Postcard from Sri Lanka: David Terbrugge
David Terbrugge - 21 July 2000
Howzit from Galle, Sri Lanka. It's been a long hard day for the
SA team in the field on this, the first day of the first Test
Match against Sri Lanka. It has not been one of our better
bowling performances but the team has pulled it back OK and
hopefully we can be more competitive as the game goes on.
I'm disappointed not to be playing after being picked in the
squad of 12 but I am very happy for my roomie, Neil McKenzie who
has been selected to play in his debut test match. Neil is a
superstitious character at the best of times but after last night
he has taken superstitiousness to a new level. After re-packing
his bag on countless occasions and making sure the room was
spotless, he proceeded to get in and out of bed 3 times before he
was happy to turn the lights out. Why he does this we don't know;
and I'm told he's improved in this area of his cricketing
eccentricities.
Off the field, we haven't had much time to relax. We are
currently staying at the beautiful Lighthouse Hotel and it's easy
to forget that you're on a cricket tour with this type of
surrounding. Its very much like a scene out of an idyllic movie
set with palm trees all round and waves splashing up to the edge
of the hotel and the restaurant overlooking the beach and sea.
My most hair-raising experience on tour thus far has been the
tuk-tuk race we had between the Kallis/Boucher team and the
McKenzie/Terbrugge duo. We were having dinner and watching rugby
at the Colombo Cricket Cafe and decided to spice up the return
trip home with a tuk-tuk race. The ride back included dicing with
trains, dodging pedestrians and forcing on-coming traffic off the
road. Thankfully we made it back alive; the winner being
Boucher/Kallis by a short head as they goaded their driver more
than we did.
On the playing front again, it has been a fairly frustrating
experience but I was fortunate enough to have had a fairly good
performance against Pakistan where I took 4 for 20 and helped us
win the match and make the final. That on the other hand was a
different story altogether, the conditions being very testing for
the bowlers but still a wonderful experience playing in front of
50 000 cricket mad Lankans.
After a heavy rainfall on the day of our arrival, we all thought
that the predictions of the "A" tourists of '98 would be true,
saying we would be rained out 50 % of the time. Alas, since then
we haven't seen a drop of rain, the only water being that
dripping, no pouring off the players in the form of sweat or
heavily chlorinated swimming pool water.
This being my first tour away with the big boys, it's been quite
an eye-opening experience. Even though I might not be in a
position to play that many games on tour, I'm sure I'll pick up
many helpful tips about touring and playing on the sub-continent
which hopefully will make me a much better cricketer for it.
This David Terbrugge signing off from beautiful Galle, Sri Lanka
for CricInfo.
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