From baying for blood to screaming for sixes

The sight of Pakistani flags fluttering in friendship over Indian cricket stands is more than enough to stir the blood of an inveterate peacenik like myself. When the flags are accompanied by a scintillating Test match featuring no fewer than three contrasting but equally classy centuries, plus a nail-biting finale yielding a drawn series, surely readers can understand why for this committed neutral, Bangalore was a taste of cricketing nirvana.

The satisfaction was deepened because the contrast with my previous visit to Chinnaswamy was so stark. That was during the World Cup in 1996, when an Indian quarter-final victory over Pakistan was poisoned by a mass display of belligerent jingoism of which no Indian cricket fan could be proud. Throughout the match, thousands bellowed "Pakistan - Hai! Hai!" and the gusto they put into the chant was venomous. Afterwards, youth on motorcycles charged up and down MG Road screaming "Bharat mata ki jai!" This was no innocent celebration of an Indian victory on the field of play. It was an indulgence in hate-filled chauvinism, shrouded in communal overtones.

As I left Chinnaswamy that night, the memories of an exciting and skilful cricket match were washed away by my anxiety about the future of India. I knew Bangalore as a civilised venue where spectators appreciated cricket's finer points. But what I had witnessed during and after the game was a crowd consumed by a vindictive rage against a designated enemy who existed in their minds only as a grotesque caricature - an abstract, largely unknown other, not a team of flesh and blood cricketers from a country much like their own.

In the intervening nine years India and Pakistan - as cricketing entities and as societies - have both travelled a circuitous, often tortuous path, but the good news is that they arrived at Chinnaswamy in 2005 determined to contest a cricket match, not a proxy war. Hand-lettered signs in the stands welcomed the visitors, invoked Indo-Pak friendship and brotherhood, and proudly declared cricket the path to peace.

What a pity the Indian cricket board, displaying its customary dilatory incompetence, confirmed the Test schedule so very late in the day. Given advance notice, there would have been far more Pakistanis in the crowd, not to mention a healthy representation of the south Asian diaspora from the US and the UK. That seasoning would have made the occasion all the more delectable.

For me the key moment was Inzamam-ul-Haq's declaration late on the afternoon of the fourth day. Those familiar with the history of India-Pakistan Test matches will know that for several decades anything like a sporting declaration was considered out of the question. Captains from both sides of the border would rather forfeit all chance of victory than invite the slightest risk of defeat.

Not that Inzamam's declaration was generous or particularly risky. It was the logical declaration to make, given the balance in the series and the state of the match. It was designed to maximise his team's opportunities to bowl out the opposition. In other words, it was dictated solely by cricketing considerations - and in the history of India-Pakistan cricket, that in itself was a thing of beauty.

The spectators surrounding me in the stands on that afternoon were of two minds about the declaration - though all applauded it enthusiastically. Older heads feared for India; they remembered too many crumbling fifth-day wickets, too many fourth-innings batting collapses. But the younger fans were full of optimism; they really believed India could win. It was no use pointing out to them that a successful chase of a 350-plus target to win a Test match was one of the great rarities in cricket's history, and hitherto unknown on Indian soil. Naïve they may have been, but given the cricket they've witnessed in recent years, they should be forgiven. This is a generation bred on Formula One run-rates and Himalayan innings totals. In the course of three days they had watched Virender Sehwag's consistently aggressive double-century and Shahid Afridi's flashy fifty; they had seen one-day sides knock up 350 in a mere 50 overs; why shouldn't this target be reachable?

The Indian cricket fan of yesteryear was an altogether more sober specimen. God knows what today's spectators would make of Sunil Gavaskar's circumspect style of opening batsmanship, not to mention Geoffrey Boycott's.

I enjoyed the spectators' relish for the implausible run-chase. But at the same time it confirmed for me the downside of the changing temperament of the Indian cricket crowd. The fans at Bangalore did express appreciation, albeit muted, for Inzamam's strokeplay, and they even applauded the occasional display of athletic fielding by the Pakistanis (in the near absence of similar displays by the home side). And despite the few young men who railed "Alu! Alu!" at Inzamam, the only cricketer really subject to crowd hostility was the Indian captain - without doubt the most unpopular man on the field throughout the five days. But overall, this was a crowd that came to watch Indian batsmen hit fours and sixes (lots of them), Indian bowlers take wickets (quickly), and the Indian side win the match (decisively).

In this, the Bangalore crowd is now a typically Indian cricket crowd. The days when tens of thousands would turn up on a fifth day to savour a meandering draw on a dead pitch are long gone, and with them, I can't help but feel, some of what made subcontinental cricket special.

I'm aware that in writing this I am joining a long line of crotchety cricket commentators lamenting the failure of the masses to appreciate the game's finer points. The aficionado's cri de coeur runs through the history of the game. As early as the mid nineteenth century, reporters were bemoaning the decline of crowd behaviour. So it may be that I am just getting older and snottier.

However, it may also be that something has happened in Indian society that has transformed the manner in which many Indians watch cricket, and indeed watch sports in general. The enthusiasm for Narain Karthikeyan is striking in a country where most people do not own cars and most people cannot drive - and where drag strips of the kind common in suburban USA are extremely few and far between. Yet all Karthikeyan has to do is finish a race (not even win it) to find himself the subject of hosannas in the India media, and the beneficiary of innumerable commercial sponsorships.

The economic deregulation of the last 15 years has fostered a cult of success, a non-stop media-promoted celebration of winners. And what many Indians now seem to want from cricket is principally a steady supply of winners, and above all a winning national team. Of course, all fans want their team to win, but dedicated sports fans retain their interest in the game, and their affection for the players, even in defeat. Go to any British football ground and you'll see what I mean. The partisanship is deafeningly passionate, but no one loses interest just because their side takes a beating.

Test cricket, more than football, is a game of subtle and ever-shifting rhythms and sometimes ambiguous results. Sadly, many in the Indian crowd today know and appreciate only one rhythm of play and only one type of result.

Entangled and often indistinguishable from the cult of winning is the culture of celebrity, which has engulfed the Indian consuming classes in recent years. This is where Indian Idol meets Harsha ki Khoj. Increasingly, television is the arbiter of reality; if you've seen it on TV, it's got to be important, vital, exciting. At cricket grounds people seem most excited by the chance to glimpse a famous face - even if it's the twelfth man carrying a water bottle or a TV commentator stretching his legs.

Conversely, to be seen on TV becomes the burning ambition of millions. Many of those who attend cricket matches in India now do so in hopes of appearing on screen. I've sat in the stands next to people who spent more of the day scouting the camera location than watching the action on the field.

Yet the cult of winning and the culture of celebrity are by no means confined to India and are infinitely preferable to the Pakistan-baiting of the 1990s. I'd rather hear a hundred impatient chants of "WE WANT SIXER!" than a single ugly snarl of "Pakistan - Hai! Hai!"