Postcard from Sri Lanka: Craig Smith

Well, what can you say? Phew! Wow! Man! just about sums it up. I've been in a few close finishes during my 10 years with this cricket team and yesterday's one in Kandy was just as nerve racking as Sydney in '94 or Faisalabad, Pakistan in '97.

When test matches go to the wire, like it did yesterday, the dressing room is often the place not to be! I used to think that it was great to be involved in a team like this one or say Man United, as you get the inside stuff on what is happening behind the scenes. Well, believe me, a few more of these matches and you can keep the tension on the inside.

We all knew that the test wouldn't go 5 days. Hell, even the groundsman said before the start of the match that it would be over on the 4th day.

I prefer us trying to bowl the opposition out to win as its not as tense as chasing, especially if it is a low total. But what happens to us guys off the field while the boys on the field are dying for their country is something unique to most dressing rooms around the cricketing world.

There are many ways to get a wicket. You can either catch the guy out, bowl him out, run him out or pressurize him into handling the ball, to name a few ways. But off the field there are a few other ways to take a wicket. For example.

Just before the third wicket fell, I said to the boys "I'll go and send my e-mails and this will get us a wicket. Lo and behold, while I'm busy sending, Jayawardene nicks off. That brought Ranatunga and Arnold together and before lunch they struggled to score as we bowled nice and tight to them.

I castigated Andrew Hall and Boeta as to why they were lying down and not outside egging the boys on and they replied "this is how we got a few poles yesterday"!

After lunch it was a different story. Ranatunga went after us and he and Arnold put on over 100 runs and almost took the game away from us. During this period, we were all thinking of ways to break up this partnership for the boys out there. Finally Fordie decided that I needed to treat his sore back, as this was how we had got a wicket the previous day. So I treated Fordie's back and again it worked, Arnold got out, we were back in the game and naturally the physio was taking some of the credit.

Thereafter, it was a matter of Polly and the boys keeping the pressure on. Sure enough, Ranatunga was caught by Jonty at short leg trying to force it, a brilliant run-out sequence by Jacques and Zulu (one which we practice often) led to Vaas's demise and from then on I knew it was our match to be lost.

We off the field can never feel the elation of winning experienced by the boys on the field. However, when you become so involved in a match, off the field you feel like you're working just as hard as those are on the field to get a wicket, only in a different manner. You can thus understand why I (we) sprinted onto the field when the 10th wicket fell. To share that winning feeling with the fellas knowing that you've practically lived all the high and low moments on the field back in the dressing room.

Needless to say, we had a few carsies together back at the hotel and most of the boys had a few rocks in the head when we woke up on Thursday morning.

Onward to Colombo and hello to Greer my love, on Saturday night.