Australia, 24th November

Day 1

So here we go, I can hardly believe that the day has come. We are going to the home of the world champions to play their game and hopefully to beat them at it. To be frank I was very skeptical till the very last minute about the trip, the OSL would say one thing and act otherwise. The visa was assuring though! The visa was another adventure, it took us 3 weeks to get a written note from the OSL that all of us are students of SMU. After much perusal from the EXCO the visa letter and the visa came about. Arjun (our team’s strike bowler and the treasurer of the cricket club) was organizing the visa process for the team. To get all 14 players papers in order is quite a task, especially as we have the characters that we have in our team. Anyway it did come through!

I had to get up early, and for a change I wanted to get up early. Though I was a bit sad that I wasn’t gonna see Shivangi for a month, but as it happened we did meet fleetingly as I landed in Singapore and was waiting for my flight to South Africa. As usual I was one of the last to reach:p but not late! After endlessly posing for “photo” sessions overseen by Fred we finally decided to board the flight in our Team SMU polo’s, the shade of which would border on red and bright maroon, the choice of that particular color is still unknown. At this point I must add that there were two more teams from SMU, one contingent was part of the combined university team in water polo and the SMU tennis team. The tennis guys were swell on the court and off it too.

The flight went off fine, with me arjun and garg (our in house bihari) sitting together. Most of us watched a replay of the ashes that Australia had surrendered that summer, I was just thinking, we are watching a team do something that every one, and probably the better part of the England team thought was impossible: To defeat the invincible Australians, yet they did it. I was hoping and praying we do the same, I was just wanting to win a few of the 4 matches which we were supposed to play. What was to unfold I will leave for later.

So we reach Perth, at first look, it was ghost town to me. I am not kidding, after the airport we didn’t see a soul for the next 10 odd kilometers. We were told that the city shuts down at 5 PM. It really did, with pubs being the obvious exception; we were after all in Australia. As we realized later the city was not dead at all.

Anyway, we checked into our team hostel, we were put up in St Catherine’s hostel, which is a girls hostel as the name might suggest, but with the exception of a few it was empty. Each of us had our own single rooms, however the anxiety of the matches ahead were too much for Deby and Arjun to bear, so they would run off to Garg’s room with their mattresses. So much for 20 year olds and then these guys have the gall to say that I cant sleep alone, hah!

The hostel was at least 30-40 years old and the rooms were nice, it had a table fan and a heater, I had a brilliant view of the courtyard in the hostel and too add to it, I had a balcony!

So we all set ourselves up for the next few days of cricket by having a long team meeting at the courtyard. Sudhir, one of my SRC (Singapore Recreation Club) cricket teammates was accompanying SMU as our coach led the discussions with It was quite chilly I remember, largely because most of us were in shorts so the cold multiplied as if we were on Everest, well of course almost none of us wore our jackets but the smokers saw it as an excuse to dig into their duty free cigarettes, that is if they ever need an excuse!

So after a early dinner and setting alarms, we were set to go to bed. We were playing The University of Western Australia’s Blue team (they had two teams, green being the other one) at 10.00 AM tomorrow. Its begun now.