Cricket: 5 reasons playing cricket in India is so much fun

By RICHARD BOOCK

1: THE CROWDS

Take Cuttack as an example. Fifteen thousand turned up on Wednesday, filling the biggest grandstand at Baribati Stadium and crowding the streets and access roads around the ground. And this was a New Zealand net practice.

The New Zealanders trudged up to their dressing room, strolled out on to their balcony and received a massive cheer from the masses below, as if they were royalty.

Indian crowds sometimes get bad raps. But apart from the occasional grandstand fire, the giant crackers and the randomly thrown projectiles, they're generally good natured and only riot when provoked.

2: GETTING TO THE GROUND

A relatively mundane task in most Western countries, the drive to the ground on match day in India must rate as the best pre-match entertainment in the world, whether it's for the players in their police motorcade or the rest of us mere mortals struggling behind.

For the gun-shy there's the traditional Indian Ambassador taxi (a bit like a late '50s Austin Cambridge); heavy and sluggish but useful when travelling the wrong way around roundabouts.

However, for sheer bladder-emptying excitement, the tuk-tuks (three-wheel motorbikes with rear canopy) are the only way to travel. Just remember, there are no rules.

3: THE PITCHES

The New Zealanders would prefer not to be batting on them at 9am but the Indian pitches are usually full of runs and not much fun if you're a bowler but surely the chosen land for all flat-track bullies.

New Zealand's highest one-day total was posted in Rajkot four years ago, when Nathan Astle led them to 349. Never mind that India scraped together 376 for two in the next match at Hyderabad.

NZ also scored 348 for nine at Nagpur in 1995, a feat achieved without needing to call on the batting prowess of Danny Morrison, who was still planning his part in the assault when the innings ended.

4: THE SECURITY

This is stand-up comedy at its best and worthy of the price of the admission ticket alone. As a mate noted the other day, there are more checks here than in Prague. Compulsory friskings, metal detector swipes and bag searches are repeated ad nauseam, every step of the way into the ground, with fearsome grillings accompanying any suspicious discoveries. "What is this, Sir?" demands a policeman, holding up a long, yellow, crescent-shaped object. "It's a banana," comes the deadpan reply.

Then there's the obligatory high-profile summit, general consensus that the banana does not constitute a threat to national security.

5: THE STARS

They treat their top cricketers like Gods over here, and Heaven help any of them if they get spotted in public without a quick escape route planned. Wherever India travel, their hotel is like a setting for Woodstock, with people camped for kilometres around, waiting to catch a glimpse of their heroes.

During the second test at Ahmedabad it was like Trafalgar Square outside Sachin Tendulkar's hotel door where people queued for his autograph.

But fame has its advantages, as he found out recently when the Government waived the import duty on his latest gift - a new Ferrari.