It may have taken over two weeks but we have finally witnessed an English victory in the Emirates. Sadly it didn’t come from our cricket side that had a proud recent record before a crazy two hours on the fourth afternoon. Our English victory came in the shape of Robert Rock who was victorious in the Abu Dhabi golf tournament on Sunday afternoon.

The day out at the golf was a bonus that has ensured my tour ended on a positive note. I wasn’t the only one watching another sport to forget about the disappointment of the cricket. As I watched Tiger Woods just miss a bunker from the fourth tee, I found myself surrounded by half the Sky Sports commentary team. David “Bumble” Lloyd, always keen on a chat, quipped, “There are worse ways to spend a day off than this!”

I certainly wasn’t in a positive mood whilst watching our chase. Watching from the stands as wicket after wicket fell, you had a sinking feeling that this was going to go down in folklore as one of England’s worst displays. I expected a backlash after the Dubai performance, which Stuart Broad and Monty Panesar gave us, but sadly, our batsmen let us down again. It’s a strange feeling watching your side capitulate under pressure, and by the time Jimmy Anderson was caught on the boundary to end the misery, I knew it was time to go home.

I’ve left the UAE with mixed feelings. On one hand the Abu Dhabi match was everything I look for in an overseas Test (minus the England second-innings collapse, of course). The Test itself couldn’t have been much more dramatic, and to be played out in front of a large number of Pakistani expats made it feel like a proper sporting event.

On the other hand I am more than happy not to be returning to Dubai Sports City for the final match. Having time to reflect and look back after the success of the time spent in Abu Dhabi, Dubai really wasn’t a great spectator experience. Perhaps the next match, which starts on a Friday, will have more support to create some sort of an atmosphere in what is undoubtedly one of my least favourite international venues. It’s a shame a match couldn’t have been scheduled in Sharjah, where Pakistan traditionally get good support.

For the time being for me it is back to the 5.30am alarm call and my widescreen television for the rest of this tour. Perhaps England will finally win a Test on this trip. The odds must have improved, given that one chap I met on the flight home has just completed his tenth Test match overseas spread over 14 years and has yet to see England win!

Perhaps that is what makes being an England fan so great. Even if the team wins, loses or draws, we keep coming back for more. Watching your cricket side abroad is a great experience. If there is anyone reading this that is thinking of doing it, go ahead and do it. Even if your team’s top order keeps collapsing you’ll have no regrets!

The last few days summed up why I watch the England side abroad.

Not only has the cricket picked up from an English point of view, but perhaps more importantly there is also a feeling in the air that the tour has finally started. After the disappointment of Dubai and its fairly soulless surrounds, the Sheikh Zayed Stadium has provided three brilliant days of spectator happiness.

The stadium, albeit in the middle of a desert (like everything here), is close enough to a major highway to make it reasonably accessible for both locals and tourists. With its grassy banks and seated ends, one covered and one open to the elements, all preferences are catered for. Happily the English support has respected local customs asking us to keep our shirts on during the cricket.

I mentioned in the previous update that word was the weekend days of Friday and Saturday would be well attended. By close of day three, the first weekend day, the ground must have been at least two-thirds full. From a cricket purist point of view, it was a joy to see the thousands of Pakistani cricket fans streaming into the ground throughout the day, taking advantage of the authorities’ brilliant decision to open the gates for free throughout the Test.

It is pretty clear to me that Test cricket is alive and well. If you play a match based around a weekend and make the ticketing simple and affordable, people will turn up in numbers.

The banter between the England fans and our own players has also picked up thanks to the development of the tour as well as the arrival of several dozen supporters for the last two matches of the series.

Now, we England fans pride ourselves on being pretty up to speed with the players in our side. We chant for them, we encourage them and we are even seen on occasions celebrating or commiserating with them after a Test. Before the first Test started a number of us decided to gatecrash the final net session and have a chat with some of the players. One member of the Barmy Army who will remain nameless (but can be found wearing the full Union Jack attire) decided it would be a good idea to make the effort to chat with who he thought was the Barmy Army favourite Matty Prior. In front of several shell-shocked witnesses, he cried some words of encouragement towards the England wicketkeeper, before realising too late it was Jonathan Trott!

