Thrillers, weddings and Boycott the umpire

The last week has taken me from Chennai to Colombo, included yet another England thriller and excitement at a royal appointment.

Wednesday 15 March

Michael Vaughan arrives in Chennai to join us for the remainder of the tournament.

Vaughan is scheduled to be the TV guest, alongside Rishi Persad, at the end of England's match here on Thursday. Rishi is also a member of the BBC racing team and Vaughan is very keen to garner some tips ahead of the Cheltenham Festival.

Vaughan tweets Rishi later: "All the best presenting the highlights on your own. After the tips you've been giving out don't expect any help from me."

Vaughan is not the only reinforcement. I get a call from Christopher Martin-Jenkins who is on his way to Colombo. I have decided that there must be an outside chance of CMJ turning up at the right place and at roughly the correct time if he is positioned in the same city for a while and, as there are three matches taking place in the Sri Lankan capital, he is to be based there for a week.

I put these fears behind me and settle down for what I hope is a good nights sleep but am woken by a call from the Times newspaper who are looking to write a story about Aggers commentating on the Royal Wedding next month.

I hope its more successful than when he was part of the BBC radio team covering another major state occasion, the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997. Aggers had to be strapped into a safety harness to take his place on the roof of a hotel close to Lord's. He had to be in place hours before the funeral began because of tight security and had plenty of time to craft his words. But the funeral cortege went past his position much faster than anyone expected - and Jonathan never got to say a word on air!

I manage to get back to sleep but wake up in a cold sweat. I remember that in Colombo there are at least three international grounds. CMJ will never turn up at the right one. Remember this is a man who once arrived at Lord's when a one-day international he was supposed to be working on was getting underway at The Oval.

Thursday 16 March

Day of the crucial England v West Indies match. I am standing with Michael Vaughan when a man comes in and looks earnestly at Michael's accreditation. "Your record broken today," says the man, before taking his leave. Michael looks a bit perplexed before realising that Andrew Strauss will pass his record of one-day matches as captain of England.

Any thoughts of a straightforward England victory for a change go out of the window as they muster a meagre 243. I decide to invite comedian Andy Zaltzman - a cricket fanatic who presented an Ashes programme on 5 Live in 2009 - onto TMS during the interval in the hope of lightening our mood.

Things don't start well when he confesses to being a pessimist when it comes to watching England.

"I still think that we might somehow manage to lose the Ashes series that has just finished," he quips.

But his travel tales raise plenty of smiles in the box. "I've just come from Colombo but rather than taking a 90-minute direct flight I thought I'd fly to some random Indian city and go on a train for 18 hours. Why go for the easy option when you can take a needlessly circuitous route? It's my tribute to the England team."

As the match swings towards West Indies there is plenty of excitement in the commentary box on our left, which is being used by Bangladesh Radio. A win for the Windies would also put Bangladesh through to the quarter-finals. As Chris Gayle starts to smash England's bowlers to all parts, I notice they are sticking a Bangladesh flag onto the window at the front of their box. But as West Indies wickets start to fall I notice them starting to peel the flag off.

It wouldn't be an England match in this World Cup without a few more twists. Suddenly relatively unknown Andre Russell is playing some amazing shots. But, to be honest, while the match is twisting and turning I am sitting with my World Cup plans trying to work out what each result means for the rest of our coverage.

England celebrate victory over West Indies. Photo: AP

Just as I start to plan on England going home, Swann takes two wickets in an over and Sulieman Benn is run out. Like Andrew Flintoff to Brett Lee during the 2005 Ashes, I immediately offer my sympathy to the folk at Bangladesh Radio, who are already packing away their things.

Friday 17 March

Simon Mann leaves our hotel in the early hours to fly to Mumbai, where he is leading our commentary team for Sri Lanka's game against New Zealand. Alison Mitchell goes off to Delhi to sit with the England team as they await their fate.

I speak to Steve Houghton, our producer in Dhaka, who is now busily trying to put together some sort of a commentary team so that we can bring some coverage of the now crucial Bangladesh v South Africa game, and then to Kevin Howells, who is in Colombo ahead of the Australia-Pakistan match, which will have an important bearing on who plays who in the quarter-finals.

