8th April 2001 - Sharjah Diary

We arrived in Sharjah on two separate planes cos of the last minute invitation. The players who were playing in England after this tour were on United Arabs Emirates Airline. And the rest flew in on Singapore…bugger, no air points for us on the UAE airline. But it was a first in business class. My god, you even get you own little toiletry bag filled with all sorts of goodies and a pair of socks. Best pair I’ve ever owned. Plus your own TV. Sleeping was top draw as well, despite Mathew Sinclair’s roaring snores and Andre Adam's comedy show. That boy can make you laugh anywhere, anytime...

We stayed in this real flash hotel with the Sri Lankan's and the Pakistani’s called the ???… forgotten, but I’ll try and find the pen I took from the room. Usually has the name on it. It had a cool leisure complex with a pool, tennis courts, and table tennis, GYM, and deck beds for our days off.

UAE is an amazing place; it reminds me of that computer game called ‘Sim City’. I called it the giant ashtray cos there was nothing but sand everywhere. But in the town it was amazing. It seems to be built the perfect way, everything is brand new and some of the building architecture is real futuristic. All of the roads look like racetracks, the curbs are painted black and white all throughout the towns. They tend to always drive like they are fighting for pole position. Our bus’s record for getting home from the ground was 9 minutes 2 sec, Chris Harris was the official time keeper, also the navigator and motivator.

We had a pretty young and inexperienced side for this tournament with Craig Mac captaining. But we definitely had a top bunch of lads that all got on really well with plenty of laughs. Some boys played really well, Mathew Sinclair definitely took the opportunity opening up. Smashed the ball to all parts of the ground. Even Waqar Younis was bamboozled when Skip charged him and basically hit the ball out of his hand before letting it go. Skip was definitely on form. Soss (Nevin) also played some awesome shots at the top as well. I don’t think I can remember him letting one go or playing a defensive shot.
Big Squarker (Kyle Mills) was the new find for the Black Caps. Last game against Sri Lanka he had Jayasuria looking like a school boy, we bowled second in this game and there was plenty of moisture in the air; Squarker was swinging the ball miles. He and Skip got man of the match in our only win.

Personally my tour was a big step back. I performed badly. I spent many hours awake working out why I didn’t do well. I’d agree to myself that coming in when either Muralitheran or Saqlain is spinning the ball to all angles isn’t easy, but if you’re going to be an international cricketer you have to have game plans to conquer these weapons. If I go to Sri Lanka, playing in England won’t help much with the green seamers but there’s always a way of practicing like game conditions...imagination. I remember James Marshall and me practicing our sweep shots last year in India on a NZ Academy tour on the roughest, driest bit of ground we could find.

Overall Sharjah was a different experience. The amount of money over there is stupid. Gold is relatively cheap, but a beer could cost up to $20. The locals are absolutely fanatical about cricket so we used that to our advantage when buying stuff. Bartering is made easy when you start talking about Inzaman-Ul-Haq, and how you field a cover drive off him. Or saying Saqlain is the best bowler in the world. Not far off but they love to hear it cos they are their heroes over there.

On our days off we either popped into town for a look around or relaxed by the hotel pool. One of the afternoons we were invited to go 4wheel off road driving in the sand dunes. Everyone went and everyone crapped their pants. These land rovers went up, down, backwards and sideways on sand dunes!

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