Prior already has his own personal cheerleader in the Barmy Army - a stalwart who goes by the nickname Deco. For the past few tours Prior has been greeted on a daily basis with shouts of “Morning Matty!” from Deco across Test grounds all over the world. Prior will always wave back, loving the support he receives from his No. 1 fan. On one occasion in Adelaide the cry came about an hour into the morning session – Matty turned towards the stand where the shout had emanated and gestured where an imaginary watch would be on his wrist, before putting his hands on his hips suggesting “Where have you been!”

After the Dubai incident, our nameless supporter has since adopted a similar “Morning Trotty!” greeting which has gone down so well that the rest of the players have been seen clapping and laughing along with the running joke – all whilst the game is in progress!

Even umpire Steve Davis has joined in with the banter, raising his hat to us as Billy, our famous trumpeter, played the Barmy Army’s own version of “Waltzing Matilda” for Australia Day. If only he knew the words we sung…..

With Pakistani four down overnight, the promise of a four-day victory beckons. If we pull it off, the celebrations tomorrow will surely be both inside and outside of the hotel bar’s happy hour.

Richard Kemp is in the UAE on his ninth cricket tour with the England side. Since his first tour in 2004, his love for the game has made him max out several credit cards visiting five Test-playing nations, including three tours of India and all five of last winter’s Ashes Test matches. He keeps a travel blog of his journeys here

It’s the eve of the second Test and I cannot wait for it to start. We’ve tried our best to get the most out of this extended break between matches but after five days of non-cricket related activities, I’m ready to spend my time in the UAE on the grass banks of the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium hopefully watching a famous English victory.

This feeling is reflected among my fellow supporters – slightly twitchy from the lack of cricket, and ever so slightly uninspired by our surrounds. It’s not that we aren’t enjoying being on tour - the takings in the hotel bar reflect that - it’s just that the UAE has never been on any of our “must-visit-places-before-we-die” lists.

For many, Dubai, just like England’s batting, was a bit of a disappointment. The ground itself was comfortable enough, but like so many new purpose-built sporting arenas, it was in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by incomplete buildings, the place had a slightly soulless feel to it. It was a world away from Adelaide or the Antigua Recreation Ground in St Johns, where people can walk up to the ground from the city centre as they please. I guess everywhere needs to start somewhere, and perhaps in time Dubai Sports City can build a history of its own – after all this was only the third Test it has hosted.

Abu Dhabi promises much more. The match starts on a Wednesday, meaning the likelihood of more Pakistani support over the weekend. The match is free entry for all and with Pakistan one-up in the series, I expect more backing for the “home” side. We’ve also found some more worthwhile activities to do away from the hotel’s happy hours, including a trip to our favourite Sheikh’s mosque, which is among the top ten largest mosques in the world. The ground, the main road through town and the mosque - the way everything is named after him, anyone would think he built the place.

Our time has also been spent discussing whether England can turn things around. The level of confidence has definitely dropped after the ten- wicket defeat in Dubai. Many of us believe our side can replicate Boxing Day 2010, where England bounced back from defeat in Perth in the most memorable of manners.

In the meantime I must dash. I have a date with a push bike and a formula one racetrack. I never thought I’d say that on tour...

Richard Kemp is in the UAE on his ninth cricket tour with the England side. Since his first tour in 2004, his love for the game has made him max out several credit cards visiting five Test-playing nations, including three tours of India and all five of last winter’s Ashes Test matches. He keeps a travel blog of his journeys here

If I am honest with myself I secretly hoped the Dubai Test would be wrapped up inside four days. With just a day’s build-up in Dubai before the Test started and a short taxi ride booked down to Abu Dhabi the day after what was scheduled to be day five, I considered the chance to have time to explore the sprawling metropolis a bonus.

However, what I did not wish for was the toothless, formless batting display from England on the third day that reminded me of being at Sabina Park, Jamaica, back in 2009.

We will always support the England team wherever we go, but sometimes watching batsmen after batsmen gift their wicket to the opposition is pretty hard to stomach. I had thought England would repeat their efforts in Brisbane, where they trailed heavily after the first innings and batted properly second time around. KP’s dismissal, caught on the boundary for 0, summed up a pretty grim few days inside the Dubai Sports City Stadium.

But to me more worrying than the form of England’s top six, was the lack of supporters for Pakistan inside the ground. Without the thousand or so English out here in the desert, the ground would have been empty throughout most of the Test.

Having the time to explore, we took a metro on Friday all the way to the north of Dubai, to a place by the coast called Palm Diera. Here, we found all the Pakistani cricket fans that the PCB hoped would fill the stadiums in the UAE. It was a sight I imagine repeated across cities like Multan or Faisalabad - a barren patch of land where over half a dozen games of cricket were being played out simultaneously with some intensity.

I walked over to the game being played out nearest to us. There was an umpire, a scorer (naturally sat in the comfort of a wheelbarrow) a set of stumps made out of bricks and a boundary marked out by a line drawn in the sand. This was a different side to Dubai than you see on the television; migrant workers from the local fish markets were taking time out between shifts to play cricket.

I spoke to a young guy who had sledged us on arrival with catcalls of “Saeed Ajmal, doosra, doosra!”about why he wasn’t in the ground supporting his heroes. In broken English he explained that he and his friends were too busy working and sending money home to their families in Pakistan and couldn’t justify a day’s lost wages to watch the cricket.

And I guess therein lies the problem. The interest in Test cricket is definitely there – they admitted to watching every highlights programme they could. They knew how many runs Misbah-ul-Haq had made recently and that Umar Gul looks fitter now than ever. They knew Kevin Pietersen shouldn’t have hit that careless shot so early on in his innings and that Ian Bell was struggling to pick Ajmal’s doosra. Unlike the English fans who are here in the UAE on holiday, these fans are here working.

Since the weekend days here are Friday and Saturday, perhaps the authorities could look at scheduling the games to start around these days as opposed toTuesday? After all, if England bat as naively in Abu Dhabi as they did here, even a Wednesday start might not give adequate time for the expat workers to make the most of the time off they have.

My prediction prior to the series was that England would struggle to get going during this Test series. I also envisaged that we’d win in Abu Dhabi. I may have already got the scoreline incorrect, but if the rest follows suit, at least we will avoid a series defeat.

Richard Kemp is in the UAE on his ninth cricket tour with the England side. Since his first tour in 2004, his love for the game has made him max out several credit cards visiting five Test-playing nations, including three tours of India and all five of last winter’s Ashes Test matches. He keeps a travel blog of his journeys here

Day one of a Test series is always an exciting time. In Dubai the feeling among the several dozen stalwart England supporters was slightly different to the usual “let’s act like a child on Christmas day morning because we are watching Test cricket abroad again” syndrome that I’ve become accustom to over the years.

I wrote in my first update about the recent passing of one of our own, George “The Podge” Summerside.

The first time I met Podge was back in 2007 on the outfield of the SSC Cricket Ground in Colombo. I’d manage to convince a couple of security men to let me into the ground despite the fact the gates weren’t open for some time yet. It was early AM; at least two hours before the start of play. Sunil, my favourite tuk-tuk driver in the whole of Sri Lanka, had dropped me off at the ground particularly early in order for me to beat the rush for prime “flagwatch” position. Flagwatch is a race against time. The mission is to get your flag in a position where every time the TV camera focusses in on a batsman concentrating hard on the bowler running in, your flag magically appears in the background, giving the watching world a view of your team or town.
Basically, anywhere just behind the bowler’s arm guarantees coverage every other over.

Podge was the master of this. Everywhere he went, his flag went. And without fail it was always behind the bowler’s arm. Despite my rather heavy head, thanks to a night on the local beer, I remember our first encounter like it was yesterday. He shook my hand firmly, before commenting in his unmistakeable broad northern English accent that “I deserved to steal his spot seeing as I was up so bright and early!” He laughed loudly, shaking my hand again before slipping a few rupees to one of the Sri Lankan lads on groundstaff to look after his flag until he got back from his breakfast!

From Ahmedabad to Antigua, a Test match featuring the English wouldn’t be complete without hundreds of flags being erected on fences, walls and trees. With the kind permission of Podge’s’ family, one of his closest touring buddies, Kev, has bought the “Podgy Roker” flag with him to Dubai as a fitting tribute to one of England’s finest followers. It was quite an emotional sight to see his infamous flag blowing in the wind today, naturally in prime flagwatch position.

The time was 2pm and back in the UK some four hours behind us in the UAE, his funeral was starting. After some discussions with the stadium management a message was read out over the PA system informing all spectators of his untimely passing and that they were invited to join in a minute’s applause celebrating his life. As the whole ground stood to applaud a fellow cricket lover, our very own batsman, Matty Prior and Graeme Swann, showed their respect by looking over to us and clapping too. Several of the Pakistani cricketers also joined in.

Only in a sport as magical as cricket would something like this happen during play. An international match briefly interrupted to celebrate the life of someone who loved the game. After all, you’d have to love the game as much as Podge did to visit places as far flung as Georgetown and Chittagong.

I wasn’t there but I knew he was – after all, that famous flag kept appearing on my TV screen.

Richard Kemp is in the UAE on his ninth cricket tour with the England side. Since his first tour in 2004, his love for the game has made him max out several credit cards visiting five Test-playing nations, including three tours of India and all five of last winter’s Ashes Test matches. He keeps a travel blog of his journeys here

We’ve finally arrived. After months of anticipation, research and hype, the England cricket fans have checked into our Dubai hotels – many of us a few dirhams worse off thanks to the lure of cheap alcohol in the airport’s duty-free. The best news from the first 24 hours in Test cricket’s newest destination has been the successful deal struck between a few of the Barmy Army lads and our hotel manager to lower the beer prices in the bar. Twenty-five dirhams a beer might not be the cheapest tipple on the international circuit, but it’s still cheaper than anything located during last winter’s open wallet surgery tour that was Australia.

After a few reunion beers last night we soon decided it was time to warm up the vocal chords and have a sing-song. Several minutes in, a local guy got up from his seat at the bar and walked up to us. Fearing he was going to ask us to quieten down, we lowered the volume. He instantly looked disappointed, before encouraging us to start singing at full volume again.

Now everyone's attention has switched to the first Test. After a tour round the world's biggest building site, also known as Dubai Sports City, we retired to the local golf-course restaurant for the traditional pre-series supporter selection meeting. The general feeling that England would go into the opening game with the usual seven batsmen-four bowler line-up was confirmed after a chat with BBC’s Test Match Special commentator, Jonathan Agnew. Word got round that England were having afternoon nets which a dozen or so of us ambushed, getting the opportunity to speak with Aggers and a few of the England backroom staff to get some inside information on the make-up of the final XI.

Andy Flower seemed pleased to see a few supporters milling around the nets at the ICC Global Academy. He said he expected the majority of supporters would choose Sri Lanka over the UAE. After thanking us for making the journey out to support the team, he told us to “make sure our voices are heard during the series”. Don’t worry, coach – we will.

My feeling is that this might just be a tougher series for England than many believe. Perhaps the time since England last played a Test that has clouded my confidence in what is, undoubtedly, the best squad in Test cricket. After all, it isn’t very often that an England side has a gap of four months since its last Test. It wouldn’t surprise me if England take a while to get going here.

Pakistan have been in confident form since England last played red-ball cricket and the first Test in Dubai might just be the time they need to strike. If they don’t, England might run away with the series just like last winter in Australia and the summer at home against the Indians.

Prediction from me? 1-0 to England with an Abu Dhabi victory sandwiched between the games in Dubai.

Richard Kemp is in the UAE on his ninth cricket tour with the England side. Since his first tour in 2004, his love for the game has made him max out several credit cards visiting five Test-playing nations, including three tours of India and all five of last winter’s Ashes Test matches. He keeps a travel blog of his journeys here

As it began to drizzle over Buffalo Park in East London, Jacques Kallis stood in a circle with six blazer-clad schoolboys. At first they were reluctant to say too much, but he prompted them. “Any questions, or is everyone too shy?”

One of the boys piped up. “How much of a role does fitness play now?”

Kallis was in his element. He puffed his chest out and spoke to them in the voice of a gentle older brother. “You guys are playing three times the amount of cricket that I played, so fitness does play a role,” he said. “Gym work becomes very important to prevent injury. There’s no shortcut, you’ve got to put in the hard work and you’ll see the results. Mentally, it’s good to do that kind of stuff. It does help your other cricket skills.”

Another asked a braver question. “How did it feel getting run out in Paarl?”

Kallis shrugged. “It’s part of the game. In one-day cricket, you accept it and move on. It’s almost about trust – like with everything in life, you’ve got to trust your partner.”

And another ... “Who’s the fastest bowler you’ve faced?”

No hesitation. “Shaun Tait.”

“And the best spinner?”

“Definitely, Shane Warne.”

“And what about the best bowler?”

“Wasim Akram. He could swing the ball both ways, with the new and the old ball and he had a good bumper too.”

“We see you’ve been bowling quite quickly these days, getting up to 140…”

“Yeah, my role has changed a bit,” Kallis said. “I probably won’t bowl as much, bowl shorter spells, where try and run in and get a breakthrough. My job will vary as well, sometimes I will try and hold the game.”

“What about the chirping on the field?”

“There’s not much these days. It’s pretty quiet now, nothing much gets said. It’s sad actually, cricket’s always had it.”

“What’s your highest score at this ground?”

“Uhh … couldn’t tell you,” Kallis admitted. “But I broke the window next to the clock,” he said, pointing to the shattered glass on the far side of the ground. “And they still haven’t fixed it.”

In the 2009-10 domestic final, when Kallis still played for the Warriors, one of the sixes in his undefeated 87 crashed into the window. His highest Test score at the ground is 75 not out, which he achieved in a Test match against Bangladesh in 2002, while his highest ODI score here is 63 against Australia in 1997.

Buffalo Park is not a particularly special venue for Kallis but for the six boys surrounding him, it is. Jordan Hayes (son of Greg Hayes, who played an important role in Makhaya Ntini’s development), Nathan George (son of umpire Shaun George), David Brits, Jerome Bossr, Pumelelo Payi and Sibulele Lwana are six schoolchildren who have received scholarships from the Jacques Kallis Foundation. They will come through the structures at Border Cricket and dream of representing their province one day at this very ground.

The organisation was set up to provide monetary assistance to pupils at four schools around the country: Kallis’ alma mata Wynberg Boys, Mark Boucher’s old school Selbourne College (where the schoolboys Kallis addressed on Friday are from), Jonty Rhodes’ Maritzburg Colleague and the up country school Pretoria Boys. The Foundation was started in 2006 when Kallis had his benefit year.

“Instead of taking the money raised from the events of the year, I wanted to give something back to the game of cricket,” Kallis said.

Kallis’ ex-headmaster Keith Richardson works with the foundation to identify talented boys and pave the way for their funding. “They mainly look at the Under-13s week and try and find the most talented guys there. They find out a bit about their background and if they can afford to go to a good school.”

The Foundation presents a side of Kallis that few will ever get to see. The public image of Kallis is of a one-track minded cricketer, who exists only to score runs, take wickets and claim catches at slip, whose life is consumed by what happens on the field. But behind that façade, is a real person with a giving soul.

“It’s given me a lot of pleasure to see guys come through,” Kallis said. “The cherry on top would be if a guy came through and played for South Africa. But even if he is getting an education and its changing his life, it’s just as rewarding.”

Kallis left the boys with sober advice, before they departed for a lunch. “Stay away from all the girls,” he joked. “Cricket only, cricket and academics.”

Whenever I inform a friend, family member or work colleague that I’m touring again with England there is always one question everyone asks. Who exactly are the people who manage to find the time and money to watch cricket overseas? It is a question that is repeated by the locals I’ve encountered in cricket grounds and bars across the world. After years of touring experience I believe the average England fan can be bracketed into three separate groups of people:

The tour group
These tend to be people of a slightly more “mature” age group. Quite often they are long-time retired folk spending their pensions and savings on watching England overseas. Undoubtedly, they will be staying in four- or five-star hotels, from where they are ferried to and from the ground in air-conditioned buses in the company of a retired English cricketer. They can be identified with relative ease thanks to the matching tour polo shirt with socks and sandals combination.

The budget traveller
Can be aged anything between 18 and 80. They are keen on doing everything, whether it be hostels, food or match tickets, as cheaply as possible and aren’t afraid to broadcast that fact. Sometimes they can be on a “sabbatical” or out of work completely, and as of such are at the cricket whilst on a longer travel break to other parts of the world. The original Barmy Army, christened by the Australian media in 1994-95, were by in large in this bracket.

The independents
Ah, it’s my turn! The “independent” tourist tends to be someone who watches England abroad as regularly as they possibly can, using all available annual leave from work to satisfy their desire to watch England play in as many international cricket venues as possible. Will always book their own flights and accommodation without the help of a tour operator and as such can be found staying in anything from cheap dormitory hostels to mid-range hotels, depending on the country being toured. More often than not, the “independent” is identified thanks to the shabby, suntan-lotion stained t-shirts they are wearing, proudly advertising a past tour.

One of the best things about watching the England side abroad is cementing friendships with fellow supporters that have been created from years of touring. I met my current travel companion for the UAE in Kandy back in 2007. We happened to be staying at the same Sri Lankan guesthouse and have been sharing rooms, flights and late-night beers ever since. A 50-something, recently retired prison officer – “Union Dave” has become a permanent fixture on tour, often picked up by television cameras thanks to his slightly flamboyant dress sense. You guessed it – he wears garments coated entirely of the Union Jack flag! What started as a charity fundraiser has turned into a tour identity. Although we come from entirely different backgrounds and generations, cricket brings us together once or twice a year to share some great experiences.

And that is what watching England is all about. There are young people, older people, males and females. No matter what the subtle differences might be, we are all united together thanks to the common interest of supporting Andrew Strauss and the rest of the team.

****

Sadly, on a rather sombre note, I’d like to finish this entry paying my respect to the late George “The Podge” Summerside who passed away last weekend. “Podge” was one of the ultimate independent travellers with both England and Durham and had built up a wealth of information on the many places he’d watched cricket around the world. He was always willing to share this knowledge with fellow fans and the messages left across social network sites this weekend have shown just how much he will be missed on tour. As someone who had watched his beloved Durham play in the UAE, a new destination for the rest of us, his insight will be missed now more than ever.

RIP Podge, the Barmy Army will raise a drink or two for you next week.

Richard Kemp is in the UAE on his ninth cricket tour with the England side. Since his first tour in 2004, his love for the game has made him max out several credit cards visiting five Test-playing nations, including three tours of India and all five of last winter’s Ashes Test matches. He keeps a travel blog of his journeys here

If only Test matches could melt into ODIs as easily as butter does on a hot stove. From a solid, steady, substantial base, similar to Test cricket, into an easy-flowing, fluid river of runs that the limited-overs game has come to represent with no mindset shift required.

Players often talk about the importance of adjusting to the different formats, be it in run-rate, bowling length or mental terms. In truth, they are not the only ones who need to change their outlook. Fans, journalists, scorers and ground staff all have to make the turnaround as well. They have to start thinking in immediate terms, minimise their contextual analysis and gear up for a smash and grab.

Luckily, there were a couple of days to do that in. In this case, a weekend in Cape Town.

While the city centre offers everything from hip haunts to bustling bars and swanky supper joints, what lies beyond is quite spectacular. The drive from Cape Town to Paarl, the venue of the first ODI weaves through the Cape Winelands and the country’s food capital Franschhoek.

More than 20 wine farms dot the town, most of them are open on Saturdays for tasting and many have restaurants attached. For a few hours, it’s an indulgent escape into the hoity-toity world of the upper-class. At dusk members of the MCC committee, who are in town for one of their two annual meetings, turned up at Boschendal. The estate is one of the oldest in the country and was founded by the French Huguenots. Remnants of the tradition remain with a scattering of Boules balls inviting visitors to try their hand at the French metal ball game.

