KEY POINTS:
I'm starting to feel like Barbados is my second home, having been here so often in the past eight weeks.
Firstly as New Zealand went through its warm up stages, then various nights here as stop overs on the long, usually convoluted way to some other island, thanks to Liat.
I had thought there would be some syngery in that New Zealand would return to play its last game of the World Cup here, as it did its first.
Also no.
So instead of watching New Zealand train in Barbados this morning, I'm watching the Sri Lankans.
It's very hard to swap allegiance and support another side – except if that other side happens to be playing Australia.
On the trip here last night from Jamaica I sat next to an Aussie fan who had obviously been suffering from a case of Wrong Island.
He and his mates should have been in St Lucia watching their team play its semi final, somehow they ended up at ours. Just like all those Kiwi's who had to sit in front of a big screen somewhere in St Lucia a few days ago, watching Sri Lanka end their team's World Cup dream far, far away in Jamaica.
Anyway, as we took off from our short stop over on the island of St Martin, the pilot announced that Australia had beaten South Africa and would progress to the final.
The Aussie bloke across the aisle punched both hands into the air and yelled "YES", but the one beside me simply nodded as if that was an absolutely predictable result that he didn't even need to hear.
The unbearable arrogance ignited a healthy dose of that good old transtasman rivalry inside me.
He asked me where I was from, I said Sri Lanka.
He laughed but it was still an arrogant laugh! Grrrr – has he forgotten how New Zealand smashed his team to pieces 3 - 0 in the Chapell Hadlee series just three months ago?
He and his team need to be taught a big lesson. The World Cup trophy needs to go home with someone else.
So here I am, carefully watching Mahela, Malinga, Maharoof, Muralitharan. All starting with "M" and all looking as scary as they did on Tuesday.
They are definitely the underdog and not just in the public mind. On the team's charter flight from Jamaica to Barbados yesterday they were seated at the back of the plane while the swag of ICC officials took up the entire business class section.
How rude. Maybe some of the ICC team were Australians.
If I can't find one of those "I support New Zealand and any team who plays Australia" t-shirts by Saturday I might have to buy myself a Sri Lankan flag to wear as a dress.
