Friday 7th December - Match 1

Today was the first match v Namibian Cricket Academy XI ( a selection of players from their academy.) We arrived in good time because the match was preceded by a visit from the British High Commissioner - an honour. He was a delightful person and thoroughly enjoyed meeting the teams and the staff and was pleased to toss the coin for the match.

We batted first, Anand and Ari started steadily with a good opening partnership and they were followed by Rishabh who scored a fine 75 in partnership with Simon Macleod and Gareth James. Shameel make a brief visit to the crease but scored usefully and the innings was ended by a partnership between James Tuplin and Nigel Jacob. James wielded his club to great effect and a high proportion of his runs came in boundaries. We scored 240 for 6 off 45 overs. The Academy never really recovered from two early wickets taken by Shameel. The bowling was effective and showed promise for the rest of the trip. The other wicket takers were Gareth James, Jonathan Russell and Nigel Jacobs. The fielding was good with an amazingly athletic catch from Jonathan Russell and a smart run out by Rishahis evening to do the bh. We won by just over 100 runs ( the slight vagueness is caused by the fact that the score book has been left at the ground in preparation for tomorrow's match v Windhoek Technical High School. This was an excelent start to the tour and was a fine team effort.

This evening to do the hotel a favour we freed up two rooms - six of the team were temporarily homeless, well not really - they were relocated in the Presidential suite, the premier room in the hotel with two floors, two bathrooms including a jacuzzi, and sofas, and every mod cons, a suite indeed fit for the President. Who says that Bancroftians do not fall on their feet! The other bit of good news is that JGB's suitcase has finally arrived and he is now able to wear something different!!!