The Premadasa Stadium looks altogether more attractive at dusk, with the sky behind it a combination of lavender and blazing orange. Under the lights, the outfield looks billiard-table smooth, though you can spot four shades of green and at least a couple of brownish hues on the surface. The crowd is slightly less noisy after the innings break, perhaps a case of post-dinner slumber. It was all very different when Pakistan batted and the sun beat down relentlessly. Though the momentum was slow to build, by mid-innings the noise had risen to a crescendo, with the horns, drums and makeshift percussion instruments out in force. In the press box, you just heard the dull roar, rather like the sea from a mile away, but if you ventured up to the top tier where the TV cameramen stood and delivered, you were better off carrying earplugs.

Another chapter was written in my tuk-tuk adventures on the way here. My driver had shifty eyes and, after five minutes of sneaking peeks in the mirror, he turned around and asked if I wanted to meet some of Colombo's "Hi-fi girls" – presumably the fashionable, westernised crowd. I pointed to my watch (match due to start in 15 minutes) and then at the press badge, just so he understood that dalliances with sonic youth would have to wait for another day.

Before it was rechristened in honour of the slain president in June 1994, this used to be the Khettarama Stadium. The ground was built over what was once a swamp and, if nothing else, that should explain the sluggish nature of a pitch on which Sri Lanka once piled up 952 runs against India. Word has it that monks once used ferries to cross the swamp en route to the nearby Khettarama temple, and bowlers who bowl here certainly need the patience of a mendicant.

As Pakistan's ramshackle innings drew to a close, we were joined by Malcolm and Malcolm – Gray and Speed - of the ICC. They complement each other well – Gray, the suave, urbane figurehead who is also the perfect PR man, and Speed, the tough-talking, no-nonsense troubleshooter. Gray has a friendly word for everyone and is clearly pleased that the tournament is finally underway with 12 full-strength teams after the contracts dispute threatened to blow up in the ICC's face.

When Stephen Brenkley of The Independent on Sunday tells him that's it's nice to finally be able to write about some cricket, he smiles and says, "Yeah, it would be nice I guess to write about the sport instead of about people's egos." Is he talking about a certain someone who preceded him as ICC president? He just shrugs his shoulders and walks off with a smile as enigmatic as the one Leonardo worked on for years.

Trevor Chesterfield – "Call me Chesters or Trevor, but no Mr Chesterfield stuff!" – joins me for dinner. He is 67, and is one of those fortunate enough to have watched Sir Donald Bradman bat. "It was the Kippax-Oldfield Testimonial in 1948-49, and though he must have been well past his best, I was immediately impressed by his hand-eye co-ordination," he tells you. He also watched Sir Garfield Sobers stroke his way to what was then a world-record score of 365 at Kingston, Jamaica in 1958, albeit in fortuitous circumstances. "I was a deckhand on a ship – more of a banana-boat actually – at the time and we arrived in Jamaica without me even knowing there was a Test match going on. Conrad Hunte also made a double-hundred in that innings."

Rahul Dravid is his favourite modern-day batsman, though his eyes still appear wonderstruck when he talks of Sir Leonard Hutton ("Another who I watched when very young, but he was peerless on a wet pitch"), Barry Richards ("Was there any shot he couldn't play?") and Mohammad Azharuddin, who are some of the other prominent entries in his hit parade. Chesters is an unabashed cricket chauvinist, labelling football, rugby and golf "pattern sports" that don't have cricket's intellectual appeal. He's old school when it comes to appearance too, as the ICC's Campbell Jamieson discovered when he paid us a visit. Chesters took one look at his tie knot and shook his head disapprovingly, before reaching up – quite a distance too, given his diminutive stature - to readjust it.

Dileep Premachandran is assistant editor of Wisden.com in India. His reports will appear here throughout the Champions Trophy.

More Roving Reporter
The heat is on
A hair-raising experience

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd