International Cricket travels are still so much fun!

Jun 16, 2025 Sports

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 By Colin Croft – Former Guyana, West Indies & Lancashire CCC International Cricketer

Kaieteur Sports – If you missed me, that was because I was on a whistle-stop tour to the United Kingdom, from May last, to attend the final games featuring the extremely poorly performing West Indies men’s cricket team v England’s men’s cricket team, of that wretched WI men’s UK tour.

That short visit was eye-opening and cricket scary too.  Maybe I should have closed my eyes while I imagined WI men supposedly playing proper international cricket v England men!

If you know me well, and are older than 50 years, then you should know, while at Central High School; 1966 to 1971; that I really loved those midnight “horror” shows at Globe, Astor, Plaza, Metropole and especially Strand cinemas, in Georgetown, Guyana, featuring actors Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing; wonderful, screaming, tingling, blood-curdling stuff!

My older sister Gloria, retired Head-Teacher, still reminds me that, on my first ‘official’ date with her when I actually paid for everything, that I took her, in 1970, to Strand Cinema, to the midnight showing of “Dracula has risen from the grave!” and “Taste the blood of Dracula!”

What a cheap date that was then.  Cookies, pop-corn and sodas included, it cost GUY$10 (GUY $1 = US $1 back then); for pulsating, throbbing, chilling, eye-closing entertainment.

Also, those were still the heady time of safe travels and freedoms in Guyana, of no stress at all while walking two miles to our grand-parents’ home on South Road, just east of Light Street, at 02:30am on Saturday mornings, with no thought of being choked or robbed!

Nowadays, normal natives in GT are seriously frightened to ‘circle the block’.   Even running on Georgetown’s sea-wall, a favorite past-time, is scary.   Things have really changed!

So, what I experienced seeing WI men’s team play also filled me with much horror, not unlike those “Hammer Film Productions” of 1960s / 1970s.  WI men’s team looked so mummified on the field that I wondered if some ancient embalmers had visited their dressing rooms.

Those concerns will be addressed, but recent WI men’s ODI & T-20 teams, under Head Coach Darren Sammy and Captain Shai Hope, both of African descent, have looked more dead than alive.  Maybe Darren Sammy and Shai Hope are actually of Egyptian heritage!

KUDOS WHERE KUDOS ARE DUE

The performances of “MY” airline, DAL – Delta Air Lines – my last full-time employment, and its personnel, with my honestly minute scrutiny, were just absolutely magnificent for this trip.

DAL does not normally fly directly to LHR (London Heathrow International) from MCO (Orlando International).  While DAL’s partners Virgin Atlantic Air Lines (VS / VA) normally do, all flights on VS / VA to LHR, for my planned schedule, had long been sold out.

Even with my connections, for my last-minute decision to attend the cricket games in the UK, I could not conjure up a seat on one of VS / VA attractive new Airbus A-350s presently plying that great circle MCO – LHR route.

London is cricket crazy this year, with so many international games scheduled April to September – Zimbabwe, West Indies, Australia, South Africa, India.  It is quite difficult to get to London from anywhere in USA but I did manage to get outbound flights through Boston, Massachusetts, to London, returning though Atlanta, Georgia, to Orlando International.

From check-in at MCO, to the two-hour airplane-change stop at BOS (Boston-Logan International), to arrival at LHR, things went very smoothly.  We even arrived early in the approach holding pattern at LHR and landed ahead of schedule.

Despite happenings very recent, I am always a “Boeing Boy”, but both Airbus A-321 and Airbus A-330 aircraft could not have been more comfortable.  All attending personnel – Pilots, Flight Attendants, Customer Service Agents, Ground Services Agents – gave full attention to all passengers, not only to me as a former DAL employee, which we all deserved.

Without any biases, Delta Air Lines is easily the best USA-based international airline.  As that very old saying goes: “Once DAL, always DAL”.  Yes.  I felt incredibly special!

NEW HOTEL EXPERIENCES

Through DAL too, I was introduced to what has become known, in hotel jargon, as a “Boutique Hotel”.  Mine, situated at Hotton Cross / Feltham, the first stop on the Picadilly underground line, from London Heathrow’s Terminal 3, was “The Atrium Hotel Heathrow”.

Ironically, given recent airline tragedies, this hotel is located just north of the landing final / departure ends of East / West, (RWY 09 / RWY 27), main runways of London Heathrow.  It did seem that I could reach out and touch landing aircraft but the hotel was incredibly quiet!

