- England's Chris Cracknell's latest diary from the Dubai sevens tournament
- Cracknell praises captain’s contribution
Yesterday was a long day but a very rewarding one. To win all three of our matches means we are in the best possible position to face Argentina this morning.
I have to say that my roomie and captain, Kev Barrett (Saracens) led by example all day, on and off the field. He definitely stood up to the plate and I'm glad he's captain.
My star man from yesterday has to be Nick [Royle] (Flyde) and my favourite matches were the Russia and Kenya ones because we defended well and that's what I thrive on.
In the build up to yesterday's matches we managed to have some down time and on Wednesday we decided we'd head to the cinema, we had a vote on what movie to see - I wanted to see the new Twilight film - but as Rusty (Russell Earnshaw) had the casting vote and we were forced to watch 2012.
My saving grace was that our team manager Nadine bought us premier tickets, which, means lazy boy chairs. The lazy boys are possibly the best chairs in the world, not only do they fully recline but with your premier status you get waitress service. Needless to say 40 minutes of the film was spent catching up on some well earned sleep. I also have to tell Biggsy (Tom Biggs, Newcastle Falcons) who isn't with us in Dubai - you were right - 2012 isn't very good.
So after the excitement of 2012, and after I'd stirred Kev from his blissful sleep in his lazy boy, we headed back to base and onto the official tournament function. While there we got to meet Wellington's Austin Powers - a guy who dresses up as Austin and dances around and says 'yeah baby' a lot! We were entertained by a magician who totally confused Jake (Abbott, Worcester Warriors) with his card tricks.
On Friday we had our captains run and the old guys took on the young ones at bowling - we won of course with BG (Ben Gollings, Gold Coast) totting up a personal best of 155. I let myself down slightly and only managed 129 - damn!
Today is our last day in Dubai, tomorrow we head to George, South Africa for the second leg of the Series and who knows we may be heading there with the Dubai cup...
Cheers,
Crackers