The Morning After the Morning After....

There's not much that can be said, especially by a chap like me who knows bugger all about cricket, that hasn't been said already.

The build up before the match was mostly about trying to find a suitable venue for the day's viewing. I googled, then I googled some more, and failed to find a pub or bar that was pushing a Lankan event for the day. If I was Indian life would have been sorted, with about a million pubs in Southall and other nearby places promising positive and fun mayhem.

Luckily I'm not Indian, but that's another matter.

At the last minute we (that's me and C to you) heard of a thing going on in a pub, a Sri Lankan thing, at least a gathering of the clans, the Lankan clans. We headed there, listening to the first ten or so overs of the match on the radio as we drove.

As we walked into the pub we were greeted by a sea of dark blue, flags, horns and that uniquely Sri Lankan smell of short eats. Even I, with my legendary status, didn't think that the horns and flags were for me. No, we had walked into the perfect out of Sri Lanka setting to watch the match.

We found our friends, never hard in these sort of situations, got some drinks in and settled down with those optimistic thoughts all of us had at that point. It seems so long ago now doesn't it?

I called Academic Bro and The Auf to see if they fancied joining us. Academic Bro was prevented from doing so by a Sri Lankan mother, the Auf was different and headed over from his lair in East London with a burst of speed that I wish had been displayed by the Lankan fielders on the day.

He strolled in after a bit, signed a few autographs and peeled off his jacket to reveal his SL cricket shirt. I don't own one so had gone for a Superdry shirt in what I thought was the right shade of blue, being faithful to that whole "wear blue to show your support for Sri Lanka" facebook campaign.

We got on with the serious business of watching. I was mightily chuffed in that we'd found the perfect venue. There was a stall at the front of the pub selling Lankan short eats. There was kadala, there were beef chinese rolls, cutlets, chocolate biscuit pudding and a full rice and curry option. Over the course of a few hours I made sure I ate everything, whereas C did that really bloody annoying woman thing; the one where they say they don't want you to buy them anything, then steam into your portion and eat about two thirds of it.

The crowd was good natured, even the few Indians in the pub were okay and there was a PA system that pumped out baila or Indian music depending on what had just happened. After we'd finished batting we danced, we drank, we sang, clapped and cheered. Optimism reigned supreme.

Then the Indians batted.

And we lost.

I started the day wishing I was in Colombo to witness it. By the end it didn't seem to matter. Had we won it all would have been so different.

And you know what?

I don't claim to be any sort of authority on cricket, but I reckon we lost it in our fielding. There was something lackadaisical and half hearted about it. We seemed to lack an urgency and never kicked things up into the next gear.

As I said on facebook.

Fuck.