I decide to take small break and have a hair cut. The Indian hairdresser is a massive cricket fan and I ask him for his tip as to who will win the World Cup. "Well, India have a chance. Sri Lanka will probably also have some home advantage. South Africa look strong. Never write off Australia. If England, Bangladesh or the West Indies get through then they could do well, and New Zealand have looked dangerous at times." No mention of Pakistan...

Saturday 18th March

Go to the ground to cover the pre-match press conferences ahead of the India v West Indies match. As normal these are running late.

While we wait, the ICC media manager , an Irishman called James Fitzgerald, compares waiting for press conferences to "Waiting for Godot" and mentions that the play's writer Samuel Beckett is the only Nobel Literature prize-winner to have played first-class cricket. You learn something every day.

Meanwhile on the nearby TV screens, one of the thousands of cricket based adverts is showing. It is from a series featuring innovative players who "change the game". For example we see Kevin Pietersen inventor of the "Palti hit" - the Hindi word for his "switch hit" - Tillekaratne Dilshan, inventor of the "Dilscoop"; Harbhajan Singh, inventor of the "doosra" and Mahendra Dhoni, inventor of the "helicopter shot".

I speculate with some of the other journalists that they should get our own Geoffrey Boycott to do one of these adverts - "Geoff Boycott - inventor of the forward defensive block".

Sunday 19 March

South Africa's victory over Bangladesh yesterday means England somehow scrape through to the quarter-finals, but it is the result of today's India v West Indies match that will determine who they play.

A few minutes before the match starts, Geoff Boycott arrives looking a little stressed. "Its mayhem out there" he says. "They've closed all the roads because of the thousands of Indian fans trying to get into the ground".

I ask him how he managed to get through. "I told the policeman that I was one of the umpires and I had to get to the ground sharpish as the game was about to start."

India suffer the early loss of Sachin Tendulkar against West Indies. Photo: AFP

Can you imagine if Geoffrey was an umpire. "You are out, now hop it - and by the way that was a really poor shot. You've got to show better technique. Let me show you. I was brought up on uncovered pitches you know ..."

India bat first and we witness a remarkable incident which sees the crowd change from raucous excitement to complete shock and total silence in a split second. Most had come hoping to see Sachin Tendulkar score his 100th one-day international century, but there are no heroics from the 'Little Master' today as he is beaten by a Ravi Rampaul delivery in the first over.

India recover, but as the match ebbs and flows it is not until a late West Indies collapse that we can be sure of the result. With each twist and turn I am on the phone changing travel plans and commentary line-ups and am relieved when we can finally be sure which team is playing where.

Monday 20 March

The TMS team disperse to the three countries where this week's quarter finals are to take place. Simon Mann, Vic Marks and cricket organiser Shilpa Patel are off to Ahmedabad for the India v Australia match and Aggers is helping them with some tourist tips.

"You must go to the utensil museum," he says. "I'm told it is fascinating." As someone who once went to a museum dedicated to Spam when covering a golf tournament in Minnesota, I am frankly a little jealous as I'm off to Colombo with Michael Vaughan.

I quickly realise there are advantages to travelling with an Ashes-winning legend as we are immediately upgraded to first-class but am a little disappointed the flight is only an hour long.

It is great to be back in Sri Lanka again. On the way to the hotel Vaughan points out the spot where, on a previous tour, England managed to get part of the road closed off to stage a team tuk-tuk race. Even the coach Duncan Fletcher joined in!

At a reception we bump into Sri Lanka legend Muttiah Muralitharan and he and Vaughan give each other plenty of stick, before Murali disappears off to the gym. "Top bloke," says Vaughan. "And it's a damn sight easier to talk to him than it was to face him."

Tuesday 21 March

Just before heading off to an England press conference I come across an email from Kelvin entitled "Aggers and Royal Wedding".

It reads: "Surely Jonathan Agnew must have Geoffrey Boycott as his co-commentator on the big day. The day would be made more merry by comments such as: 'That Archbishop were terrible. My Mum could have conducted a better marriage than that one.' Or: 'The band were not bad but I'd like to see them trying to play on uncovered parade grounds like we had to do..."