Dambulla back on the map

Good news reaches Nutley concerning the return of international cricket to the controversial Dambulla stadium, north of Colombo.

The stadium has been starved of cricket for two years after a dispute between Sri Lanka cricket and the country's buddhist ministry, who claimed that the monks who owned the land the stadium was built on did not have the right to lease it.

The usual shenanigans occurred thereafter, when allegations of financial irregularities against former SL Cricket president Thilanga Sumathipala filled newspapers. But it is thanks to him that the ground was built.

It actually only took 167 days to build the 30,000-seater stadium in the middle of the jungle - not bad when you consider it also took 30 days to ship over the steelworks and the project members had never met before.

At a cost of under GBP3 million, it is also a first-class venue with awesome views of the surrounding area from the press box. The Nutley attended the inaugural game there in 2001, when England were shot out for 90-odd. As the sun went down, to the left of the ground hot air balloons ascended over the nearby lake and jungle.

England play a few ODI's there this winter.

Sammy and George

Will this be another classic West Indian story?

Darren Sammy's seven wickets no doubt sparked party scenes on the beautiful island of St Lucia: it will also be one of the talking points if West Indies hold out for an amazing win. If that happens it will only further jettison his already famed status as St Lucia's top sportsman.

There is isn't much association to cricket where Sammy comes from. Born in the south of the island, his first bat was made of coconut frond stems while he couldn't play at weekends because he was a Seventh Day Adventist.

St Lucia's second best sportsperson is Nadine George. The MBE and bludgeoning opening bat for West Indies Women's also holds down a job as a marine coast guard, tracking down drug smugglers by day. If only the WICB would pull their finger out and get more international games then she might break more records. Read more here.

Travel & Tour Nowhere

Has cricket tourism reached its saturation point? The news that Travel & Tours Anywhere, the Barmy Army's licensed operator, has ceased trading with its membership revoked last month by ABTA will surely change the way travel groups do business in the future.

Poor World Cup sales forced TTA to close, but the Ashes Down Under also proved to be a loser. This also applied to the many travel groups who sold packages to Australia. The prices were simply too extreme to follow all five Tests. The initial mass demand for tickets never materialised and individual travellers from the UK cottoned on to this after touts were left holding batches of tickets for the 2003 Rugby World Cup Final. For those wise independent fans, it was the same for the first four Tests in Australia where it was more than easy to obtain face value tickets for every day of the Tests.

Tourism industry insiders have revealed to this blogger that saturation point has already hit tour companies and the news that cricket's biggest army has just lost its tour arm only proves that.

*It remains to be seen if the ICC see sense, too, in making the group stages of the 2011 World Cup free entry. Only then will fans afford the 40-day jamboree proclaimed by Malcolm Speed for the Asia tournament.

That's it for now

The Nutley is resting its weary typing hands until next week and is going back to my wife. In the meantime, why not scroll down and relive some memories of the 2007 World Cup or peruse the Caribbean photo library (as above). Or you could even boost my future career as the podcast man for the Daily Mail by clicking and listening to the collection here.

I highly recommend St Lucia as a holiday destination but I would aslo combine it with Barbados. Hire a car, get lost and experience island life in one of the most relaxed environments in the world. And if you experience an old Bajan laugh, remember to tell me about it sometime.

Top 10 of a different sort

Here is a random Top 10 over the last six weeks in the Caribbean:
1. Why do you see non-finished houses from the outside every so often? Cunning Bajans dodging property tax that's why.
2. The only living National Hero is Garry Sobers. His time playing for Barbados police still warrants a salute whenever a copper is in the presence of the great all-rounder.
3. Seeing Umpire Bucknor get off the cheap run-around mini-buses in Bridgetown, pay the driver and walk into the Kensington Oval to survey the ground. One cool Jamaican.
4. Ian Chappell's comments on the ICC: "As I've said before, they've got a hotel under the sea there and a ski resort in the desert. It's too far away from reality."
5. The ironic moment when the ICC advertising boarding nearly engulfed CEO Malcolm Speed was quite funny.
6. When you walk into a rum shack, be prepared for a "good night". I felt like getting out quick when this was said, but in fact it's just the Bajan "good evening".
7. Pakistan v Ireland and we're in a taxi. Our driver gets an instant cricket update text message and relays "very surprisin' developments takin' place in Jamaica..." We knew we were in the Caribbean then.
8. Interviewing music legend Eddy Grant.
9. Witnessing the Bajan Guiness Book of Records and how the main attraction couldn't make it. The 12'' pizza eating holder had trouble firing up his ovens (he owns 12 outlets on the island!) that morning and so had to cancel.
10. Glenn McGrath gets a wicket with his penultimate ball of his spell. When he fails with his last ever international delivery he kicks the ground in customary fashion and curses to himself. And there sums up the brilliance...

In safe hands

I don't know anything about this myself but Monty Panesar is appearing on a Cricket World live webchat tomorrow/Tuesday at 12:10pm GMT.

Click here for the link.

Monty will be live with Dean Hurlock, who works for the Foreign Commonwealth Office, and the duo are set to give safety advice for those Brits/foreigners travelling to the World Cup.

Hospitality and houseboats

Went to Kerala in India for our honeymoon - two weeks of bliss interspersed with serious eating and constant questions of whether we would like more.

The Keralans pride themselves on their food and general warmth and we have never eaten so much in 14 days. In the end we had to skip lunches, mainly after spending five days on the resort island pictured.

Bangaram forms one of the handful of Lakshadweep Islands in the Arabian Sea. No one I know had ever heard of it before we went and this was confirmed by the only guest on the island when we arrived. Englishman Jamie had spent five days on his own before we turned up. He wrote about his experiences here and called it 1 island, 1 guest, 37 staff. Lucky b&$3^&*, it's a dream headline...

Kerala also prides itself on two other truths: the backwaters on a houseboat are one truely memorable experience and the fact it has someone from its state playing for India - Sri Sreesanth is a lively bowler and a former national breakdancing champion.