Today was one of our very rare days off from work and interestingly it just so happened to coincide with the 20/20 cricket international between Sri Lanka and Pakistan. How convenient! Jack and I left Moonbridge for Colombo at 5am in anticipation of a 2.30pm start at the ‘Premadasa’ national stadium. We made the trip north with James and John, two members of the postgraduate team and the four of us embarked upon what turned out to be a long and tedious train journey. Four and a half hours later we were in Sri Lanka’s capital hunting down a ‘three-wheeler’ to take us across the city to the stadium. When we eventually arrived there we came upon two fairly major stumbling blocks; First of all there were no tickets left and secondly although we were correct in assuming the game started at 2.30pm sadly it was 2.30pm british time! The schoolboy error of looking up the time on the BBC sport website meant that we had to wait until 7pm for the match to begin.

As far as the ticket situation was concerned, we managed to purchase some tickets off a ‘tout’ for 250 Rupees each – unbelievable bargain! We then secured the best seats on the terrace and the afternoon flew by and soon it was time for the first over. The atmosphere was electric and sure enough Sri Lanka managed to get a wicket on the first bowl – the crowd went wild. Although in the end Sri Lanka didn’t manage to win, we all had an amazing yet tiring day. The remainder of our time post match was filled with dodgy tuk-tuks, egg hoppers and the bus journey home. The game and experience was well worth it!