Claire Taylor column

By Claire Taylor England women's cricket team on tour

Our week in Sri Lanka has been a valuable stopover on our way to India.

With Sri Lankan weather as it is at this time of year we've been lucky to get two games of cricket without interruption from rain showers.

The pitches have been as expected, damp early on and slowing as they dried, taking little spin.

There is plenty of political campaigning going on in Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan players show promise with some aggressive batting from Abeysinghe and good all round cricket from their left arm spinner Swini De Alwis.

On the whole they did not threaten consistently enough with the bat or ball to trouble us as we prepare for harder tasks ahead.

The Sri Lankan Women's Cricket Association has just joined with Sri Lanka Cricket so in theory they are where we were seven years ago.

In practice I feel that they may be further behind.

Women's cricket is not well developed in this country, something that will need to change if Sri Lanka is to improve its world ranking.

Saturday's game was played at the Premadasa International Stadium in Colombo.

It's an impressive venue to play in and one, on Saturday, that had an impressive soundtrack. Presidential elections take place here next Thursday and some of the main candidates took to the campaign trail in the areas around the stadium.

On one side, volleys of firecrackers, on another singing and drums and on a third, speeches in Sinhalese on loudspeakers. It's all good preparation for the sounds that will surround us when we play in India.

Things will be much, much harder for us on the tour of India

Outside cricket, we have explored Colombo by tuk-tuk.

These three-wheel, two-stroke vehicles cut through the busy city traffic at speed for a fun, if sometimes terrifying ride.

We've visited a few shops to pick up souvenirs and gifts and Saturday night was spent nursing a cold beer at the Cricket Club cafe watching the rugby with other ex-pats.

On Sunday we all took the chance to get out of the city, our hosts taking us to the elephant orphanage near Kegalle.

It was a long, slow journey with some hair-raising overtaking manoeuvres and it gave us plenty of time to take in a more rural scene.

Banana trees, king coconut palms and families planting rice seedlings in the paddies contrasted with concrete shacks selling everything from fruit to scrap metal to inflatable animals to bare concrete pylons for house building.

At the orphanage we had the opportunity to get close to Indian elephants.

There were family groups but the centre still takes in orphans whose mothers are killed by villagers or land mines.

We saw feeding time and were caught in a huge rainstorm that stayed with us all the way back to Colombo.

With Delhi and the Indians as our next stop, we've thoroughly enjoyed our short stay in Sri Lanka. We hope that our visit will spur Sri Lanka Cricket to greater support and development of the women's game in this country.

And we look forward to catching up with the Sri Lankans at the next World Cup.