I almost got stuck out in the middle when the covers came from all corners, I had to get a bit of a sprint on to avoid being trapped in the middle in the pouring rain! © Cricinfo Ltd

On Day Two, Dan [Vettori] joined a very, very special club. He became just the eighth player to reach 3000 runs and take 300 wickets. I know this meant a lot to Dan but you wouldn’t have known that by any of the actions Dan makes. He goes about his business, reaching his own milestones, sometimes some of them go unnoticed, and doing his job without the ego lesser players carry. He doesn’t carry on after taking wickets like some; he doesn’t run about pumping the air after scoring a ton. He is Dan, he is what you see; strongly motivated to be the best player he can be and take this, and the next NZ team to the top of our sport. And while being a great player, team-mate and captain, has made me a better bowler and it’s still a great thrill to walk out alongside him.

This morning, again, didn’t go to plan. Five down overnight and we needed to bat and bat and bat. We were back in the field just before lunch 182 behind. I was pretty angry, angry at getting out how I did and also about having to be back out fielding before lunch. I took the new ball straight after lunch and went as hard as I could. I put my anger into the ball and bowled a good spell. No wickets but the intent I was trying to bring was something I hoped we could keep going with.

157/2, 339 runs in front when the rains came. I almost got stuck out in the middle when the covers came from all corners, I had to get a bit of a sprint on to avoid being trapped in the middle in the pouring rain! We could sure do with a bit more of it!?

It’s been a while and I don’t really know where to start.

Firstly, I guess, we lost the first Test. Old news really, but it wasn’t a strong enough performance from us. To go down as we did in the fourth innings was, well, weak.

While in Galle, 12 of the 15 guys got sick. It seemed like it was just a matter of time before the whole travelling party got sick. Over the course of the match a few of the guys were so ill that they couldn’t even get themselves to the ground. It wasn’t pretty. The thing about whatever we got was that it lasted less than 24 hours but the side-effects of being sick meant that energy was hard to find for the next few days afterwards.

I got sick at the end of day three. We had come off for tea and Sri Lanka had declared; it was about an hour after that that I started to go downhill. Soon after I was vomiting and feeling very average. The timing of the onset was as good as it could have been, if there is ever a good time to get sick. I knew that I’d be back at the hotel soon and be able to spend as much time as I had to that night going back and forth from my bed and the toilet; and there were quite a few trips. I felt okay in the morning; I had the option to stay at the hotel for the morning and come down to the ground at lunch. I wanted to watch the boys bat and be a part of the changing room so I headed down with the team.

Recovering from it has taken longer than I thought. Putting the weight back on and getting energy back has been tough. The two days training before the match were a little subdued, still getting through what I needed to be ready for this Test.

I was a little nervous about selection for this Test. I hadn’t had a great game in Galle, three wickets that cost me around 60 a piece and going for almost six runs per over. Not good at all. So on the one hand I was prepared to make way for Tuffey and on the other I was thinking that before that Test I had been a pretty good performer and deserved the next Test. I think, so far in this Test, I’ve generally performed up to the standard I’ve set myself in the previous 12-18 months.

We really wanted to bat first in this match and when, from the changing room, we saw Kumar head to the toss interview first, we knew we were bowling; no one needed to ask Dan to make sure.

I had a good first spell, sweat pouring off and my face getting redder and redder. I managed to keep Dilshan quiet, something I couldn’t do at Galle, with better lengths. My first spell of six overs went for 10. That’s 30 runs less than my first four overs at Galle!!?? It was in my second spell when I picked up a wicket. The first ball of my eighth over Dilshan smashed one back to me, I guess I have to call it a dropped chance, but if I had caught that one you’d still be hearing me celebrating it. It hit me hard; I hardly had time to move my hands even in self defence. I followed through and asked Dilshan “is that all you’ve got, you’re going to have to hit it harder than that!” I do say some silly things sometimes. Next ball, it didn’t quite come out of my hand quite right and was shorter and slower, it held up and a leading edge back to me with a whole lot pace on it. I grabbed it with delight; it was a big one for me and the team.

