping a close eye on the results of the other group as well as our own where there are two teams we have not encountered before – Papua New Guinea, and Bermuda. We would expect South Africa to do well in their group, and the Netherlands are always tough competition.

We wish the seven other teams participating in the Qualifier the best of luck in the coming week.

	"For me, cricket has taken me everywhere. You’ve got to grab your opportunities" © George Binoy

While walking around the Kinrara Oval on Saturday, a journalist friend pointed someone out to me who said that he was a fast bowler who had bowled Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid at the nets when India were in Kuala Lumpur for the DLF Cup in 2006. So I went up to him and asked him who he was and felt quite sheepish when he replied that he had been playing for the Malaysian national side for 15 years and captained them for eight. Suresh Navaratnam is 33-years-old now. He began playing for Malaysia in 1993, at the age of 18 and led the country from December 1998 to 2006.

A common gripe, and a realistic one, in smaller cricketing countries is that you can’t make a living out of playing cricket. Suresh, though he understands the larger problems, has had an extremely different experience with the sport. “People say, in this country, that cricket won’t take you anywhere,” Suresh said. ”But for me, cricket has taken me everywhere. You’ve got to grab your opportunities.”

Suresh’s family is originally from Sri Lanka – his grandfather was from there – but his parents were born in Malaysia and so was he. He took up the game at the age of 12, under the influence of his father and uncles who used to play actively. Why choose cricket when other sports were so much bigger in Malaysia? “I just followed my father,” he says.

Suresh was born in 1975, and during his formative years cricket was a rarity on local television. Yet he says his early heroes were Javed Miandad and then Steve Waugh. He used to read about the sport in papers and when people went to England and returned, he would soak up information from publications like Wisden and The Cricketer. A local channel used to telecast an hour cricket highlights once a week. They were mostly old matches involving England and West Indies but he used to watch and it was around then that he began to admire Curtly Ambrose.

His family had a significant impact on his early cricket days but his father died a year after Suresh was 14, a year after he began playing cricket. In some ways, he says, that became an encouragement for him to do well. He rose through the ranks of school cricket, played for his state, Selangor, then went on to play at the junior levels for Malaysia before breaking into the national side at the age of 18.

In 1996, Suresh got a major break. Graham Halbish, who was with the Australian cricket board at the time, brought two Australian teams - the seniors and an A side – to Malaysia to play a Super 8s tournament. It was an experimental format – eight players in a team and 14-overs-a-side contest. Suresh was part of an international team captained by Allan Border which included players like Sanath Jayasuriya, Aravinda de Silva and Chaminda Vaas, fresh from their World Cup victory. Suresh was the only Malaysian in the squad.

Even though he went on to represent Malaysia in the Commonwealth Games in 1998, that Super 8 tournament, though it failed to take off as a concept, is Suresh’s favourite cricketing experience. He played against the best Australian players of the time – Mark Taylor, Ricky Ponting, Mark Waugh, Michael Slater – and future stars such as Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden who were part of the A team.

Suresh’s performances must have caught Halbish’s eye for Halbish invited Suresh to Australia to play for his club Mulgrave. So in August 1996, he was playing the Super 8s and in October he was in Australia, where he went on to play for four seasons.

Suresh says cricket’s given him a lot. He went to university in Malaysia to study sports science and he got picked for the course primarily because he was a national player. He admits that he’s had a lot of luck along the way but says that you’ve just got to keep at it.

	Colin and Charles Amini are continuing the family tradition © George Binoy

Most of us are influenced – to a certain extent at least – by our parents, and they by their parents. So when all the members of your family sitting at your dinner table are national cricketers, it’s only natural that you tend to take up the sport. That’s precisely what happened to Colin and Charles Amini. Colin’s the captain of the Papua New Guinea Under-19 side and Charles jnr, his younger brother, is also part of the squad. Their aunt, Cheryl, is the media manager of the Papua New Guinea team, and she talked me through several generations of cricketers from the Amini family.

Her grandfather, Amini (Colin and Charles jnr’s great-grandfather), began playing cricket in the early 1900s. He used to form a team and travel by boat to Port Moresby, the capital city and main cricketing centre of Papua New Guinea, to challenge the city teams. And so it began.

Through Amini, his children took to cricket. His son Bryan (Cheryl’s father and the grandfather of Colin and Charles jnr) had a chance to do his schooling in Toowoomba in Australia and was exposed to cricket there. Bryan went on to become the first local to captain the Papua New Guinea team at a time when cricket was played primarily by the English and Australian expats in the country. He led his country against the touring Fijians in 1975, and also against Clive Lloyd’s West Indies.

Like his father had an influence on him, Bryan had an impact on his children. Everyone in the family played regardless of age or sex. Backyard cricket, even with makeshift equipment like bats carved out of wood and cardboard, was a popular pastime when the family got together.

After Bryan stopped playing, he took up cricket administration in Port Moresby. He also worked in foreign affairs and he was Papua New Guinea’s high commissioner to New Zealand. It was there that his son Charles (Colin and Charles jnr’s father) played on turf pitches for the first time.

Charles continued playing cricket when the family returned to Papua New Guinea and got selected for the national side. Charles played for Papua New Guinea for several years around the 1990s and got married to Kune, who, given the family she was marrying into, is the current captain of the Papua New Guinea women’s team. The women in Papua New Guinea have been playing cricket for a while but started on the international circuit around 2006. Cheryl was part of the team that played the first match against Japan.

Their three sons have continued the legacy. Charles was posted in Melbourne for four years when his sons were young and that’s where they were introduced to turf cricket. Chris Amini, the eldest of Charles’ three sons, led the Papua New Guinea team in the U-19 World Cup in 2004 and his younger brother Colin is this year’s captain.

So that’s Amini, Bryan, Charles, Chris, Colin, Charles jnr, Kune and Cheryl, who assures me that there were two more cousins. That makes around ten. Now how many Chappells and Hadlees were there?

	Bermuda's Under-19 squad beat the heat by wearing shorts © George Binoy

For all practical purposes the Under-19 World Cup began for the teams the moment they landed in Kuala Lumpur. The build-up to the first round of matches has been hectic: apart from practice sessions and warm-up matches, the teams have had to attend seminars on anti-corruption and anti-doping, go for photo shoots, do introduction videos for television, sign miniature bats for sponsors, and meet the competition. England and India even found time to attend a charity function. In short, everything has been new and most of the players are soaking it all in.

However, the tournament was officially opened on Friday during a short
ceremony at the Kinrara Cricket Academy and the teenagers had to shed
their jerseys and shorts and get spruced up. You couldn’t help but feel
for them as they stood in single file on the field, looking spiffy but
sweaty in their blazers, trousers and boots. Not all of them came
completely formally dressed though: Bermuda beat some of the heat by
wearing bright red Bermuda shorts with their blazers, while South Africa
might not have been the smartest in their collared t-shirts but they
certainly looked more comfortable.

The media contingent had grown considerably and there were several local
journalists, from print and television, as well as one from Papua New
Guinea. The families of the players also formed a sizable section of the
crowd. The families of Bermudian players Rodney Trott and Malachi Jones
were here, as well as several parents of the Australian and Ireland teams,
who announced their presence by applauding loudly when their teams walked
out. There were loud cheers for the local Malaysian team and when Pakistan
marched out, the claps were almost in respect for the champions of 2004
and 2006.

The event began with a troupe of drummers performing before a para-glider
swooped into the ground, carrying the ICC and Malaysian flags, which he
handed over to ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed and P Krishnaswamy, the
chairman of the organizing committee of the World Cup. There were a few
speeches from Speed, the president of the Malaysian Cricket Board Tunku
Tan Sri Imran. There was a curious performance by a troupe of dancers, moving to Justin Timberlake’s Sexyback, which didn’t quite fit in with the overall theme, but the players, who had been growing visibly restless in the sun, milled around and captured it all on camera.

As everyone moved towards the lunch that awaited there was a lot of
mingling, and several families and players spent time taking photographs.
For most this will be a once in a lifetime experience and, as Speed put it
succinctly, they were trying to enjoy every minute of it.

	Clive Rose's on-field performances will be closely watched by his father, Jude © Getty Images

The diversity of teams involved in the Under-19 World Cup offers a unique opportunity to meet journalists from different countries and gain an insight into cricket and its intricacies in various nations.

However, there were hardly any at the team hotel on Thursday and so when I saw a man with a backpack and camera at the Club Aman, where Australia were playing West Indies in a warm-up match, I labeled him as a journalist from a distance.

