Dhaka in darkness

Matches at the Bangabandhu Stadium are brought to a conclusion with uncommon haste and finality, much like the onset of an Asian nightfall, or the collapse of a standard Bangladeshi innings. Dusk was hardly bruising the sky as Enamul Haq saw off Steve Harmison's final two balls to deny England victory in the opening game of their tour, and yet within half an hour the ground had been bathed in a sepia tint and the shutters had been drawn all around.

As the teams filed off the pitch, the crowds took their cue and trooped out of the exits without so much as a backward glance. A posse of blue-bereted security men marched onto the outfield and sat themselves in a neat semi-circle to receive their orders, while a Bangladesh Cricket Board banner was unfurled as the backdrop for a cursory awards ceremony. It quickly served its purpose as the players came, were awarded, and went, and the banner was folded neatly away again for use another day.

I had been sat in the creeping darkness for quite some time before I realised I was overstaying my welcome. The booming certainties of the pressmen had been replaced by the hushed curiosity of the cleaning staff, who fiddled over and around the debris that had accumulated on my desk, subtly informing me that I was disrupting their schedule.

Eventually I took the hint, packed up my belongings, and wandered up the steeply tiered banks of desks, and back into the open. Not for the first time, I was swamped by the heat of the early evening. A battery of overhead fans and air-conditioners had been rattling along at full tilt all through the match, to recreate perfect mid-October conditions for the English contingent of the press. All that was missing, mercifully, was the English rain.

For the first time since my arrival in Bangladesh, I was at something of a loose end. Originally, I had envisaged spending my evening at a function at the British High Commission, but it turned out my name was not on the guest list. Had I been in the mood, I might have blagged my way in anyway, but somehow the irony was too rich to be compromised. In six days of the warmest welcomes, the only hospitality I had missed out on was that of my own dear countrymen.

The more pressing problem, however, was how to leave the stadium. The executive area of the Bangabandhu is a tightly enclosed arc of stands and seating at the western end of the ground. It has one central flight of steps, that leads from the edge of the pitch all the way up to a compellingly chaotic roof, where a maze of ladders guide you over knobbles of concrete and where handrails and walkways end without warning. To stroll along it as the light is dimming is to imagine being on the ramparts of a Mughal fort, elevated from the sounds of the urban battle below, and yet very much in the thick of things as well. It is only when you round one corner too many and end slap-bang in the middle of the world's most public public toilets, that nothing more is left to the imagination.

The executive area has two main exits: as I returned to pitch level I found the first to be firmly padlocked, and the second looked barely more promising either. Beneath the steel shutters, however, it was possible to see the stunted shadows of passing activity, so I tried my luck and hoisted them up a fraction. They gave without resistance, sending two sacks of rice tumbling into the gap, and a perplexed vendor springing to his feet to avoid the same fate. I pushed my bag onto the concourse and limboed after it, only to split my trousers in the process, much to the amusement of an inquisitive crowd.

It is a short walk from the stadium, across the concourse and through the main gates to my hotel, and walking is usually my preferred mode of transport. Every now and again, though, I am taken by the patter of one of the legions of rickshaws who draw up alongside me - the opportunity for a good conversation is generally the clincher. Abdul was one such man.

Barely five-feet tall in his floppy sandals, and with a body that had been stripped of all but the most vital traces of muscle, he could talk ten to the dozen and still find time to negotiate the treacherous junctions. He had an alarming habit of plotting his course and then flipping his neck round to address me directly, although with his index finger keeping a running commentary on his bicycle's bell, any collision would be strictly the fault of the other party.

We had met before, astonishingly, outside my hotel as I returned from a nearby restaurant on the previous evening. I had been taken then by his infectious grin, the product of a top set of teeth that had peeled away from his gums with the most perfect symmetry. At close quarters, however, they were even more striking - weatherbeaten but quite unbowed, as nature would intend all teeth to end up.

Abdul has been riding rickshaws for 26 years. For the past nine he had been the proud owner of his current vehicle, a magnificent beast with red and gold cushions and superfluous frilly bits whose true splendour was only visible when the rain was falling and the fan-like hood had been drawn forward.

The questions and answers came and went like gaps in the traffic. Was I married, he enquired? No, I replied. Was he, I asked? Yes, with four children, he winced. His parents had chosen his wife for him, he added. A satisfactory selection, I hoped. Again he did his owl impression and beamed coyly, but not quite in my direction. "Not so bad ..."

Soon though, I was outside the entrance to my hotel, but not before a quick and mutually agreed detour. Darkness lends Dhaka an agreeable tinge of tranquillity, and though the sights Abdul chose to show me were hardly the finest the city has to offer - a few banks, a large hotel and an upmarket restaurant with strings of fairy lights on its roof - the gentle whirring of the rickshaw's pedals provided a fine release from the daily hubbub of an under-appreciated city.