Our correspondent takes in some culture while also dealing with airport sagas (including not getting recognised by Javagal Srinath)
Sidharth Monga17-Nov-2023October 3
Heard/overheard in Ahmedabad:”Gujaratis are rich, they don’t need credit.”
– A waiter (who hails from Udaipur) while dusting off a credit card machine not used for years”Education is great, but it is greater to be able to employ educated people and tell them what to do.”
– A taxi driver, referencing self-made tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani while talking socio-economic issues”How can one get a licence to buy alcohol?”
– A British couple at the luggage carousel at the airport.October 4
A day before the World Cup, it doesn’t feel like one is about to start at all. Billboards, events, discounts on televisions, advertisement campaigns, all very lukewarm. The ICC flies in eight other captains – England and New Zealand are already here – on chartered planes to drum up some excitement. Ravi Shastri asks Babar Azam about the biryani in Hyderabad, where Pakistan have been camping. Babar gives him an inscrutable look. “We have been asked this hundreds of times,” he says.October 5
Happy World Cup Day. Things seen in Ahmedabad today:Sweet old couple riding a scooter, one in a sidecar
Schoolkids packed into a van, giggling at people from the rear window
Garba classes and billboards for garba events, which start on October 15
Gujarat Titans flags being sold outside the Motera ground
A Gujarat Cricket Association employee in the media lounge standing up instinctively when he sees Jay Shah on TV, and remaining like that as long as the camera keeps showing his bossOctober 6
Passengers aboard the Ahmedabad-Delhi flight realise how tall Javagal Srinath really is when they see him struggle in his economy seat. Now a match referee, Srinath oversaw the World Cup opener, and is on his way to the Delhi matches along with umpire Sharfuddoula Saikat. Srinath then has to take the coach from the aircraft to the terminal, leaving people a lot of time to approach him for selfies. Polite, smiling and posing for photographs. Same polite smile when I say hello. Realise he is in auto-pilot polite mode when he says to me, “Nice to meet you.” Either that or my face is so unremarkable and common that he doesn’t remember me. Can’t blame him either way.The water is free but you have to pay for the discomfort of being a spectator•Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdOctober 7
Looks like dystopia, feels like the BCCI keeping its promise of free drinking water at the grounds. Feroz Shah Kotla seems to also have kept its promise of clean toilets for women.South Africa keep their promise of big hitting , crossing 400 against Sri Lanka. There’s big hitting from Kusal Mendis too, as he threatens to break the record for the fastest century in a World Cup match, set earlier in the day by Aiden Markram. Eventually, though, both the record and the total are safe.October 8
Oh Delhi, why do you have to be so lovely yet so unlivable? Eat at Kake di Hatti and Giani di Hatti past Fatehpuri Masjid in Old Delhi, then walk to Mirza Ghalib’s old house in Gali Qasim Jaan. The intoxicating smell of blackboard tree flowers all around. Sit there and wonder, Granted Delhi is great to live in, but what will we breathe?Yesterday was the first day in a while that the air quality slipped into the “poor” category. Good planning to get done with the Delhi games while it is still only poor. Except, there is one match in November, between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh – two teams who have suffered in the Delhi air previously as well.Dhobi ghat: your dirty laundry washed and aired in public here•Sidharth Monga/ESPNcricinfo LtdOctober 9
Credit cards with corporate deals can get you into fancy hotels, but after that you are on your own. And on your own, you can’t pay their laundry rates, which are often higher than the cost of the clothes to be laundered. The Dhobi Ghat in Delhi is located right between the bungalow of a member of parliament and an apartment complex called MP Awas, housing other, probably less important, MPs.I ask Arjun, the man who did my laundry for Rs 25 per item, about the barbed wire on top of the already high walls of MPs Awas. He says this is a recent development after a young woman from Dhobi Ghat died by suicide in the building last year. Yes, let’s not address the economic inequality that tends to lead to such incidents; let’s reinforce it with more barbed wire.October 10
An afternoon in Lajpat Nagar, home to a number of Afghan refugees in India who have built themselves restaurants, stores selling nuts (or as we in India call them, dry fruits), and pharmacies with names in Persian script. Watch with nervous amusement as a Pashtun Afghan fights a Tajik Afghan outside a restaurant. Nervous because they are big dudes this close to going bareknuckle at each other, amusement because they are cursing each other in Hindi. Side note: some of the Afghan players ate here last night.Like the Afghans have adopted Lajpat Nagar, the predominantly Punjabi population has adopted them. They have even renamed , an Afghan dumpling, as dal-momo. It is no surprise they have welcomed the Afghans because most of these Punjabi colonies in Delhi were built for and, in the process by, refugees after 1947. Who will understand their pain better?None of the other teams at the World Cup, for sure. Afghanistan has been rocked by two deadly earthquakes, but theirs is the only team wearing black armbands.Rohit Sharma: grateful for the support India receive•Alex Davidson/ICC/Getty ImagesOctober 11
Heard/overheard in Delhi:”Customs [What a big hand he has]
– A fan in the stands about Shaheen Shah Afridi.Eden Gardens lets people watch teams train, a lesson all these modern grounds in the outskirts of cities with their tall locked gates before the match should learn.” match shops, including the extra-famous Girish Chandra Dey & Nakur Chandra Nandy, which sells like it is bootleg stuff. Ghalib, who lived just around the corner, is supposed to have said, according to the biographical show written and directed by the poet Gulzar, “Bengal lives 100 years in the past as well as 100 years into the future.”November 4
Overheard/heard in Kolkata:”Look, that’s Rassie van der Dussen batting.”
– A spectator at the nets, video-calling home and showing them van der Dussen struggle against a left-arm spinner. Note to self: Ravindra Jadeja will bowl first change tomorrow.”Rohit “. [I have come here for Rohit. If I don’t get to meet him, I will stop watching cricket altogether.]
– Another spectator to a policeman, who is relaying a request to the fans from Virat Kohli to not scream during the netsNovember 5
Jadeja takes five after Kohli scores a century on his birthday to go level with Sachin Tendulkar on 49 ODI hundreds as India dispose of their final challengers, South Africa. They have beaten all comers, but there still remains the duality of this format: knockouts to follow a league in which every team has played everyone else. Knockouts are not my problem, though. Time to avoid DigiYatra counters one last time and go home.