Post Card from India: `I'll come back to India and open up a painting supplies business'
My impressions of India have changed quite a bit since my last trip here in 1996 with the under 19 team
Nantie Hayward
07-Mar-2000
My impressions of India have changed quite a bit since my last trip
here in 1996 with the under 19 team. I have felt much more comfortable
staying in nice hotels and being looked after really well by our hosts
and trying to use my experience of having been here before.
I went sightseeing in Mumbai to Mahatma Gandhi's house. It's a museum
that shows his life from his early days including his time spent in
South Africa. For me it was an eye-opener; his room was quite big but
there was nothing much inside with just a mattress on the floor for
him to sleep on and a small desk, obviously where he worked and
studied.
I also went to the Mumbai laundry where they wash our clothes. This
was really an interesting sight. Hundreds of people bring their
washing here daily and they slap it around on these concrete blocks as
their means of washing the clothes. I can't see how the clothes get
clean or at least get kept from being damaged. Now I know why some of
our clothes return from the washing looking the way they do.
I am quite surprised with the quality of the blocks of flats and
buildings. However, I can't understand why the houses aren't painted
and finished off properly. I reckon if I want to make a quick mill,
I'll come back to India and open up a painting supplies business and
sell cheap paint to the public to paint their houses and buildings
At the moment I am quite happy with my bowling and have been working
on my out-swinger, which has been going quite nicely. The wicket in
the last test match wasn't the greatest for the quickies, but the
experience I have gained bowling on these unresponsive wickets has
been great.
Picking up the wicket of Tendulkar in the first innings was good for
me. He played and missed a few of my early balls and then he started
opening up a bit with some more shots and pulled me for four. I kept
the pace up to him and then he tried to pull a quicker one and holed
out to Hansie at mid-on. I was really chuffed to get his wicket as we
considered him to obviously be the danger man in their team.
Here you can reverse the ball after 10 overs whereas in SA its takes
alot longer to get he ball to reverse, that's if you can get it to go
at all. This is because of the wickets and the rough outfield which
scuffs-up the ball and if you can then work on it and keep the one
side shiny, you can hopefully take advantage of the reverse swing in
this way.
Now that the one-dayers are upon us, I hope to do well here and in
Sharjah and play as often as I can and hopefully also get the
opportunity to do well against the Aussies back in SA in April.