Buddah's Blog
Inspired by Tendulker
by Shea McAleese
Hey everyone,
This is the second instalment of Buddha’s Blog. It has been a good past couple of days with plenty happening.
First of all we saw the Master Class and “GOD” of cricket Sachin Tendulker record the first ever 200* runs in an ODI match. India recorded a remarkable 401 for 3 off 50 overs against the World’s number 1 ranked side, South Africa.
On to security as I am sure you are all pretty keen to know what is going on. India has stepped everything up with a remarkable 25,000 armed officers and army commando’s patrolling the hotel, venue and routes to the venue.
Some of them are very serious looking contenders for the best moustache competition. It seems to be the common trend if you’re in the armed forces you have to have a big dirty MO planted across your lip. I think if I was to rank them they would win places 1 through 25,000 in New Zealand’s MO-VEMBER competition.
To add to the security there are hundreds of sharp shooters placed around the city and our bus takes an unimpeded route to the venue now with all the roads being closed when we travel through which is fantastic. Security is definitely at a premium now.
In saying that it still doesn’t stop Blair Hopping (Hoppz) and I from placing the white board behind us as a protective shield in the bus and our stick bags pushed up against the windows. We also plan on trying to commandeer some Kevlar plates to reinforce our whiteboard I think it’s OK with Shane (Shooter) as long as we can still draw on it.
Ryan Archibald (Scratchy) sits on the other side of us and is very comfortable, he prefers to look out into the streets of Delhi talking photos. Hoppz and I gave him a challenge to try and get a photo with one of the guards in a small hut made out of sandbags. It will be a great photo and I’ll gladly concede to owing him a beer if he gets one.
The boys are in pretty good shape except for Dave Green (Greeny) who looks and walks like an 80 year old man at the moment. He has screwed his back, we’re not too sure if it was caused by his roommate Nick Haig (Haigar) in a pillow fight or on the hockey pitch! He can barely walk and almost collapsed trying to stand up after treatment from Pete our Phyiso. Hopefully it’s only a couple of days before he is back in action or Haigar will be very lonely with out someone to pillow fight with.
We played Spain yesterday in a warm-up game with 2 x 25 minute halves. We had patches where we showed how well we could play, but we still struggled for large portions of the match giving away too much ball and corners. Spain managed to convert 2 of their corners winning the game 2-0. We have one more warm-up game against England tonight where we will be striving for a positive result.
Last night we went to the high commission which was fantastic. It was an amazing place that brought a feeling of home back to the team. We were treated to a wonderful home-cooked meal in a beautiful setting with some very interesting and nice people.
Overall the team has started to feel a lot more comfortable about everything here in India and hopefully being comfortable off the pitch will start to relate to better performances on the pitch!
Until the next Blog,
Cheers Shea