by Rex Clementine

It’s a pity that not many young men and women choose the sports desk when they join journalism. Page one often deals with miseries of the world while the back page mostly celebrates the achievements of mankind. And if you are lucky, cricket takes you to some of world’s costliest tourist destinations like Barbados in West Indies, Queenstown in New Zealand and Cape Town in South Africa.

Cape Town of all these places is special as that’s where South Africa play their New Year Test and the whole city is colourful with fireworks in the night and braais (a South African word for barbecue) and other food festivals around the city with all meat items from impala to crocodile to feast upon in the day time.

For all its fun, cricket in Cape Town can be tough. The hosts leave a thick cover of grass and play an all-seam attack making life difficult for batters. Some teams have Hardik Pandya as their fourth seamer and some teams have Chamika Karunaratne coming in as second change. But guess whom South Africans have got? Someone by the name of Jacques Kallis, with 292 Test wickets to his name. There’s simply no escape.

The Sri Lankan teams are quite capable of surviving trusting their technique against the short ball. But in cricket, survival is only part of the game. Run making is equally paramount. The cut is a high risk shot because of the extra bounce. The pull is an option but then the bowler has to err. You hardly find any ball that can be driven.

The slip cordon constantly reminds the batter that the only drive you are getting today is from the hotel to the ground. The sledging is relentless and the chances of you ending with a broken bone are relatively high. Cape Town Tests are a good distraction for reporters. Often Tests here are over in three days, once Sri Lanka lost here by an innings and 259 runs, at one point their heaviest in the history. Day four and day five are spent traveling around this stunning city.

Table Mountain is a popular destination. When you are young you climb the mountain and it takes about one hour and 20 minutes. As you grow older, you prefer the cable car. Table Mountain from the top is absolutely breathtaking. The ocean by one side and the city next to that is spectacular viewing. You can see famous wineyards like Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, Paarl and Robertson from here. Then the flora and fauna found here are totally unique and never seen before.

You can also visit Robben Island, a short boat ride from Cape Town.

What’s so special about this place, well that’s where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned with 3000 other political prisoners during the white rule in South Africa. Mandela was allowed one visitor per year for about 30 minutes. It’s quite a moving experience. You can visit Mandela’s cell and spend a few quiet moments reflecting about life. It’s a surreal experience. In all, Sri Lanka have played eight games in Cape Town and lost all but one, a T20. That’s why the girls’ performance in the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup in Cape Town has been quite stunning. While covering Sri Lankan men in Cape Town, you are left with lot of spare time, the girls have given you plenty to cheer about and very little breathing space having won two games inside three days. They are now just one win away from the semis. The women’s cricket team is on a cloud nine.

They started off with a giant killing performance beating hosts South Africa in the curtain- raiser of the tournament. Then they humbled Bangladesh on Sunday and have got lot of momentum behind them. The batters have been firing on all cylinders while the spinners have made life difficult with some disciplined bowling. The fielding though can make much improvement.

Sri Lanka now play Australia on Thursday in Port Elizabeth and New Zealand on Sunday in Paarl. If they win one of those games, they qualify for semis. Appropriately SLC yesterday announced a pay rise for women’s cricket. Accordingly, for each white ball game a player will get USD 750 whereas earlier they got only USD 250 each per game. There’s also a winning bonus of USD 250. However, much more needs to be done to develop women’s cricket.

If you take schools, while cricket is the number one sport in boys’ schools, girls’ schools give priority to netball, basketball and swimming and most schools don’t even play cricket. We’ve got a long way to go.