Tour Diary
Field of dreams
Sidharth Monga
25-Feb-2013
About 45 kilometres from Dhaka city centre lies 100 acres of utopia, the Bangladesh Kreeda Shiksha Protishthan (BKSP), or the Bangladesh Sports Institute. It covers most popular sports but its biggest claim to fame, which fits in neatly with the job at hand, is its grooming of cricketers. The cricket revolution here is young yet the BKSP has already given four players to the current national side: Shakib Al Hasan, still on the rolls here, Abdur Razzak, Shahadat Hossain, and Mushfiqur Rahim.
The BKSP is a place that appeals to the inner child – it is everything a sports-mad kid would have fantasised about in school, and missed out on because of the focus on studies. The whole campus has the typical smell of a playing: there's sweat, there's disappointment, and lots of unbridled joy. A swimming meet is going on, the road leading to the swimming pool and the football ground has Brazil written on it. Also going on is a training programme for Level 1 coaches; watching it even from a distance is an education in itself. And it's only 10am, and the students are only studying.
Full postAll siesta and no play
Sidharth Monga
25-Feb-2013
More than half the tour is over, and we are yet to have a full day's play. In fact, only once have we started on time. It's frustrating for everyone: the fans of course; the groundsmen who have waited for 14 months and prepared tirelessly to stage a Test match; the journalists, too, who struggle to find something to write about; the umpires who everyone keeps calling on for updates; the TV commentators whose job is to keep the viewers hooked, sounding falsely optimistic in their updates; the text commentators who do not have the luxury of archival footage to fill in the void.
It's equally frustrating for the players once they leave the hotel and have to wait for 2-3 hours in the dressing room. How do they pass time; how do those restless souls stay at peace with themselves and the weather? Not everyone, after all, is a Chris Read to go on Sky TV and tell people, "What's in my bag" [Read used to do this feature with Sky during rain intervals]. Not everyone is a Makhaya Ntini either, who can come out and start doing bhangra at Chepauk [his sense of geography gone awfully wrong there] or play with the resident dog there.
Full postChittagong - charmingly capricious
Sidharth Monga provides a peek into the myriad aspects of the city
Sidharth Monga
25-Feb-2013
'Chitang', as pronounced by Bangladeshis, is the land of Aftab Ahmed and Tamim Iqbal. There is something about the air of Chittagong, something that makes people aggressive at sport and laid-back in general. Being a coastal city probably explains the usual carefree attitude. Dhaka is slow because it is busy; Chittagong is slow because it won't have it any other way. The weather is as unpredictable as the batsmen; the scorching heat last evening turned into heavy rain in the middle of the night. It rained so heavily as to delay the practice this morning. The weather promises to be the same over the upcoming ODI and first Test match.
Buying dollars seems to be a local pastime. One can find peddlers on the busy streets, whispering to anyone who as much as smells non-Bangladeshi, "Dollar, dollar, exchange." Shipwrecking is a big industry here – people dismantle the useless ships and sell their various parts.
Chittagong also houses a considerable number of foreigners. There are Indians, there are Pakistani businessmen who did not move after the partition. There are ''Hindu" restaurants too. Tamim's parents are originally from Bihar. The parents of Akram Khan, former captain and Tamim's uncle, were born in Uttar Pradesh.
Full postThe Pirates' haven
Sidharth Monga
25-Feb-2013
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Pink Floyd's Pulse concert costs 70 Takas (about US$ 1, or INR 45). The CDs of Black, one of Bangladesh's most famous rock bands (Bangladeshi rock is a big thing; one band has performed in Bollywood movies too), costs 50 Takas each.
And there's scope for bargaining. Rare Bollywood and Hollywood movies and rarer concerts can be bought for around a dollar each. Software programmes are even cheaper. Welcome to the streets and malls of Dhaka, the haven for pirated CDs and DVDs.
So widespread is the piracy that it’s almost as if there’s no other option. It's not even an underground market; pirated CDs can be bought in the most popular shopping complexes. People in India too know this and start sending DVD lists even before one gets a visa. The locals commonly boast they can watch Bollywood movies even before they are released in India.
Full postRemembering Raman Lamba
Sidharth Monga
25-Feb-2013
February 20, 1998. Mohammad Aminul Islam, the former Bangladesh captain, remembers the day clearly. "I had got him out that day, but I didn't know it would be his last innings." Raman Lamba fielded later in the day - without a helmet - at forward short-leg and Mehrab Hossain hit him straight in the temple. The hit was so hard, the ball rebounded to Khaled Mashud, the wicketkeeper. "I was the new man in and asked Raman if he was okay. He said, 'Bulli [Islam's nickname is Bulbul] main to mar gaya' [I am dead, Bulli]. He was shaking." Mehrab was so shaken by the accident he doesn't even like to talk about it, the local journalists warn.
