Again we woke early. Breakfast was a buffet, served in the lobby where tables had been set up. Sri Lankan in style it was all very good. Lots of lovely fruit!

Hashan drove us the short trip down the steep hill into Kandy. It is a busy, bustling town, small shops of every kind and masses of people everywhere! We went in search of a pharmacy as I had a painful gum infection which had flared up and needed antibiotics. My memories of more than 30 years ago were that I wouldn't need a doctor’s prescription, or had the rules tightened up since then? No, I asked at the counter for penicillin and was given with no question. It seems that some things don’t change!

Our next plan for the day was to go over to Pallekele stadium to collect all the T20 cricket tickets that we had bought over the internet. It was only about 11km out of town so wouldn’t take long, right? Big mistake! The road is narrow, busy and very, very slow! Not to mention that everyone is driving like maniacs, of course, which doesn’t help. If we had realised what traffic would be like we would have gone over to the stadium prepared to stay for the duration. As it was, as soon as we collected our tickets, we had to hurry (at snail’s pace) back to the hotel to collect our things. Luckily we just about had time to get some lunch and sat down to a sri Lankan buffet in the upstairs lobby lounge. It was the usual, lots of curry and lots of fruit. Delicious!!

Back to Pallekele Sadium where we arrive shortly before the first game, Sri Lanka versus New Zealand was about to start. Getting in to the ground was horrendous to put it mildly and a real health and safety nightmare. To channel everybody through towards the entrance they had erected narrow walkways made of metal scaffolding poles. These were much too narrow for safety and there were sharp pieces sticking out at every join in the poles. Also, at regular intervals, there was a pole across the floor to trip over. Great! Once through the cursory bag check and much too familiar body check the real nightmare started. Hundreds of people from both sides were being funnelled into one very small area going towards the gate. Everyone was all crammed together and underfoot was very uneven ground , descending into a flight of broken steps plus more scaffold poles which you couldn’t see because of the mass of people. The police were holding the gate open just wide enough to allow one person at a time to squeeze through and we were all being shoved down the steps towards this small space by the crush of people coming from behind. It was quite terrifying and I don’t know what would have happened if someone had fallen. Definitely another Hillsborough waiting to happen. As each person popped through the gap onto the other side, one policeman tore the ticket stub off and handed the ticket to another policeman to clip it. What an ordeal! We are amazed that an international event under the banner of the ICC is not monitored more closely for safety.

Once inside we emerged onto the grass embankment which was our seating area. We had thought this was all that was left because we had booked late but hard from other that this was all that was available for public sale right from the opening of ticket sales. Luckily it was a dry day, so being on the bank was quite pleasant although. There wasn’t much opportunity for sitting though. Almost everybody else was standing so, if we wanted to see anything, we had to stand too. The stadium’s facilities for spectators were fairly basic, to say the least. In fact the toilets were absolutely awful and reminded me of the state of some of the public toilets in Hong Kong when I was first there in 1990. I’m delighted to say that, since then, Hong Kong toilets have much improved! There were very limited food and drink outlets so it was a very good move to have had lunch at the hotel.

As for the cricket, it was an exciting afternoon and evening. The first game was on a knife edge and actually ended in a draw, much to everyone’s surprise as they thought Sri Lanka had won on the last ball. Instead the game went on to a super over which Sri Lanka definitely won so the huge home crowd were naturally ecstatic. The second match was between England and the West Indies with WI batting first. England were pretty good in the field and restricted WI to 179. Unfortunately, once in to bad it seemed that the only thing we were good at was getting out as we were 0 for 2 within the first over! This is not quite fair to Eoin Morgan who had a very fast innings and scored well. In fact we really pulled back well and , in the end, only lost by 15 runs. If only they could have scored a bit more quickly early on I’m sure things would have been very different. Such a pity, but that’s 20/20 cricket!

The cricket was very late finishing because of the super over and we only got back to the hotel at about 11.30pm. A long and tiring day! A quick beer in the lobby then time to crash.