Postcard: Justin Ontong - Guts and Big Match Temperment

This is my first tour with the senior SA Cricket team and its great to be with the guys practicing playing and mingling at the highest level.

However, this is not my first trip to the Caribbean as I was here last year in September with the "A" side.

I joined the guys in Jamaica during the last test match and played my first warm-up game against the Jamaican XI at Sabina Park. The game went quite well and fortunately I was picked for the first one-day match against the West Indies.

So, my debut one-day international turned out to be a humdinger of a match going all the way to the wire where the Windies won it off the last ball.

I think it took some guts and BMT for Ridley Jacobs to have hit the winning runs the way he did and hopefully in one of the games to come it will be me or one of the our guys in a similar situation winning it for our team.

I was quite nervous at the start of the match but after facing my first ball it felt like a whole load of pressure was been taken off my shoulders.

I felt that my bowling didn't really go that well and I could have done better. Perhaps I bowled a few too many short balls and also lacked a bit of experience when bowling to Lara and Hooper, who between them have played around 350 one-day matches.

They put on about 70 runs in their partnership and they were going along quite easily at that stage until AD got Lara out caught magnificently by the one-and-only Jonty Rhodes.

In the field, I felt that I wasn't too bad and I'm glad that I contributed with the run-out of Ricardo Powell.

One thing however that I did notice was the behaviour of the crowds whom I found extremely abusive. But I guess this is cricket and it happens all over the world.

This is now my first visit to Antigua and its one of the better islands that I have come across in the Caribbean. It's quite similar to Barbados with lots of sights to see fun activities here in the hotel and long white beaches with warm water.

Andre Nel and I went for a spin on a canoe and also swam a bit in the sea. Thereafter, we had a few fruit punches at the bar and are just enjoying the sun and warm weather and relaxed atmosphere.

However, later this afternoon and tomorrow its back to business and I'll be back in the practice swing of things preparing for the second match on Wednesday.

I'm rooming with Makhaya at the moment and this is quite a change from my previous roomie in Jamaica who was Boeta Dippenaar.

Its very different having Makhaya now as he is very active and can't keep still whereas Boeta is a lot more quiet and likes to relax and read in the room.

Until another next time this is Justin Ontong signing off for CricInfo.