After watching Kenya's heroic effort to upset West Indies, you rush back to the hotel for a shower and shave before donning the glad-rags for an evening out, Colombo-style. No ordinary evening either. Sri Lanka's Ministry of Tourism is organising the Miss Tourism International pageant, and the teams and the legions of press corps have been invited for an evening of fun and frolic. And if that picture wasn't perfect enough, the party is on the beach at the picturesque Mount Lavinia Hotel. There's something for everyone - a makeshift dance-floor (with the DJ dedicating every other song to the bevy of beauties), a casino, miniature golf, dance performances ... and as much food and liquid refreshment as you can put away without your stomach heaving like the ocean.

Some of the teams stayed away - notably England and Zimbabwe, who are playing today - but the Kenyans and West Indians were out in force, as were the South Africans. Brett Lee, Andy Bichel and coach John Buchanan represented Australia, and Lee, in a tight-knit red T-shirt, drew more than a few appreciative glances from the ladies during his round of mini-golf.

One of the first people I bumped into was Steve Tikolo, tucking into a plateful of food with barely a glance at the eye-candy around him. I congratulated him on his fine 93 earlier in the day, and his expression changed to almost a grimace. "If we hadn't lost two or three wickets very quickly, we might even have won the game," he tells me in a subdued tone.

He pauses for a second and then says they dropped too many catches, though he's as mystified as the rest of us as to why Brian Lara wasn't given out caught-behind when he had made just 32. "If you make mistakes like that even with technology, it's just ludicrous," he says. "That said, we are pleased with the way we have competed here and against Australia in Nairobi. We need more exposure against such teams to improve."

The stepmotherly treatment meted out by some of the established Test nations clearly hurts. "We are even prepared to go and play against county sides if we get the invitation," said Sandeep Patil, the former Indian batsman who's now Kenya's manager, earlier in the week. "When the MCC sent a touring side over, we beat them 5-0. But at the moment, we are just not getting enough matches."

After his exertions earlier in the day, Lara was in hospital under observation with suspected hepatitis, but his team-mates were determined not to let that cramp their style as the evening wore on. Pedro Collins, Mahendra Nagamootoo and Ramnaresh Sarwan all showed nifty feet and neat moves on the dance floor, while the Kenyans watched and egged them on.

Far from the madding crowd, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis laughed and joked together (if there is a problem between these two, they hide it so well they could both be nominated for Oscars), before exchanging pleasantries with Lee, who had sauntered across to say hello. The fast-bowlers' mutual admiration society clearly cuts across national boundaries ... and media misinformation.

The beauty-pageant contestants themselves were a revelation. You wondered what odds the betting shop down the road would have given you on Miss Estonia being aware of cricket. The Tallinn-based lass plans to be her country's most famous export after the goalkeeper Mart Poom, and she told me, in excellent English, that she had seen cricket being played in Finland and the Netherlands. Don't be too surprised then if, sometime in the near future, we get a Champions Trophy with a distinctly Baltic flavour to it.

They say you have to be a flat-liner before you get to see paradise. But what I witnessed last night - the beach at Mount Lavinia and the sights for sore eyes that peopled it - gave me a pretty good idea of what to expect in the great beyond. Oh, and there was even a fireworks display, with shards of blinding light flying in all directions - a bit like watching Viv Richards batting in his pomp really.

Dileep Premachandran is assistant editor of Wisden.com in India.

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