Turned out that I was wrong. He was Jude Rose, whose son Clive is a left-arm orthodox spinner in the Australian Under-19 squad. He’s in Malaysia following Australia’s, and Clive’s, progress in the tournament. Jude was there first but there are more coming. Fast bowler James Pattinson’s father is expected as are allrounder David King’s and captain Michael Hill’s.

Amid the attention that a tournament of this nature generates, it’s easy to forget that the players in national colours attending official functions are merely teenagers. And although there’s no substitute for team-spirit and camaraderie, having a parent not very far away can be a boost mentally, as challenges crop up during the course of the tournament.

	Wayne Parnell, South Africa's U-19 captain, signs miniature cricket bats © George Binoy

The sun hadn't risen when the plane landed in Kuala Lumpur at 6.50 am, which was odd. What was perhaps odder was that the average Malaysian was oblivious to the fact that their country was hosting a 16-team international tournament, due to begin in a few days time. The businessman on the flight didn't know until he saw the headline about Pakistan's defeat in the in-flight paper. Badminton, he said, was Malaysia's biggest sport. The woman in an electrical appliance store was wide-eyed and said "Cricket World Cup? Here?" while the cashier at a fast food chain didn't know either, though his outlet was a five-minute walk from the hotel where the teams were staying.

It's the first time the Under-19 World Cup is being staged in a non-Test country and the build-up to it has been quiet. Perhaps that's the way it should be, to reduce the pressure and spotlight on the teenage contenders. I spotted two small banners advertising the tournament at the airport and none on the drive into Kuala Lumpur. But walking towards the team hotel, it was impossible to miss the decorations in red, pink and gold. False alarm. The dressing up was for the Chinese New Year and not the U-19 World Cup. There were no banners in the lobby either announcing that the cream of cricket's teenagers were in Malaysia.

Then Larry Gomes, the West Indies U-19 coach, walked by followed by a bunch of kids in maroon T-shirts and soon you could see several clusters of yellow, green, blue and red. The teams' itinerary was choc-a-bloc: they had net sessions, head-shot sessions and player-promo sessions, the kind in which Paul Collingwood introduces himself as "right-hand batsman and
right-arm 'fast' bowler. Then they had to sign countless miniature bats for sponsors and, most importantly, attend a talk by the ICC's Anti-Corruption Security Unit where they were briefed on the dos and don'ts of the circuit. In between, the captains and coaches found time to speak to the media, albeit there were only two media people around. I was told that there was quite a crowd when Malaysia had their media stint on Tuesday.

The laidback atmosphere with free access to everyone was in stark contrast to a senior international fixture. And perhaps that's the way it should be for these players aren't senior cricketers yet and they will learn how to cope with the spotlight once it trains on them.

	Roger Page with his remarkable collection of books © Siddhartha Vaidyanathan

The cricket-playing world contains its set of pilgrimages. Few West Indian fans leave Barbados before paying respect to Frank Worrell's grave and Aussie diehards do the same with Victor Trumper's tombstone in Sydney. For lovers of cricket literature, though, there is a venue that one cannot miss: Roger Page's unbelievable collection in a suburb outside Melbourne.

Page began as a scorer and statistician in Melbourne before moving to a profession in cricket books back in 1969. Over the years he's built up a remarkable collection of close to 10,000 books, all stacked and catalogued in his spacious house in Macleod, Victoria. So prolific is the collection that even his kitchen isn't spared – with two stacks beside the cutlery.

He's devoted an entire room for his "personal favourites", writers close to his heart, but the rest, a combination of first and second hand books, are up for sale. His visitor list is an illustrious one. "Richie Benaud, a big collector himself, comes here sometimes, as does Ian Chappell."

He goes on to pull out a copy of Chappelli, the autobiography, and shows me the inscription inside: "To Ray Steel: the manager who had to tear his hair out every time he won." Steel was the manager on Australia's 1972 tour to England, a trip often remembered as the point from where Chappell's side didn't look back.

Bishan Bedi has been here too as has Steve Randell, the former umpire. But Page's fondest memory was a time during the 1992 World Cup. "So many people were here. And one says he was the biggest collector of books in the USA and the other says he's the biggest collector in England. It was quite some day."