The benefits of a police escort

The morning Kingston traffic can make travelling to the ground a bit of a challenge and it's never easy to judge quite how long it will take. Unless, that is, you can find yourself a police escort.

As I pulled into the car park of the Hilton hotel to pick up a colleague on the way to the third day, the England team – complete with cricket's two most expensive players in Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff – had just boarded their coach. At the front was a police car and outrider motorbike cop with lights already flashing. My driver spotted his opportunity and raced back around to his driver's seat. "Let's get behind them," he said.

Then our first moment of good fortune. The coach had moved about 100 metres when he got held up at a corner by two people-carriers blocking the way. Neither driver appeared in a great hurry to move until the policeman switched on his sirens. The large coach eased around the bend, but there was no such caution from our taxi as we swung around the corner and skipped in front of another car. A poor man walking on the opposite side, minding his own business in the morning sunshine, got the shock of his life.

Seconds later we hurtled out of the hotel driveway, not taking much heed of any oncoming traffic, and only had one other car between us and the England coach. Then another moment of luck, as that car immediately turned left into one of the adjacent hotels. So it was now the police car, team coach and us. Talk about slipstreaming.

And it just got better. Two hotels down from the Hilton is the Pegasus (infamous, of course, for the scene of Bob Woolmer's death during the 2007 World Cup) where the West Indies team were staying. As we sped past, their team coach came onto the main road accompanied by its own set of police escorts. Now we were sandwiched in the middle. It was almost as though it had been planned.

Traffic was parted as the police vehicles made a path for the teams. This must be what being President or Prime Minister feels like. At one stage even a red light wasn't an issue as the foot was put to the floor. Quickly the West Indies bus gained on us and their outrider scooted past, no doubt unsure about the extra vehicle in the convoy.

He gave a quick glance into our taxi, but our driver was in no mood to heed and just kept his foot down. People walking down the street started to wave at us (well, they were probably waving at the players, but why spoil a good story?) and suddenly the ground was in view.

Getting this far would have been good enough, but what was the point in stopping now? The England coach turned into a side street that runs parallel to Sabina Park and we followed, soon to be joined by West Indies. The previous day we had to be dropped outside the gates as we weren't let through, but today the barriers remained open and in we went.

Door-to-door time: eight minutes. It's the way to travel. I could have had a lie in.