I am currently sat on the balcony of my sister-in-law’s apartment in Bangkok. We had the intention of stopping over to see the family here for a couple of days on our way back to the UK. However, due to the short-term nature rearrangement of the return flights, we find ourselves in Bangkok for six nights. It was going to be seven!

It ended up being not such a bad thing. I have been pretty ill over the last few days – antibiotics and everything! Trying to negotiate two stints of 11 1/2 hours flying, all within 24 hours, would probably not have been a good move.

My last Saturday in charge of the East Coast Bays saw me watching from my car as I undertook a self-imposed quarantine from the the rest of the team. As I drifted from cold sweat to hot sweat, and back and forth to the toilet, the performance of the pitch was just as depressing. After a number of weeks of growth and encouragement from our batting line-up, we reverted back to traditional Bays ways, by falling to 135 all out. Suburbs New Lynn, our opposition, were more ruthless in their chase than we were penetrating in our defense, and cruised pass the total before taking a 40 run lead into the second day. They were four wickets down, but would have been one if it wasn’t for their generosity in the run-out department, handing us three easy dismissals.

Over the last five weeks they have definitely missed my bowling and possibly missed my middle-order contributions with the bat over the last three days cricket. My philosophy as their coach on a Saturday has always been to leave it to the captain. I have contributed when asked but, once the warm ups have been completed, I have mainly switched on as a player only. This made my contribution from the sidelines largely inhibited and a very frustrating experience.

Back to normality in a few days then. Single figure temperatures, possible white precipitation. I look forward to digging out all my thermals from the loft in time for our preseason friendlies!