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."
 | ||
|
| ||
|
|
|
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."
Web Feeds
