Of winning over new fans and a day in the wild

At the halfway mark of the tournament I'd be lying if I said it's been all sweet-smelling roses so far for us [Germany].

Today's match against Botswana ended in a narrow loss – tough to swallow after we put in another fighting performance. After a top effort from our middle order to get us up to 229 from 47 overs, we just didn't put in the performance we wanted in the field. Credit to Botswana, who held their nerve well at the end.

It was nice to be visited by the German Ambassador to Botswana, Annette Guenther, before today's game. She was there at the close of play too. I suspect that – despite our loss – we managed to win over another fan for cricket. The final stages of the game were very tense.

Tomorrow we take on Kuwait. We played them in Division 8 in November, so we know what to expect from them. It will be a crucial game. A win will really help our chances of staying higher up in this division.

I almost forgot to mention: yesterday we managed to get in a visit to Gaborone Game Reserve as it was our day off. I thought the trip was well worth it. We saw deer, ostriches, zebras, monkeys and kudus [a species of antelope], all running around wild. Bravo to a great idea from our team manager Ben, whose efforts sometimes go a bit unnoticed!