Tour Diary

There’s been a touch of Queen at The Oval. There’s been ‘Don't Stop Me Now’ played before play and other hits occasionally accompanying the fall of a wicket. It was fitting not only because today could have been Freddie Mercury’s 61st birthday, but also because Brian May, their lead guitarist, decided to pop into watch the cricket.

Sitting in the balcony at the Vauxhall End, May appeared to be thoroughly at ease at the cricket. Struggling to come to terms with being a few feet away from one of the greatest guitarists in classical rock, I tendered a nervous introduction but May’s response was almost apologetic, “Queen is big in India?”

It must feel great to sit in a stadium and have your lyrics blaring away at every opportunity. “It’s funny,” he laughs as another to play before stopping abruptly when the batsman is ready.

This is also the home of Leeds rugby union ground. The media box is located at the football stand end simply because there was a time when people thought there was only one type of football worth talking about (rugby). Today the lush green carpet of the rugby ground was used as a parking lot, with lines of cars filling the arena. And to think that people were forbidden from walking on the grass yesterday, because “nobody is allowed on the ground”. Basically it’s the people who aren’t allowed, only cars are.

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Last evening, at the Queens Hotel on Wellington Street, Geoff Boycott celebrated the 30th anniversary of his 100th first-class hundred. One of the invitees, a batsman who’s worn Yorkshire colours, walked to the venue. The most curious bit was how just one onlooker noticed him during his half a mile walk from Crown Plaza Hotel to Queens. Clean shaven and wearing the India blazer he should have been the most recognisable man on Wellington Street. Yet just one, yes one, passer-by greeted him during his walk. Even Sachin Tendulkar does get the odd peaceful walk after all.

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There’s no shortage of paper at Old Trafford. First there’s a notice circulated about the capacity at the ground (“When everyone is in the crowd will be 19,984”) then there’s one more about the parking (“The car park will close at 23:30). Wonder what happened to the good old days of announcements, when everyone immersed in their laptops were suddenly jolted up by a shrill tone. Finally an announcement did come: “Dinner only until 7:30 pm”. Surely Manchester had exhausted its foolscap resources.

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Down the road from the cricketing Old Trafford is the 'real' Old Trafford - the 'Theatre of Dreams'. Home to Manchester United, OT is an imposing, modern structure. The front view gives an impression of a gigantic mall – the shiny glass not really serving as an ideal backdrop to the legendary Matt Busby – but the awe-inspiring effect very much intact.

Busby's mission, as coach of the side from 1945 to 1969, would have involved building a world-beating side but little would he have imagined the marketing behemoth that the club has become. The souvenir shop is a vast sea of red, with every daily item morphed into Man U memorabilia. Notebooks, coffee mugs, towels, pens … you name it. The footballers no doubt keep the club going but the marketing men must come close behind.

It's an age where speed-guns are creaking, clocking bowling speeds at 80 and 90 mph with bowlers constantly trying to break the 100-mph barrier. What we need now, especially with Ramesh Powar involved, is a bowler who cracks the 30 mph mark. Powar delights with his ability to constantly slow the pace. At Edgbaston he began in the 50s before gradually, clinically settling in the mid 40s. Suddenly he lobbed in one at 42 mph and Ian Bell, mouth wide open, ran the risk of yawning before the ball arrived.

Batsmen talk about playing fast bowlers on instinct, not having the time to make up their minds in a split second. Here they're faced with the reverse dilemma: having too much time to decide which shot to pull out. The best part is Powar occasionally slips in the under-cutter, the straight one bowled at 55mph. You know it's slow but how slow makes the biggest difference. Batsmen talk of having trouble with increments. The difference between 75 and 80mph is supposed to be less than between 85 and 86. As you go higher the minimal increase matters. Surely one can use the reverse logic and apply it to Powar: the difference between 43 and 42, that one extra moment could ruin all well-thought out plans.

Several illustrious names, including the peerless Brian Lara, have turned out for Warwickshire but one, a promising allrounder who couldn't fulfil his potential, requires most attention. Born in Yorkshire in 1888, Percy Jeeves couldn't attract much attention and decided to shift to these parts. He turned out for Warwickshire against the Australians and South Africans in 1912 and was tipped as a fine prospect by PF Warner, that shrewd judge of talent. He had a fine couple of seasons – in 1913 and 1914 – but his career, and life, came to a halt during the First World War.

He died in 1916 at the tender age of 28. He was immortalised the same year, though, when PG Woodhouse named his butler Jeeves, one of the most popular literary characters down the years. Jeeves the cricketer might have died young but his name happily lives on in public memory.

Sachin Tendulkar smiled. Now that's not a codeword for a nuclear explosion but it was how Tendulkar reacted to an umpiring decision when he was one short of his 42nd one-day hundred. What an injustice, cried millions of fans across the world. How can such a great batsman fall in the 90s in three out of five one-day innings? And how does one explain two 99s in two months?

Hang on. According to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. Surely two months isn't long enough for solving such a mighty problem. It shows that the step from 0 to 41 is surely demanding but the one from 41 to 42 is gigantic. It's a leap that our Sachin needs to take. Douglas Adams obviously saw it coming several decades earlier but when it does arrive, it deserves one heck of a celebration.

The former Indian left-arm seamer Rashid Patel is here. Not many know him but some of you would have seen a photograph of an enraged Rashid, armed with a stump and running after Raman Lamba during a Duleep Trophy match at Jamshedpur in the 1990-91 season. Rashid played a solitary Test and another solitary one-dayer for India in 1988 after which a leg injury cut his career short.

“Forget about Lamba yaar but do you know who first spotted Zaheer Khan?” Sorry Rashid but it must have been some nurse in the hospital where he was born no? “Arrey bhai. I went to Madras in January 1999. India were playing Pakistan in that famous Test. I went to the MRF Pace Foundation and saw this young boy.

Frank Duckworth was first introduced to cricket as an eight-year old in 1948, when the Australian Invincibles toured this country. It was then that he learnt that ‘Australia’ was a dirty word and Don Bradman, in particular, was someone you needed to get out. A Gloucestershire local, Duckworth has been an “arm-chair cricket fan” ever since.

Duckworth, one half of the Duckworth-Lewis calculation that’s used to revise targets, is all jolly. Surely can’t be so happy with the skies so clear and the sun shining bright? Doesn’t he want rain, so that his calculation can come into play? “Floodlight failure, my lad,” he chuckles. “There have been 15 cases of the method coming into play because of floodlight failure and three cases due to crowd riots. In fact there have been three matches in Derbyshire when sun has stopped play. They rarely get the sun out there but when it does come out, it causes some sort of reflection while it’s setting and affects the batsmen.”