Indian fans miss out after expensive exit

What's worse than travelling 7000 miles to watch a match for which your team has failed to qualify? Answer: Travelling 7000 miles to watch the grass grow for five hours on a sodden outfield, in a match for which your team has failed to qualify.

That was the fate that befell several hundred Indian spectators at Antigua today. They had booked in anticipation of watching their team take on Australia in a pivotal Super Eights showdown. Instead it was the groundstaff versus the elements in the biggest mismatch of the tournament to date.

"We've flown 36 hours to get here, and the delay is not acceptable," Sudhil, one of a party of 50-odd ex-pats living and working in Dubai, said. "We're Indian supporters and we're absolutely disappointed. We are cheering the Australians because we have no other choice.”

Having coughed up roughly US$8000 for their 11-day package tour, he and his floral-shirted contemporaries were to be found up in the rafters of the Northern Stand, in some of the most plumb and priciest seats available. "We were always going to come because we'd paid up long in advance," Sudhil said, "but the news coming back from India is that there have been a lot of cancellations."

As the delay dragged on, several of the spectators in the box seats could be found looking longingly towards the paddling pool at midwicket. "We'd rather be in the party stand than sit here and wait," Faisal, an Indian who at least had an alternative allegiance to fall back on thanks to his Bangladeshi wife, said. "We even came here early because we were thinking the game would start on time. But at least this isn't happening in India - if this ground had 50,000 or 75,000 fans, it would be chaos in here!"

Instead the chaos was confined, unsurprisingly, to the party stand and its paddling pool, which had been over-run by Aussies, beach-balls and inflatable kangaroos. "They’re nice facilities, but they're clearly under-prepared, judging by the amount of wet cement we got on our feet the other day," Davo from Canberra, one of a posse of five Boony Armyites with moustaches to match, said. "I don't know how they can build a brand-new stadium and not get the drainage right."

Even so, the stadium itself met with the approval of most who had entered it. "It's unreal, I've never been to a better place," Dan Read from New South Wales said. "It's even got a pool. Beauty. You can't beat that. It must be frustrating for the people in these stands, but this is the party stand, and there's definitely a party going on here."

It was a party at a price, however, with a US$50 cover charge on top of the original US$90 for the ticket. "I suppose it's alright," James from Bendigo shrugged, "although it's a real shame there's no cricket. We've travelled hundreds of thousands of kilometres to get here. I took a 35-hr flight, via Canada. I've been saving for three years. I sold me car. I spent all me money. We've come here to watch cricket and we're just getting nothing."

"Any other ground in the world, even Wandsdale Reserve, would have had a game on by now," Davo said as the groundstaff continued on their forlorn mission. "It's been sunny all day, but I guess they'll have learned from this that you have to employ more than one ripped-up mattress to mop up an entire outfield.

"They simply haven't planned enough. This is a great place to be a fan, but looking back on it, I cannot see any justification to hold a World Cup here again. It's all well and good for the lucky few of us who happen to be at the stage of our lives that we can make it here, but for everyone else … Well, look at those empty grandstands. It tells a story."

Even the neutrals weren't having the best of times. Katy Cooke, the secretary of England's Barmy Army and a ubiquitous presence on overseas tours, was lying on the grass on the opposite flank of the ground. She had chartered a 3am flight from the Barmies' base in Barbados to get her group of supporters out for this game, and they were going to have to fly back that evening regardless of any play. To make matters worse, she was also co-ordinating the trip for India's version, the Bharat Army.

"This is so frustrating," she said. "The Indians aren't really interested anymore, the English were never really that interested anyway - they'll just watch anyone. But now we have to sit here all day, with no pass-outs, no permission to bring anything into the ground, no transport to get us away again, and nothing to go and do. I suppose it's a nice stadium, but it's not West Indian. We could be anywhere."

The Bharat Army's package, which costs roughly £4000 (approx US$8000), involves four day-trips to Antigua and a cruise between Barbados and St Lucia, which takes in the remaining Super Eight games as well as the semi-final and final. "They are all pretty miserable," Cooke said. "It was too late to cancel their holiday and they don't really want to watch cricket any more. They just want to go home."

The mood back in Barbados, the cricketing capital of the Caribbean, was scarcely any more jovial if the Barmy Army's experience was to be believed. "The locals are gutted by what's happening," Cooke said. "They can't afford to go to the matches and even if they could, they can't just go in for an hour and go back to work, because no-one's allowed pass-outs.

"They can't take in any food. They can't take any musical instruments," she said, a state of affairs which is about to be tested when the Barmy Army trumpeter, Bill Cooper, arrives in the Caribbean next week. "The whole party atmosphere, the whole point of cricket in the West Indies has been taken away and completely sanitised. But hey, at least the sun is shining and I'm lying on the grass. It could be worse I suppose."