Finally some comforts of home in India
Central Districts cricket captain Will Young is in India with the New Zealand A team. He is providing a tour diary with this part IV.
It was a great relief to arrive in Sunny Vizag from Vijayawada and check into the Novotel Hotel.
The restaurants at the hotel are amazing, great rooms and an infinity pool over looking the beach and the ocean.
The issue was that it had been raining heavily for a week or so before we arrived and the Visakhapatnam Cricket Stadium, where we were playing all five games at, was very wet.
They didn’t have covers which protected the entire ground, only within the 30m circle.
The unprotected outfield was soaked and was far too damp to run, slide and field on.
Each day for about five days straight we would arrive at the ground only for it to be judged unfit to play, and fair enough too!
The groundsman tried everything to try and fix it... they would poke holes in the outfield, burn fires in big drums to try and dry it out, even dig up the wettest parts of the outfield and replace it with ready lawn.
The lads would train, gym, chill in the pool, sight see from tuks tuks, some even found a reliable surf break to pass the time.
Eventually the sun did its job and we could start playing some cricket. Albeit four games instead of five and in a far more congested schedule.
We played really well in the first game and tied a game which we really should have won.
The next two games we were beaten rather convincingly. Tomorrow is the final game and we hope to put everything that we have learned from the tour into action and finish with a win.