I have stayed in many extremely fancy big brand-named hotels during travels around the world since 1971.  Yet, I would highly recommend this popular contemporary hotel with 575 rooms.  The Atrium Hotel Heathrow was absolutely, spotlessly clean, rooms and all.

My stay was exceedingly comfortable, since managing personnel, mostly of Asian descent, were always attentive, even more so after some had recognized me as a former WI cricketer.    Of course, the ubiquitous zillions of photographs had to have been taken too.  No stress!

KIA OVAL IS NOT A CRICKET GROUND.  IT IS NOW A CITY!

Thankful to Cricket West Indies and UK Professional Cricketers Association (UK PCA), I had both an official seat ticket and an official “GROUND” badge, for Kia Oval, for ENG v WI ODI No. 3, on Tuesday 03 June 2025.  What a thrilling experience that short visit turned out to be!

Getting to Kia Oval, home of Surrey CCC, via London’s underground system, from Hatton Cross, took 45 minutes, via Picadilly Line then Northern Line, changing at Leicester Square.  “Oval” tube station is 200 meters (1/4 mile), from the main “Hobbs Gate” at Kia Oval.

At exactly the agreed time, I was met at that “Hobbs Gate” – named after famous past England batter (Sir) Jack Hobbs, who played for SCCC for 30 years – by my “Chaperon for the Day”, Mr. Adam Lam, a Business degreed, intelligent, scholarly SCCC employee.  This had been arranged by coordinator extraordinaire Ms. Zoe Leonard of UK PCA and SCCC.

Without Mr. Lam’s tremendous inputs and assistance, I would have been seriously lost many times while traversing the innards of Kia Oval.  It is in the same place but no longer is (Kia) Oval the same (Kennington) Oval where I played in 1970s / 1980s for LCCC and WI.

Kia Oval is now a city, with myriads of offices, displays, meeting rooms, bars, terraces, stands and adjacent hotel, around the playing field, an absolute hive of human activity.

Official crowd capacity at Kia Oval is about 25,000, soon to be increased to around 30,000.  Over 2000 – yes, two thousand – events are staged at Kia Oval each year, of which only about 60 days are of actual on-field cricket.  The club’s annual turn-over is US$75m, with about US$25m as reserves; an operational model that should be heavily copied in the Caribbean.

I certainly put in my 10,000 steps that day traversing around for 12 hours at Kia Oval during 3^rd ODI – ENG v WI, visiting at least 12 different important boxes and terraces, to give presentations, answering questions, trying to explain why WI cricket is not only so blasted poor, but why its senior men’s team looked so desperately slow, damned mummified even, much like those featured in George Romero’s 1968 horror classic “Night of the Living Dead!”

FLYING BACK INTO USA IS ALWAYS EXHILERATING!

Flying west, LHR to MCO via ATL, is not for those faint hearted of flight.  One would remember July 2024’s total failure of DAL’s computer systems and the airline’s still pending massive lawsuit against cybersecurity company “CrowdStrike” for its very strange upgrade outage.

It took me five days; hotel to home; in July 2024, because of that snafu.  I was delayed at LHR and NYC / JFK along the way to MCO.  In 2025, we were only diverted on the way back to ATL!

Both venerable Boeing B-767 and Boeing B-757 aircraft worked perfectly for my two flights scheduled back to MCO.  The B-767, LHR to ATL, was diverted to Nashville, Tennessee (BNA), due to terrible thunderstorms at Atlanta and environs.  That is summer in USA!!

After 60 minutes at BNA, we eventually landed at ATL at 08:00pm, three hours later than scheduled.  I had also missed my connection to MCO, since Customs and Immigration at ATL are a combination hell-hole in these interesting travel and tariff times.

My flight, ATL to MCO, departed at 12:00 midnight, landing MCO at 01:00 Sunday morning.  By the time I got my delayed baggage – I had to wait for the even later flight for that – I did not get home until 03:30am; 12 hours from hotel at LHR to home.  Yet it was fantastic fun!

Indeed, it was so much enjoyment and excitement that I am scheduled to go back to London next month, July, for events around India’s five Tests cricket tour to England.

One has only one life.  If you do not enjoy yourself, and if you are not ill, then that is your damned fault.  I thank God for smiling on me.  I am enjoying myself.  Cheers!

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• Colin Croft, International Cricket, The Oval, Virgin Atlantic Airbus A-350

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