Day 6: Wed 28 October

CricInfo multimedia manager Rohan Chandran gives
us his daily view of the Wills International Cup...

Oops. I knew I'd overstep the mark in this diary at some point. A young lady with whom I am rather well acquainted wasn't too impressed with my cavorting around the city the other night. I'm not surprised too, when you consider that I repeatedly claim to be too busy by half to so much as send her an email. If you're reading this Louisa, it's all in the line of duty, honest! That wasn't my only mistake either. Had the alarm set for 9am, so that I could make some phone calls and get started on what was going to be a big day. We would have had a wake up call, but Alex was using the phone line to complain to our off-site team all night, so we couldn't set it. Come 9am, and my alarm went off. Naturally, I turned it off and got out of bed. The only thing is, there was a two and a half hour time lag between those two consecutive actions.

This made for much entertainment of course, as I watched everyone around me panic. I made the odd contribution of course, just to keep things going, but the show was stolen by a terrific spat between Travis and Alex. They couldn't agree on exactly how much of a hurry we were in, and after a heated battle, it was Alex who won the day with some scintillating repartee. I think his exact words were something like... 'Pbthwtttt' (with apologies to Hobbes).

We had an interview with Raman Subba Row first thing in the morning - hence the early morning rush. The ICC match referee really is a wonderful chap, not least because he remembered me. That had something to do with his nephew being named Rohan - yes, for all those who wonder, there is very much some Indian blood in there!

If you watch the interview, you'll notice that Alex must have read yesterdays diary, because for a fleeting moment, midway through, the camera actually panned away from him and onto me. I'm sure that Simon's comment that it looks silly to have questions coming from off camera had nothing to do with it at all.

We soon found out why Alex wasn't overly keen to get on camera during the talkshow - he must have had advance warning that the TV cameras were coming in to film us. Well, they weren't into film us, but as soon as they were, Alex and Badri, who was there to watch the game and distract those of us who were working, started plotting ways and means of getting the CI logo on TV. Actually, it worked out rather well for me - Badri and Alex were very clearly visible, but I had my second fleeting moment of fame for the day when the official scorer sitting next to me moved back for a second. Travis of course just hid behind Alex.

Speaking of official scorers, we had the Australian one with us in the box. I'm not at all sure he appreciated our being there - apparently he was cramped for room, half a desk not being enough for him. That the rest of us were even worse off didn't seem to cross his mind. Geoff Marsh popped in for a while too, and he took great interest in Travis' scoring. He backed away after a while - Badri says it's because he found Trav's commentary to be rather uncomplimentary towards some of hsi players, but I'm quite sure it's beause Trav has been wearing the same shirt for three days in a row.

It seems like the Aussies had a very good tour of Pakistan, off the field that is. I'm not too surprised - tours tend to be a lot easier when things are going well on the business front. They went so far as to say that it had been a more comfortable tour than their recent India one. Perhaps the Pakistani hotels stock the correct brand of baked beans. It was the larger airplanes, and the relative lack of people mobbing them wherever they went that seemed to especially appeal to the team. You have to hand it to those Aussies - who else could take pleasure in there being less interest in cricket. Well okay, perhaps the folks at Lord's too.

Was amusing to hear them talk about bowlers being overworked. They reckon that Mushtaq was not effective at all because he'd just been playing too much and needed a break. When we pointed out that Muralitharan bowls a hell of a lot and seems to be doing just fine, they had a quick and easy answer. 'Yeah, well he doesn't bowl, does he?? We didn't bother going down that avenue any further, it wasn't worth it.

We did have better things to do - most notable amongst them all was for some of us, who shall remain unnamed, to panic needlessly at regular intervals. Still, we did get some really good work done today, and that is something we can be well proud of. We couldn't do any of it without the help of William Turrell and Dave Liverman,our offsite backup. Of course, they'd have a far easier time of it if Dave was able to open a Microsoft Word document. I would blame Bill Gates, but since CI has now got into bed with him, as reported in the Australian press, I ought not to do that.

What I do want however, is some of the Official Beauty Soap of the Bangladesh Team. We were presented with their cap yesterday, a delightful treasure if ever there was one, but if the soap's good enough for the national team, then it ought to be just fine for Trav and Badri, so if the soap people are reading this, send some on over!

On that note, it's about time to call it a night again, or perhaps a morning, since it is 5am. Tomorrows match should be a real cracker, and with Hoops there, there will be class on display. Until then, goodnight!