A bright future

And so the end of the tour, and most would probably say about time. We have had a ball for sure, but after a time the constant battery of stomach upsets – many self-imposed – heat, noise and, to be blunt, inefficiency wears you down. Even those who had been mocking Tristian Rosenfeldt for his endless quest to find western fast food were beginning to hanker for something with beef and without a sauce to blow your brains out.

The cricket was excellent, although we rather let ourselves down with some poor fielding in the second and third matches and a remarkable collapse in the last game. We were unlucky that the Chandigarh game was washed/snowed out as it meant we endured some gruelling travelling for no reward, and it would be worth considering the size of the county and the state of the roads were any future OC to consider a return trip.

The hospitality was equally appreciated and lavish, and while India was an eye-opener to those who had not been here before, we were rather protected from the grim reality by our five-star hotels. One could leave Mumbai without really seeing the extremes in the people’s fortunes which mean that almost one million people live in a single shanty town without a toilet between them. It’s worth thinking about when someone in the UK complains they are poor because they can’t afford a Sky Sports subscription.

The conclusion of the tour also marks the end of tour organisation by Rick Johnson and Martin Williamson. Five trips, with recent ones increasingly luxurious and audacious, have been undertaken in a decade, and so good is Rick at meeting the right people and saying the right thing that there is a danger that people think it’s not all that hard after all. Trust me, it is. The hours that Rick puts into preparing and then double and treble checking itineraries, hotels and fixtures would floor almost anyone else.

It’s time to pass on the baton and this trip has shown that there is a really excellent crop of young players coming through the ranks, and the remarkable success of the school should ensure that the club goes from strength to strength.