My third spell for the day was not good. I came out after tea and really wanted to consolidate the work I had done up until here and get through three or four good overs. I didn’t. My legs decided that they didn’t really want to carry me and I had to fight to get to the wicket let alone try to get into my jump. I really had nothing in the tank for this spell and bowled poorly. I went off just after drinks to get my hand looked at (the one I tried to catch that Dilshan shot with earlier) but before I left the park Dan wanted a quick group chat. He gave it to us, it’s not often Dan gets angry, but he let us have it. The hour after tea had been poor, not even close to the standards we need to achieve to win a Test match. It was deserved and it’s fair to say from there to the end of the day we were better.

I got three overs with the new ball before the day was over. The energy came back, my jump was strong and I bowled a lot better. It was good to come off the park finishing with a good spell. I was knackered though, it was going to be a meal and a very early night.

I opened up this morning and continued on where I left off last night. Things felt pretty good. I had got through four overs and I could feel that Dan was toying with replacing me, I tried to get into the umpire and give him my hat and glasses before he had a chance to, I got a fifth over. Mahela had hardly played a bad shot in his innings, and the cover drive he played in this over was as good as any. I was then rather happy when he nicked one through to Baz for a catch and his wicket when he was on 92. Happy days, a breakthrough and it would then open up an end.

Kapugedera and the keeper Jayawardene hung about with the very in-form Samaraweera for a couple of very good partnerships. After they both were dismissed it was then a fight for the ball. I couldn’t get it and it was left to Jeetan and Dan to clean up the tail. Jeets finished with a well deserved four-wicket haul and we picked up the last seven wickets for around 150 and the last five for just 27. Brilliant.

More tomorrow......

Well, there’s no excuse for me not to blog tonight. It was a day with the feet up, one to rest and recover after a couple of hot, hard days in the field. It wasn’t quite as I’d have preferred it though. I’d have rather not had to put the pads on let alone get out there and bat. I love batting, don’t get me wrong, I was just hoping that we’d bat strongly throughout the day and we could have another ‘batting’ warm up tomorrow. Not to be though, we’ve got ourselves in a little bit of trouble, and are going to have to work hard to get ourselves out of it. It might also be fair to say we haven’t quite had the ‘rub of the green’ in a couple of the decisions; you take the bad ones with the good and that’s just the way cricket is.

The rain this morning was amazing. If you had of said we would have got through 70-odd overs today at 10am this morning I would have laughed at you! There was no way that was going to happen; but it did. The groundstaff have done a great job with the ground; covering and uncovering. They’ve worked as hard as we have in the middle and it’s paid off in us being able to play.

The crowds at the ground have been really good, a small smattering of Kiwis here supporting, NZ flags pop up in different places, black t-shirts and jandals . The occasional “C’mon Kiwi” shouted out, it’s been good to see and hear the ex-pats in the crowd. It’s just a pity we haven’t given them more to cheer about more often.

I got to bat tonight; I had had a good hit in the last warm-up match and have been feeling pretty good with bat in hand. We were six down at tea and I had some ‘knock-ups’ outside on the ground. I found the middle of the bat in defence, hit a couple of drives and headed back up to the changing room happy.

	Mowing the outfield: He was doing about 30kmph aorund the outfield © Iain O'Brien

It became my turn to bat around 5pm. The light had just started to deteriorate and SL had quite a new ball; brilliant, just brilliant!? I had been watching the pace of the quicks, both on TV and live, and was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be their pace that was going to be my undoing. In fact I wasn’t really too worried about the quicks; it was these two spinners that were causing me some head problems. Before bad light stopped play on the third day I had faced nine balls and scored three; a good start.

I faced two balls from Murali; I picked them as an offie first and then the doosra. When I got back upstairs to the changing room I re-watched the footage to see if I had got it right. In fact I got them both wrong. It was the other way around. I’ll work had on trying to pick him tomorrow, but more importantly work had with Dan and try to bat for as long as possible. I’ve got a target I’d love to get to, not a run target but a balls faced target. If I get close then I know Dan and I will have put on a partnership of note.