While international, and particularly colonial, influences are what once enticed people to explore this area, it’s heartening to see that home-grown hospitality is thriving. The centrepiece of Franschhoek’s culinary delights is Reuben’s, a restaurant conceptualised and run by a local chef who has hit the big time.

Reuben Riffel started off as a barman and waiter at Franschhoek Country House and was lured into the kitchen almost by accident, when the head chef needed some assistance. He soon fell in love with the pots and pans and has worked at restaurants around the country and in Cambridge, before returning home to open his own. Riffel is a popular public figure and even appears in a television advert for Robertson’s spices and his success has brought great pride to the local Franschhoek community.

Other South African industries are also clearly cashing in Franschhoek. Wooden and beaded crafts are for sale on every corner, banana leaf paintings are a popular source of décor and even the minstrels have found a way to get mileage out of the tourists.

A firm fixture of New Year’s Eve street parades and Tweede Nuwe Jaar (Second New Year) celebrations, these bands are considered to play the sounds of the city. Just after lunch, one came marching down the main road, kitted out in their usual colourful clothing, trombones calling out to people and money collectors on all sides, accepting donations that will go a long way to helping them compete in the annual competition, which culminates in February.

Sport can sometimes take you to places where you feel like a tourist in your own country and this was certainly one of those occasions. Having never travelled along this route before, I was as wide-eyed as anyone and left with a completely fresh mindset, one that I will no doubt need as the whirlwind ODI series begins.

Four of the five matches take cricket to parts of the country that are seldom visited, especially by international cricket. Three of them, Paarl, East London and Kimberley, I have never been to before. Let the journey begin.

It was two weeks after my 18th birthday when I found myself in a rum shack outside the old Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados. I was on a paradise island, happily supping rum punch whilst singing songs late into the night about Graham Thorpe’s batting and Matthew Hoggard’s bowling. My England cricket heroes had just wrapped up a three-day victory against West Indies to take the series 3-0, and here I was, right in the thick of the celebrations.

I was instantly hooked. What started as a holiday of a lifetime has turned into an expensive and time-consuming passion. Three separate trips to India, a full Ashes tour, a month in South Africa and Sri Lanka, plus another tour to the Caribbean – my love for watching England play cricket abroad hasn’t wavered one bit since celebrating that Hoggard hat-trick back in 2004.

Whether it be several thousand of us celebrating an Ashes series victory in Sydney or just several dozen of us making the stupidly long trip from Chennai to Mohali to watch a re-scheduled Test played out in wintery fog, watching England is always great fun.

It’s not always just about the cricket. Every tour gives the chance to visit some places that without cricket I might never have done. New Year’s Day on top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka, a ferry ride through Sydney harbour. All of these experiences are bonuses of watching international cricket.

Getting away from the tourist traps and glamorous destinations is just as fun though. Cricket gives the chance to visit some seriously remote places the average traveller wouldn’t dream of visiting. Earlier this year I found myself in Nagpur to watch England’s opening game of the World Cup. To be met with warm smiles, handshakes and cries of “Welcome to Nagpur!” from random shopkeepers and tuk-tuk drivers whilst exploring the city’s streets will stay with me forever.

The last time England played a Test in a new country was way back in 2003. The Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was the setting for an England side, containing the likes of Rikki Clarke and former captain Nasser Hussain, which limped to a seven-wicket win against a fledgling Bangladeshi Test side. Fast forward eight years and the new world No. 1 Test side is preparing to play a three-match series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates.

On paper Abu Dhabi and Dubai don’t quite capture the imagination in the same way a week in Multan or Faisalabad does. There will be no tuk-tuk journeys, there will be no street food curries and there definitely won’t be any horses and carts to avoid whilst crossing the road! But a trip to the Middle East, spending a few dirhams watching the world’s best sport is still a pretty awesome way to start a New Year.

For now, it’s time to forget where we could be playing and start preparing for the tour. I can’t wait to touch down in cricket’s newest destination and tell you all about it.

Richard Kemp is in the UAE on his ninth cricket tour with the England side. Since his first tour in 2004, his love for the game has made him max out several credit cards visiting five Test-playing nations, including three tours of India and all five of last winter’s Ashes Test matches. He keeps a travel blog of his journeys here