Tim's Tour Diary: England on the ball but Alastair Cook is no Andres Iniesta
Wednesday 16 December 2015 08:56, UK
Sky Sports News HQ reporter Tim Abraham blogs from South Africa were England are on the ball early on - although even Andres Iniesta can't improve Alastair Cook's football skills...
The first week of the tour has just flown by.
I left with cameraman Dave Buxton, a veteran of cricket tours and World Cups, 24 hours ahead of the team on a chilly December evening; we arrived on a hot Johannesburg morning, so after a few weeks at home from the UAE it was back into the heat.
Potchefstroom is about an hour-and-a half's drive south of Jo'berg; it's a small university town, with more 'guest house' accommodation than hotels, and we are staying a very quaint, very colonial setting.
Our first mission was to get up and running technically with a unit called a Dejero, which enables us to go live and to feed back our pictures and cut stories. Gone are the days when I would have to book a satellite feed at the end of a day's filming - now we can go live immediately!
Our first day of shooting we got a bit of 'Potch' colour before the arrival of the England squad. We did get a bit of a "bum steer" though. The very nice man from the tourism office really talked up the local dam, and I had visions of a spectacular high walled structure, but it turned out to be no bigger than break water on the edge of the lakeside holiday resort.
Still the waterside surroundings did make for nice pictures. There is a much bigger dam 20 kilometres up the road; perhaps he meant that one? From there we went on to film the England squad arrivals.
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Impressive
In a departure from usual touring life the squad are staying in the accommodation at Sports Village, which is literally right next to Senwes Park - their practice base and venue for the first warm-up match. The players can literally walk out of their rooms to nets in under a minute so there's no excuse for being late for training here!
It's an impressive training facility attached to the university, used by international teams and perhaps there's an omen for England as they look to beat South Africa because this was the training camp for Spain for the 2010 World Cup, which they won.
This is also where the Aussies based themselves back in 2003, when they went on to become World Cup winners.
Alastair Cook is staying in the room used by Andres Iniesta; there is a picture of him beside the door, but it does not seemed to have improved Cook's football skills in the usual pre-practice kick about.
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Opportunity
The ECB know this place well as the Performance Programme fast bowlers were here earlier in the year.
This is a great call for England to use this as their training base, rather than commute from a local hotel because everything they need is here for them.
Chatting to the players they have relished the opportunity and experience. I have actually been to the ground, Senwes Park before on a previous tour, when England were once again playing a warm-up match here.
A storm was brewing and just before the heavens opened, there was deafening crack of thunder, and flash of light as a bolt of lightning struck the practice ground right next door, just a few yards from the game. The England players who were in the field literally sprinted off running for their lives amid much nervous laughter.
Acclimatise
The walks home from dinner at night are spectacular because of the starry skies, with hardly any light pollution, it's all so clear.
I have been out for a few runs to take in the surroundings and get more of a feel of the place. I normally like to do that everywhere, no matter where in the world I go, otherwise touring life can be a venue diet of airports, hotels, and cricket grounds and you never really switch off.
But going out for a run offers good thinking time and I always spot places which would be nice for colour shots, or pieces to camera.
We are at altitude here, four-and-a-half thousand feet above sea level, so it's hard work, but it's a good way of sensing how the players have to acclimatise.
Don't miss a ball of England's tour of South Africa on Sky Sports - at home, on the move and across our digital platforms.
