Ten years since our tour debut

On April 10 it will be ten years since the club played our first match on tour. After a week of drinking and a couple of enforced and half-hearted fielding sessions, we arrived at the Antigua Recreation Ground, which two days earlier had been hosting the Test between West Indies and India, to face the island’s effective Under-19 side. Antigua’s not a big place, and word had got round the island about how unprepared we were. Even we began to believe the hype. Click here to find out what happened …

How not to tour

It might seem that our tours just happen, but there is considerable behind-the-scenes work. To date, we have been fortunate in that we have played all the matches we have been scheduled to play, with the exception of the rain-blighted Sri Lanka tour. But this report in The Wisden Cricketer of a trip to Antigua by Shepherd’s Bush CC highlights how things can go wrong … and their itinerary was almost identical to ours. It might be harsh, but I would suggest that our extra attention to detail and making sure we forged links with the right people paid off.