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We walked off after day one at 293 for 3, as I said, not the best day in the field; that’s obvious. Day two was better though. We picked up the remaining seven wickets for 159 with Dan (Vettori) and Tommy (Chris Martin) both thoroughly earning their four wickets each. Dan bowled tightly throughout the innings and it was just a matter of time before he’d pick up wickets. Dan and I normally, in the past, have bowled well together, we’ve both been able to control the runs and then put scoreboard pressure on the batters to score. The ends we like to bowl from normally works that it suits us both too. I couldn’t hold up my end in the way I’ve been able to do enough in this first innings. So it took a change of ends for Dan so that he and Tommy could bowl together. And it worked, perfectly; the last four wickets for just eight runs, all of them off Muralitharan's bat. We love the way he bats, we all wish we could be that free.
It’s raining right now, it’s almost 9am and we’d normally be at the ground by now.

An amazing storm came through around 5am this morning, thunder banging about and lightning as bright as I’ve ever seen; with it, torrential rain. The rain has eased but is still steady and doesn’t look like stopping anytime soon. We’ve watched the covers go on and come off, an amazing mission by the lads at the ground. The whole ground gets covered; I don’t know if there are that many covers in New Zealand, I’ve never seen anything like it. As we’ve watched them being taken off we know that it’s about a 90-minute even so there is no point going to the ground until the rain stops completely. There’s nothing we can do about it so it was a longer breakfast than normal and most of the boys will be in their room resting up some more.

Yesterday afternoon we got through to stumps two down and 87 on the board. McIntosh played a traditional Test match openers role. He blunted the bowlers and scored where he could; quite the opposite of how Dilshan played. Dilshan attacked us and put us, bowlers, on the back foot. His style comes with risk but when it comes off, and he’s good enough, it is a tough style to work plans to. The thing about the way Dilshan played, especially in a first innings is that it gives the fielding team a chance of an early wicket and some early momentum. Obviously if he comes off it’s the opposite, but as we saw yesterday we know that if we can get early breakthroughs in the top order then the tail isn’t going to add as many as some line-ups in the world.

As I type this a big black cloud has worked its way over the hotel and heading its way to the ground, the rain has just got heavier and it looks like we’ll be at the hotel for a while yet.

This will be a quick one as I’m pretty tired after a tough day on the park.

We arrived at the ground with rain in the air and the covers still on. And I mean covers still on; the whole outfield was covered. They were battening down the hatches yesterday afternoon while our training session was wrapping up and there must have been almost a hundred ground helpers out there putting the sheeting down on the wicket, the block, the surrounds and the whole outfield.

Start was delayed till 11.30 and we got first opportunity to bowl first on it after Dan won another toss. It had been mentioned that he wanted to lose the toss as we really weren’t sure what to do first. The pitch felt a little tacky after being under the covers, but how long would that last; we weren’t sure but Dan decided to have first use of it. And it paid off straight away. Tommy (Martin) with his third ball picked up Tharanga Paranavitana and then in his second Kumar Sangakkara flicked one to Flynn at square leg for two wickets inside three overs. That, alas, was where the wickets ended for that session. Tillakaratne Dilshan was outstanding. I felt like I was bowling very close to our plan for him although, unfortunately for us, it was to be his session. I bowled four overs in my first spell and it really was like a highlights package. I went for 40 in those four overs; not good enough but also there was some very good batting.

The next session I was a bit better, my five-over spell, in comparison, only going for 25; hardly economical, but it was better than my first spell. I picked up Dilshan in my third over of this spell; he cut a rather short, and shall we say, rank ball onto his stumps on 92 from 72 balls. A collective sigh of relief from us! It was like seeing the back of Sehwag!

