Post Card from India: `I'll come back to India and open up a painting supplies business'

My impressions of India have changed quite a bit since my last trip here in 1996 with the under 19 team. I have felt much more comfortable staying in nice hotels and being looked after really well by our hosts and trying to use my experience of having been here before.

I went sightseeing in Mumbai to Mahatma Gandhi's house. It's a museum that shows his life from his early days including his time spent in South Africa. For me it was an eye-opener; his room was quite big but there was nothing much inside with just a mattress on the floor for him to sleep on and a small desk, obviously where he worked and studied.

I also went to the Mumbai laundry where they wash our clothes. This was really an interesting sight. Hundreds of people bring their washing here daily and they slap it around on these concrete blocks as their means of washing the clothes. I can't see how the clothes get clean or at least get kept from being damaged. Now I know why some of our clothes return from the washing looking the way they do.

I am quite surprised with the quality of the blocks of flats and buildings. However, I can't understand why the houses aren't painted and finished off properly. I reckon if I want to make a quick mill, I'll come back to India and open up a painting supplies business and sell cheap paint to the public to paint their houses and buildings

At the moment I am quite happy with my bowling and have been working on my out-swinger, which has been going quite nicely. The wicket in the last test match wasn't the greatest for the quickies, but the experience I have gained bowling on these unresponsive wickets has been great.

Picking up the wicket of Tendulkar in the first innings was good for me. He played and missed a few of my early balls and then he started opening up a bit with some more shots and pulled me for four. I kept the pace up to him and then he tried to pull a quicker one and holed out to Hansie at mid-on. I was really chuffed to get his wicket as we considered him to obviously be the danger man in their team.

Here you can reverse the ball after 10 overs whereas in SA its takes alot longer to get he ball to reverse, that's if you can get it to go at all. This is because of the wickets and the rough outfield which scuffs-up the ball and if you can then work on it and keep the one side shiny, you can hopefully take advantage of the reverse swing in this way.

Now that the one-dayers are upon us, I hope to do well here and in Sharjah and play as often as I can and hopefully also get the opportunity to do well against the Aussies back in SA in April.