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Great test for Kings

23/ 1/2008

King’s School cricketers rubbed shoulders with England internationals on their tour of Sri Lanka, but came away with a similar lesson in sporting excellence.

Coached by Steve Moores, the brother of England coach and former King’s captain Peter Moores, King’s shadowed the England team playing in the same test arenas as the full international side.

"Our results were mixed," said Steve Moores.

"Probably because of the link with my brother, they may have expected a top English youth team, instead of a school side and in the first two games we faced top regional under-19 teams.

"We were well beaten in those games, playing against top Sri Lankan youth cricketers, in particular young spinners with fantastic skills."

Steve added: "We didn’t see the new Muralitharan, with a flexible wrist and the ability to spin the ball both ways, but we saw some outstanding traditional spinners, whose dip, flight and change of pace, allied to their discipline in line and length and their ability to spin the ball off flat test class wickets, was something our boys had simply not encountered before.

"Thereafter we played more realistic opposition against like-for-like school sides and ultimately our record of played nine, won four and lost five was respectable for a young and rapidly developing squad."

However, the trip was always about more than sport, with the squad able to meet test players such as Matthew Prior and Monty Panesar one day, and then the next day see the devastation wrought by the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004.

"The extent of the devastation and human tragedy was brought home to us by a visit to a small village that had lost 5,000 people to the tsunami.

"We also travelled to the Galle test match by train. It was packed and we saw, alongside the tracks, a train that had been derailed by the tsunami.

"We understood just what a terrifying experience it must have been for those poor souls on board that day."