Our visit to Colombo is nearing its end and this is our fifth breakfast at the Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel. With the best will in the world and making all the allowances we can we have now accepted that they are just not capable of replacing bowls, cups and saucers, glasses, spoons etc, etc as they get used up on the buffet tables, and re-laying dining tables once they have been used is a skill the staff have yet to learn! The food is good though .... when they manage to top up the dishes!

Today is T20 Finals Day and we had got used to the fact that we had no tickets and would be watching the games on the giant screen. We were offered low category tickets yesterday at US$350, but that seemed like a very great deal of money to sit and be uncomfortable, so we declined. This morning we walked past the desk of the ICC tour rep and Simon asked him whether we could get in to see the ladies final without a ticket. He said no, but immediately offered us a pair of tickets at US$20 each. They weren't together but he didn't think that would be a problem. We decided to take the tickets which were in the Block D Upper area and had to get ourselves together pretty quickly and set off for the ground.

Siri, our friendly driver from yesterday, was waiting outside so we hopped into his trusty tuk tuk and off we went. We arrived at the ground just as the ladies match started and made our way up to the Upper Seating Level. We were given a yellow wrist band on the way up by the police, to identify us as people with seats on the upper tier. Does this mean that the seats were posh and comfortable? Oh no!! They look quite good from a distance but close up is a different story. Many of the seats aren't even attached to the base and balance precariously while others are attached by a thread ... other seats are missing altogether!!! What is more, there are no drinks outlets or toilets on the Upper tier so it is necessary to fight your way down several flights of stairs through the crowds if you want to use any of the facilities. Not that there are many facilities, in fact on our three visits to the stadium we only found one small set of toilets in the entire Block D!!!

As for the cricket, the ladies match was very good to watch. England won the toss and put the Australians in to bat. The Aussies had a very good innings and we were afraid the total might be just too high to chase and, sadly, it was. Our ladies fell just four runs short of the required runs which was a great pity but congratulations to the Australian ladies who did a great job. Our captain, Charlotte Edwards, was awarded the player of the tournament award so hopefully that was some consolation.

By now the stadium was filling up in readiness for the men's final and the Sri Lankan support was huge as the crowd all hoped that their team would win the trophy. Watching the first half it really looked that way, at least earlier on. The Sri Lankans had the West Indians really pinned down and they were hardly scoring at all. They lost Chris Gayle for only three runs of 16 balls and the crowd were ecstatic! The Windies pulled back a bit towards the end of the innings, thanks in great part to the bowling of Malinga who was leaking runs all over the place. Even so, the final Windies total of 137 looked as if it would be almost impossible to defend and the Sri Lankans were celebrating already.

By half time the crowds of spectators were claustrophobic and we decided to go back to the hotel to watch the second innings, especially as the result seemed a foregone conclusion. Pushing our way down the many flights of stairs through the crush of humanity was a frightening experience and it is one I will never get used to. If someone were to slip and fall there is a serious risk of a tragedy happening with people all toppling down the stairs and getting crushed underfoot. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it couldn't and the lack of safety precautions is horrifying.

As we finally emerged at the bottom of the stairs and squeezed out through the narrow opening in the gate the worst news was revealed. Simon's new BlackBerry was missing. It had been stolen out of the pocket of his shorts some time on the journey down the stairs. What a nuisance! To Simon, losing his BlackBerry is like having a leg amputated and he was already suffering withdrawal symptoms. There were plenty of police hanging around and we stopped several to try to report the theft but we are not sure what they were there for really. Each one we spoke to told us to go and speak to another one in a different direction. Fobbing us off definitely seemed to be the order of the day. After about 10 minutes of this we were feeling quite upset and frustrated and decided to return to our hotel and ask them to help us make a report to the police about the theft.

Back at the hotel they didn't seem that bothered to help us either! They directed us over the road some distance away to the Slave Island police station and told us to go and report it there. We did as we were directed and, once inside the police station, were met by a group of officers and tried to make a report. They told us that we most definitely could not report the crime there as any incident had to be reported in the district in which it happened! So why was nobody prepared to help us over there? Another point, surely the guest relations officer at our hotel should have known that and not sent us on a wild goose chase! Tourism is very important to the Sri Lankans but you can't help but feel a lot of the time that they really just don't care.

We had just about had enough by now and couldn't face returning to the ground at this time of night. We decided that we would head back over in the morning before we had to check out of the hotel. Meanwhile back to the cricket. Such a lot had happened in between that we thought it might be all over by now. We were totally amazed to find that there had been a complete turnaround. The West Indies had made a comeback and Sri Lanka were dropping wickets like flies and still had a very low total on the board. To the horror of the Sri Lankan supporters it suddenly looked to be a real possibility that their team might not make it!

That's exactly what happened and, as the world now knows, Sri Lanka were all out for just 101 runs and the West Indies were victorious in a major competition for the first time in many years.