Hilly, with lush vegetation and an abundance of tropical flowers and shrubs, Sri Lanka is a veritable island paradise when its natives are not killing each other. In 1981 I toured with The Guardian's cricket team and played in the hottest and most humid conditions I have encountered outside Malaysia. Twice on that tour, sweat washed a hard contact lens out of my eye as I bowled the ball. Each time there was a ten-minute delay while everyone crawled around the pitch, bums in air, searching for this tiny circle of plastic. Each time it was found and each time the batsman, probably having lost the will to live, was out to my next ball. A cunning ploy.

My arrival in Colombo was memorable. The traffic halted in a very poor area on the outskirts of that teeming city. A small boy ran out of the door of a small hut and darted on to the road in front of our stationary coach. Suddenly he turned, ran up ten yards and bowled a tennis ball through his front door. At that moment the coach moved on so I couldn't tell if someone was batting at the far side of the hut.

Our first hotel was a partially constructed two-storey building festooned with bamboo scaffolding. Thankfully my companion on that trip was the assistant matron of a leading London hospital. A colony of bandicoots shared our room. A breed of destructive Asian rat, they had free access to the entire hotel via its remarkable open drainage system.

I was soon in need of a nurse. Batting on matting in the nets at the Nondescripts Cricket Club, I was struck on the jaw by a ball that flew from a length. Fearing a fracture I was taxied to the main hospital. Flies were everywhere and hardly any of the medical staff wore uniforms that had escaped blood. Thankfully thoughts of my jaw being wired there were eventually dispelled by an X-ray but bruising limited my diet to pineapple and bananas for a few days. Next day I was persuaded to wear a batting helmet. Apart from impairing my vision and feeling so weighty that it affected my balance, it was also a gleaming white target for the Sri Lankan quick bowlers. I soon exchanged it for my cap and never donned one again.

Our most spectacular venue was the Dimbula Cricket Ground in a valley within the terraced tea estates at Radella. We batted first and, being well down the order, I set off up the hillside with my camera. It was quite a climb and, near the vantage point I was searching for, my shin collided with what I thought was a twig bearing tea leaves. At that moment of agony I discovered that tea bushes have extremely substantial hardwood branches and are more than a match for an aged shin. A glance at the blood seeping through my flannels confirmed a problem. I bound the wound with a hand towel I carried as a sweat mopper and, determined to get my photo, continued my climb but with extreme care. I found the perfect place and took several shots. Far below the receding rows of bushes lay the cricket ground, the players tiny white dots. Beyond were a fertile valley, a few houses and a low mountain range. It proved to be the most acclaimed photograph I have taken, appearing on a magazine cover, in several cricket books and even in an MCC exhibition at Lord's.

After our final match we lined up in the pavilion to receive commemorative butter dishes. Mine still survives. Then we all had to go up again, one by one, and solemnly accept a green string bag to carry it in.

My other trip was in 1987 when the Mail on Sunday sent me to report the England Young Cricketers' Tour. England's party included six future Test cricketers, two of them destined to become captains: Mark Alleyne, Michael Atherton (captain), Martin Bicknell, Simon Brown, Mark Crawley, Alastair Fraser, Warren Hegg, Nasser Hussain, Mark Newton, Mark Ramprakash, Oliver Smith, Martin Speight, Lloyd Tennant, Harvey Trump and Trevor Ward.

Unforgettable memories include play being stopped by an iguana being allowed to cross the ground when the England fielders feared it was a mini-crocodile, the tortured expressions of players lunching at Kandy after I had complained that the previous day's curry was too mild, and the sight of a crowd of 47,000, mostly children admitted free, watching the first international at the new Khetterama Stadium, a match that was televised ball-by-ball.

Bill Frindall 23 October 2007