Last week I played my first International cricket fixture - Ditchling Cricket Club vs Afghanistan. Awsome experience. They have the fastest bowlers in the world - I can't actually vouch for the speed of the ball on the grounds that I never saw the bloody thing. I did here it whizzing past me - a nano second before my stumps flew all over the place. It was the last match in their inaugural tour of England and Wales they had previously played Hoddeston CC, Essex, Glamorgan, Leicester, Royal Military Accademy and Loughbourough University. The following night there was a reception to honour the team at the Afghanistan Embassy. I received an official invitation in the post a couple of weeks before, as did our club president in fact all the clubs who hosted a match got sent two or three invitations.
When we arrived at the embassy we were taken up to an "L" shaped room with the team already sitting down to one side. There were 16 chairs in an oval at the head of the room. We were introduced to the various dignatories and then offerd a seat in the oval. "We must be the first here, are we early?" the president asked me. A quick check of my watch alerted me to the fact we were a little late if anything. The ambassador kept asking the tour organiser where the other clubs were. They had all accepted so the presumption was that traffic in London must have been bad and they had all been delayed. So we waited. Then we waited some more. After an hour they decided to start proceedings with none of the other clubs present.
Not one of the other clubs turned up. All the embassador wanted to do was thank us on behalf of the Afghanistan government for hosting their cricket side and they couldn't be bothered to turn up. It was a shambles. The team looked choked, the embassador didn't know whether to carry on or just be swallowed up into the large hole that was appearing. Awkward just isn't the word.
I don't know why they didn't show, I don't really care. It was just the rudest thing to do. Dinner was the worst part, imagine having a dinner party for 16 guests and only two showing up. At least the table plan was easy to follow - you there, me here. Done. We turned up which was the main thing and we ate tons of Afghghani food which was lovely. What looked like 1/2 a cooked lamb was being served by a waitress wearing surgical gloves who just ripped the meat off and plonked it on your plate. Dessert was interesting - a cross between custard, yoghurt, moose and semolina.