Proteas in Sri Lanka, day 5

The Proteas had a rare, media-free day which was just as well for me because I had my first experience of a ‘bubble-transfer’. You will have read enough about cricketers making ‘bubble-to-bubble’ transfers across continents from one tournament to another – this was the baby version involving a television production team of around 30 people moving 40 kilometres to the centre of Colombo.

It may seem less important, even trivial, but it is not. If a positive case of Covid spread to even a handful of the production team, it would extremely difficult – probably impossible – for the broadcast to go ahead. Whereas an 18-strong cricket squad would be able to put a team in the field, albeit with too few specialist batsmen, not enough spinners and a part-time wicket-keeper, if necessary, they would all be professional cricketers.

If a production team loses a cameramen, VT editor or vision mixer, never mind the director, there is nobody to stand in for them. The most replaceable members of the entire team are, of course, the commentators. Viewers can watch a game with Mickey and Minnie Mouse behind the microphone (they can always press mute) but they cannot watch it if the cameramen have been shipped off to an isolation room for a week. And yet it’s the commentators who are given rooms on the Executive floor of the hotel. It’s never made sense to me.

So, after a special, family-sized dinner last night in our rooms the kitchen staff of our government-appointed quarantine hotel sent us on our way with a family-sized breakfast. Both were delicious and would have been even better reduced by at least half. 

Remember, the bubble-transfer involves making no contact with anybody outside it. The reception area was cleared and we carried our own bags to the bus. Hasmat-suited ‘guards’ stood by at a suitable distance. The bus sped to our new destination behind a police vehicle with two officers seated in the rear waving an arm each through their respective windows. (Job interview for Police arm-waving: “Are you left or right handed? How long can you wave your arm?”)

The bus drove past the reception and to the rear of the new hotel where we retrieved our bags from the bus and dropped them off for sanitising. We collected our socially distanced keys (it’s 20cm for keys) used the ‘goods entrance’ and were escorted to our rooms. The check-in forms and all the other stuff were in our rooms. We just had to fill them, leave them on a table outside our rooms and WhatsApp a passport pic. (Zoom press conferences are THE way forward for media – THIS is the way forward for hotels!)  

Two of the new hotel’s five elevators have been reserved for our exclusive use. Nobody else seems to be staying here but maybe they’re hoping for others. ‘Corridors’ have been created for our movement within the hotel – gleefully, a three-hour window has been set aside for us to use the hotel gym. Following our 6-day PCR test tomorrow, we will be permitted to eat our first meals outside our rooms. From tomorrow my routine will change from room, room, room – to room, breakfast room, gym, bus, commentary box, room. Quite an expansion of horizons.