First ICC trip - Port Moresby

Thursday June 20th I set off for my first official ICC trip, destination,Papua New Guinea one of our pacific neighbours.

The Eastern parts of Australia get allot of fog in the early hours and Thursday was no different with Brisbane airport fogged in, this meant my 8.30am flight to Brisbane from Melbourne had been delayed and even more frustrating we waited on the aircraft for almost 90 minutes.... frustrating to say the least.

This meant a mad dash for the train once arriving into Brisbane domestic, the two airports domestic and international are on the train line and is a short 3 minute journey. Once going through immigration I heard the final call for my flight to Port Moresby, all I could think about was how bad it would be missing my first ICC trip.

Luckily I made the flight and again the flight had a short delay due to the amount of traffic.

Arrival at Port Moresby was an experience in it self, the locals seem very shy. The arrival documents and immigration documents are similar to most in the world, except for one strange question.... 'Tick the box if you have any more than one item the same?' WOW!!! I ticked yes as I had numerous hats and shirts for the PNG Cricket Board.

Customs stopped me and searched my bags, then asked about cost of the caps and shirts and insisted I pay for importing the items. The discussion went for sometime and a long story short, I was able to keep the hats and shirts and carry on with out paying any money.

I was greeted at Port Moresby by Laksy (Lakani Oala) who is the Operations Manager for PNG Cricket, he was very polite and welcoming. A short 5 minute drive and we arrived at my hotel (Gateway) a nice simple hotel with a PNG flavour.

I was then taken for a look around Town as we headed for Amini Park, the headquarters for cricket. On arrival to the ground we waited for the security to unlock the barbwired steel fence.

Facilities are not great for cricket in PNG and something that had become very obvious on my arrival. The office facilities were basic but good for the region and sufficient for the day to day running.

I had the pleasure of meeting the full time cricket staff (Andrew Knott, Rarua Dikana, John Ovia and Siaka Lega) luckily for me they all have very easy nicknames.

Friday night was a chance to meet some of the board members at the yacht club in town, great place and excellent food. The night gave me an opportunity to see where they believed they were at and a chance for me to get a overall idea of its structure.

Saturday was an exciting day for PNG cricket but also a day that I had been looking forward to as I could see some cricket with the school finals. All three age groups and girls played at two local grounds out of town.

The best was saved for last when the under 19s final went down to the second last over and two wickets in hand, the celebrations in PNG are something worth travelling for as you can see by the pictures. The girls danced like they were at a concert and the guys ran and hugged for sometime.

In the evening it was a chance to have a meal with the PNG captain (Rarua Dikana - 'Roogie')and potential future coach to discuss the high performance structure and plans for the future, in particular the World Cricket League tournament in Argentina which is in January. If PNG finish in the top two they will then play of for a spot in the World Cup, they are currebtly the highest ranked in that division.

Roogie has played cricket for many years and has done allot for the game, he is very quietly spoken but clearly passionate about the game. I was able to ask allot about his culture and family life, I was even told how he gave up his 4th child for his sister as she could not conceive. Something like that would turn heads in Australia but it is clear family means the world to these people.

It was a quiet night for us all as we had a big day Sunday for the final of the SP (South Pacific Beer) series. The series has gone for almost 3 months and consists of the best players, they all play for a franchise similar to the IPL and have contracts that mean they must train once a week and attend games, something that has increased the professionalism of the players.

Its Sunday, a warm but also windy day in Port Moresby, the final is played at the home of cricket, Amini Park. The final is between Telikom Titans and Trukai Invicibles, both sides with loads of talent.

Unfortunately the game did not live up to the hype and Trukai were bowled out for 141, it only took 20 overs for Telikom to claim the first SP series final.

A play off between 3rd and 4th was on the neighbouring ground, very contrasting as Jamie Brazier smashed 170 for his Brian Bell side and they reached a total of 394 off their 50 overs. Steamships Hardware did however not embarrassing themselves as they made 304 to only go down by 90 runs.

After the presentations it was a chance for me to have a few beers (Local product sponsor) and head to Hanuabada meaning large village. Believe it or not this village is almsot a sporting academy with majority of the national team from there and also a few Olympic medallist with weightlifting.

I was lucky enough to meet Douglas who is the national weightlifting coach, I asked for some of his kids to show me there talents including little Freddy a 9yr old weightlifting enthusiast. I also witnessed silver medallist Rita Curry (19 yr old 55kg) lift 75 kg.... amazing to say the least, it was about 9pm and they were happy to show me.

Now this is no AIS, this is a village. Basically made from left over materials and put together by the families, each house having 3 or 4 families living together.

The weightlifting training facilities you ask? Well one bar with numerous well worn weights, some boards to not break the hard cold concrete and some basic powder for the hands. PNG compete with the rest of the world by just training here, begs me to ask whether we invest too much money into what we think are 'essential' training items.

Now it was my chance to show them I was happy to try something very different.... No not weightlifting but a Bettlenut, these nuts are soft in the middle and give you a slight rush. It is actually a problem as they mix it with a white powder and spit it all along the streets. Imagine the gum on our streets x 2 and bright blood looking red everywhere, not nice.

It is also known to give mouth cancer and many people loose teeth, kids as young as 6are having bettlenuts everyday.

Well time to head home via QLD and onto sunny Melbourne (I wish):-)