Sick as a pig; fêted like a king

Leaning, puking out of the iron barred window of an Indian train is not unusual. Being greeted like a celebrity outside a cricket stadium is.

Recovering from a 20-hour train journey from Chennai to Cuttack (spent suffering the effects of food poisoning) I set out to buy my ticket for the 5th ODI. The reception afforded me by the hundreds of people waiting to buy tickets at the Barabati stadium was surreal, therapeutic and extremely fun.

While the match in Bangalore was beginning- with Virender Sehwag taking the attack to England’s bowlers as he has done so often this series- hundreds of fans waited patiently in searing heat to buy tickets. Their boredom was lifted by the sight of my girlfriend and I: jeers and cheers rang out from whoever we passed. But this was nothing to what followed.

Our arrival outside the stadium brought a hoard of television cameras with presenters thrusting microphones at us and requesting interviews. Either they thought I was someone important, or as I suspect, English cricket fans in rural east India are a rarity at best. Searching questions were asked: what did I think of England’s performance so far? (Crap) and who was my favourite England player? (Michael Vaughan: even though he wasn’t playing).

Travelling with a woman in India is well advised; my girlfriend used the ladies’ queue and bought us two tickets within 20 minutes, rather than the hours I would have had to wait otherwise. We then posed with our tickets, whilst more cameras and crew surrounded us as well as a crowd of 50 or so onlookers taking pictures on their mobile phones.

These further interviews was more searching than previous ones:

Interviewer: “How are you exactly feeling at this moment?”

Me: “Very good- I am very pleased to be here in Cuttack, and I am looking forward to the match on Wednesday.”

Interviewer: “And who is your favourite Indian player?”

Me: “Sachin”

Enormous cheers rang out behind me.

This is the upside of the BCCI’s stadium rotation policy. This will probably be the only opportunity fans in Cuttack will have to watch their hero’s in the flesh all year. If the reception given to me is anything to go by, they are determined to make the most of it.