This spell I found really tough. I was okay in my third over but the 4th and 5th I really started to overheat and was finding it really tough out there. I got through that spell and normally I’d cool down after a couple of overs in the field. I wasn’t. In fact I was starting to feel really average. I don’t like leaving the field but I had to today. My radiator wasn’t quite working right. I was off for around 20 minutes and in that time I had an ice jacket on, an ice pack on my head, neck, shoulders and feet. I was drinking everything in sight and sucking on ice cubes, doing all I could to cool down. After about 10 minutes I started feeling normal(ish) again and headed over to my seat to change my clothes. Fresh socks, trousers and a shirt, this time without the under layer vest top I had been wearing. I got back out there as soon as I could and felt a lot better by the time I got on the field.

At tea, Dan asked me how I was, and if I wanted to go again soon after the break. Of course I wanted another crack, “I got some figures to fix!” My third spell was probably my best one of the day although it was still more expensive than I’d want. The ball now was reversing a little and I was looking forward to see what I could get out of it. It went for me a bit and I was feeling pretty good; this was going to be my spell. I bowled as hard as I could and got some good bounce from good lengths, beat the edge a few times, got the edge a couple too; but not to hand. I went as hard as I could to change my day.

A great partnership between Mahela Jayawardene and Thilan Samaraweera got Sri Lanka through to early stumps as bad light set in. We are going to have to work harder and smarter again tomorrow to pull this innings back in our favour.

It was an ice bath at the ground straight after we finished and then back to the hotel for a massage; eat, type this and now bed time.

The second warm-up match, played at NCC finished in a tame draw. Three days is really not enough time to secure an outright win unless one team has at least one very poor innings with the bat. That said, the SL XI took a first-innings lead into the second half of the match.

We’ve now travelled to Galle, further south and smack bang on a currently rampant coastline. We were supposed to train this morning but that has been put off due to the ground-flooding rain that hit here at about 6am. So it’s going to be a long day stuck in our hotel without the weather we were expecting. A day like today isn’t the worst thing for us though. It gives us a good chance to get another gym session in and most importantly a very good opportunity to watch more footage and study our plans for this upcoming Test series.

I finished the match back at NCC with feeling pretty good about my form. I got through 16 overs (2 for 60) and scored 18 (off 52). Not the worst game, not the greatest game but pretty good in the conditions. I could have, maybe, had another couple of wickets had things gone my way, but overall I am happy with where I am at.

I said in an interview that one of the most important things about playing over here is not fading throughout the day, getting into that third session and still bringing what you offered in the first. I came back for three overs right at the end of the third session, one with the old ball and two with the new. I felt pretty good, the legs were feeling a little heavy but I got to the crease well and felt like I had similar if not just slightly better ‘snap’ than I did first up in the morning. It was this spell where I picked up my two wickets; Dinesh Chandimal with my second delivery with the new ball and then Seekkuge Prasanna with the fifth ball. Chandimal played a beautiful innings, a great hundred, and he’s only 19. His patience and the ability to stick to his game plan was amazing for someone of his age. A very special future player for Sri Lanka; he took the gloves in the second innings too.

I’ve just been to the gym, core session and then a sweaty 20 minute cardio run. I think I’m sweating more here in Galle than we did in Colombo.

Last night we were invited to visit a NZ family here in Galle. Everywhere we go we get the full police and military escort which people stop and stare to watch as we go past. It makes the trips a lot quicker but the attentions it attracts sometimes also makes it feel a little over the top. It’s great that we’ve got the security though, don’t get me wrong, it just seems such a mission to organise a two-hour outing from the hotel.

It was a good, albeit short, evening out of the hotel meeting Kiwi’s here working and living the Sri Lankan life. Also there were a combination of other westerners that have joined together to make a tight little friend group. It was great hearing the stories how people came to live here and how they are making it work for them. Thanks Simon and Eric for putting yourselves out for us. Appreciate it a lot!

The highlight of today will be a 2pm trip to a supermarket. It doesn’t sound like much but a chance to peruse the shelves and pick up some needed supplies is something to look forward to. Again, I’m sure it will give the security guys a bit of a headache!

And here is the first update from Sri Lanka ... Oh, and for the record, it’s hot. Honest! Sweating is probably the easiest thing to do here.

