| A blessing in disguise Sunday, 14 October, 2001 BBC Sport Online columnist Neil McKenzie reflects on a poor batting performance against India - and his geography lessons at school. I'm writing from a very hot part of Southern Africa, the big hole, Kimberley in the Northern Cape Province. We've just finished our fourth one-dayer against the ever-improving Kenyan one-day team, having seen them off by nine wickets in the searing Sunday heat. Our next battle is against India on Friday afternoon in East London. We will definitely be wanting to make amends for our dismal batting performance against them at Supersport Park last Wednesday. I think that most of the guys, including myself, played a few rash shots and we were a little bit hasty to knock off the very achievable target. Although having said that, one-dayers often tend to dish up some surprises and hopefully we will not be surprising our supporters again this season. I believe their win against us was quite an important one for them. They will take a lot of confidence from it as our first encounter at the Wanderers in Jo'burg left them a bit shell-shocked. It's not great to be on the losing side after your two top openers each notch up hundreds. They lost the match quite comprehensively. We've probably made life a little harder for ourselves. However, it could just be a blessing in disguise. I'm sure we'll all sharpen and raise our own individual games for the remainder of the series. Since our next game is only on Friday at the end of the week, the guys are heading homewards tomorrow morning. A few more days of R&R and some practice with their provincial sides and no doubt a round or two of "sticks" on the golf course. Arriving by air yesterday was an interesting sight and a bit of a geographical lesson for me. My school memories of Kimberley in the geography books were that it was famous for its big hole. And lo and behold when I was looking out the window I could see at least four big holes in the town below. Diamond rush I pointed this out to my team-mates and one of the guys mentioned that he'd taken a helicopter trip a few years back around Kimberley. He had been shown that there are, in fact, seven big holes that have arisen out of the diamond rush way back in the 1800s. I'm looking forward to our trip to Cape Town next weekend where we play the Kenyans again. The Fizz (physio Craig Smith) has promised to take me out and show me some of the city's sights. This will have no bearing on my geography curriculum as he has promised to entertain us in the hip new venues about town. Another good reason to be in Cape Town is that we will join up again with Gary Kirsten who has been away recovering from a thigh strain. Gazza is the head mullet yet a very sobering influence on the team and has been sorely missed here this weekend in Kimberly. For the time being, this is Neil McKenzie from SA for BBC Sport Online. |