Lamba had got up after the blow and had made his way back to the dressing room unassisted, his last walk off a cricket field.
Full postWall of fame
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
If you’re not paying attention, you might just miss it, so unusual is the location. Opposite the National Stadium, it catches the eye as you turn left on to Roosevelt Avenue. I ask Spencer, my driver, to slow down, and then ask him what it is. “It da Jamaica wall of honour, man,” he says solemnly. When we get out of the car, I see that a drainage canal runs alongside the wall that stretches over 30 feet, and is an artistic tribute to the sporting legends that have brought such glory to a tiny island.
Some of the paintings are crude, especially the unflattering portrait of Michael Holding from his Whispering Death Afro days, but others are beautifully executed. The one of Lawrence Rowe – Yagga to those that adored him – playing a shot off the back-foot grabs your attention, as
does that of Courtney Walsh poised to bowl with that languid action.
Full postThe sounds of Scottish burbling
Andrew Miller
25-Feb-2013
Scotland, famously, have never qualified from the group stages of any
of their innumerable football World Cup campaigns, and if their first
day of action in cricket's big fandango is anything to go by, a
similar pattern is set to be repeated in the coming fortnight. Massive
yet heroic failure is the nation's stock-in-trade in any given
sporting event - and their fans are contentedly resigned to their
fate.
"Scotland don't go to many World Cups in any sport these days, but a
trip to the Caribbean for two weeks … it's a tough choice." Martin
Brown, an investment manager from Edinburgh, puts the dilemma in a
nutshell as he stands beneath the scoreboard at midwicket, watching
the inevitable unfold before his eyes.
Full postSmall but perfectly formed
On many levels, the story of St Kitts is the most uplifting of a myriad of tales to have emerged from the chaotic preparations for this World Cup
Andrew Miller
25-Feb-2013
On many levels, the story of St Kitts is the most uplifting of a myriad of tales to have emerged from the chaotic preparations for this World Cup. It is the story of how a land the size of an English county town rose above its humble status to claim a share of the biggest prize of all. While the big dogs squabbled and were left floundering to be finished on time, St Kitts merely enlisted the help of another of the world's underdogs, Taiwan, and delivered a delightful 8000-seater stadium from scratch, on time and on budget.
It's a tale with all the ingredients for a classic feelgood movie, although the happy ending will have to remain on hold for a little while longer. On Wednesday, the World Champions, Australia, take on Scotland in opening match of Group A, and only then will we see quite what this remarkable little island has to offer. The initial impressions are encouraging if a touch confusing, for cricket is not a game inscribed on this nation's soul.
Not once in the history of West Indian cricket has a native of St Kitts represented the Test team (though Joey Benjamin, born in Christ Church in 1961, did turn out for England in 1994). Nevis, the island's twin that rises high through the mist, 6km to the south, has had a fractionally better return with a total of five - including Keith Arthurton, Stuart Williams and Runako Morton, whose exploits in a losing cause in New Zealand last year earned him a plot of land from the government and the misplaced assumption that he had arrived as an international cricketer. He did not make this World Cup party.
Full postThe King misses the party
Dileep_Premachandran
25-Feb-2013
The flight from St Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles to Antigua was among the shortest I’ve ever taken, and the azure blue waters that wash the island with a beach for every day of the year came into view within half an hour of taking off. With Air France having managed to leave one of my bags behind in Paris, the first few minutes on the island that spawned one of cricket’s most iconic heroes weren’t pleasant ones.
“First time in Antigua?” asked the woman at immigration. I said yes, adding that it meant a lot to me to finally be on his island. Growing up a brown boy in the UK of the early 1980s, that swagger, the success and those red-yellow-and-green wristbands meant everything to me. There were others too, like the magnificent Michael Holding and Liverpool legend John Barnes (with roots in Jamaica), but if you ever needed one good reason to not be ashamed of your colour, it was him.
Full postKaraoke and a rather sumptious steak
Charlotte Edwards
25-Feb-2013
The day of the game against Australia dawned and I lost the toss. They put us in to bat and we got a really good total of 268 for 8 - probably our best batting performance of the whole tour. Sarah Taylor hit her maiden ODI century – a very mature innings and she was well-supported by Claire Taylor who made 54.
Although we gave a brave bowling performance Australia reached the target in the 46th over. Again there were a lot of positives to take from the game, but we’re definitely missing our strike bowlers – Katherine Brunt and Nicky Shaw and that area is proving to be our downfall.
Full post