We all arrived here a week ago yesterday. So eight days here to acclimatise, train and play some warm-up games. We had three days before the first warm-up match to try, as much as possible, to get used to the heat and humidity. We all struggled to a certain extent with overheating, some more than others. Guppy [Martin Guptill], at the first training, was the first one to feel the effects, his fair skin and ginger hair not helping, I’m sure. It wasn’t anything serious but he did have to stop training and get the ice bags on to cool down. It was my turn yesterday to have a few issues during training.

The combination of the heat and humidity is so hard to combat. Getting enough water on board is hard. It often feels like you are sweating as quick, if not quicker, than you can drink the water. It is so important to keep a water bottle nearby.

Our first warm-up match, at the Colombo Colts ground, pretty much went to plan. I wasn’t to play; I had this game off, mainly because my bowling loads have been good while at Leicestershire. We lost the toss and were asked to bowl first; not the worst thing as the pitch felt a little tacky. We bowled well and knocked them over for 159. Tuffey, in his first match back in the NZ shirt, picked up three and it was good to see him bowling quick picking up wickets. Our boys in reply racked up 493 with some real good looking innings in hard conditions, Dan’s [Vettori] century being the highlight. Dan came in when the score was 258 for 6, the innings in the balance, and put together a couple of strong partnerships with Baz [McCullum] and then Jeets [Patel].

In the overs left in this three-day match we couldn’t quite knock them over for the full win. A good outing first up especially as we don’t have a great record in warm-up matches.

A full day off followed that match and most of us enjoyed some time by the pool enjoying the sun and the water. A couple of us fairer skinned boys got a little more sun than maybe we should have and that was even using sunscreen. The pills we take to make sure we don’t get any nasty diseases from the bugs make us more susceptible to the sun. Silly us, lesson learnt. I should know better anyway, I just go pink, peel and then go white again anyway. Don’t know why I try to get a tan!

Yesterday was training. It was a tough one and I suffered a little. Hit the nets first up for five overs, one to warm up and then four flat out at match intensity. Pads straight on after that for a bat, probably had them on for 45 minutes and in that time I didn’t drink enough. A quick lunch break and then into the gym for a circuit. It was here where I started to feel a little ‘funny’. I got through the circuit and then had some time to do my ‘pre-hab’ stuff. I was getting a little shaky, nothing too much, but I knew I wasn’t the best. I stopped and grabbed a couple of bottles of water and sat down. I weighed myself and since the start of training till here I had lost over a kilo and then you add to that how much sweat was soaked into my clothes and I knew I had lost a whole lot more. My t-shirt felt like it had been thrown into a pool, it was that wet. After some time to recover I felt fine again and headed out to fielding training. This was a good time to get a very good reminder about how much water you lose in these conditions. I’ll have to work very hard to keep hydrated during the sessions on the park.

Which brings me to today: the second warm-up match. Dan won the toss and we batted first; always the option in games like this, it should mean we get two at bats. We didn’t quite have it all our way today though. The day finished with us 283 for 8 and I’m not out. I’m pretty happy with it too. Jeets and I have put on 50 so far, I’ve scored just nine of them, but it’s the partnership that counts.

I’ve been working hard in the nets with Saqlain Mushtaq, who’s come on board with us as a spin bowling consultant, on playing spin and also facing a lot of bowling machine and the quality net bowlers we’ve been privileged to have help us out. Yesterday’s batting was good. I got a load of tennis balls fired out of the bowling machine; short and at me. It was what I needed; I felt pretty good playing, ducking and weaving. Of course I got pinned a couple of time but it just reinforces the positions I must not get into. Out in the middle today I got the opportunity to use all the things I’ve been working on. Nine runs off 41 balls which included the new ball being taken and I get to open the batting in the morning.

And in other cricket news, my predictions for the Ashes are, so far, spot on. One draw, one weather-affected draw, and one win each. If England win this last Test, I’ve picked it right. Sri Lanka and Pakistan are currently going head to head in the Twenty20 over my left shoulder. Interesting battle; Afridi just out, good for SL, he’s an amazing player!

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