Bengaluru's best meal

There are no free lunches in this world - unless you are a member of the Karnataka State Cricket Association with tickets to watch India play Australia at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. In that case, fully catered, complimentary meals are free with your Rs 500 Test match ticket. Bye-bye, picnic basket.

At the Chinnaswamy, lunch is served every day on the clubhouse lawns under billowing white shamianas, at the admittedly odd hour of 11.30 am. This is not the KSCA's fault. Cricket is a winter sport in India and the light fades quickly in the east and at grounds north of the tropic of Cancer, so an early start (9.30am at least) is necessary to get the mandatory 90 overs in. The absurd consequence is that Bengaluru and Chennai, the two southernmost Test match venues in India, find themselves putting on the full spread before noon. Yes, even on weekends. It's a point we wish to raise with KSCA member Ramachandra Guha - you may have heard of a book or two he's written - since he's now a BCCI grandee, but he avoided the Members' Stand at the second Test, seating himself at the N Stand at the opposite end of the ground instead. Well, the mighty do as they please.

Lunch at the KSCA, like the batting on the pitch prepared for this game, is hit and miss. Each day of this Test, for example, brings a slightly different variation on the same all-vegetarian menu: starter, Indian bread, curry, rice preparation, and dessert. On day one it was batata vadas, rumali rotis, mixed vegetable curry, vegetable pulao and mysore pak. On Day 2, it was ambode (better known as dal vadas), phulkas, channa masala, tomato baath, and coconut burfi. On day three… you get the picture. The starters and sweets are almost always Kohli-cover-drive standard; the rest range in quality from Shaun Marsh to Mitch Marsh .

Not even in the presence of our very Delhiite captain, however, can essentially South Indian establishments (such as the one that catered the Bengaluru Test) get "North Indian" food right. The consistency is uneven, the spices are wrong; it all feels like India trying very hard to convert Irfan Pathan into an allrounder - you ruin what you have and don't get what you're going for. It's not that there are no native bread recipes south of the Vindhyas. Give the jolada rotti, the Malabar porotta or even the humble raagi rotti a fair go with familiar, authentic curries such as the yennegai, we say. (No, this is not a coded complaint about the lack of opportunity given to Karnataka players in the Indian cricket team. Why would you think that?)

Across these four days of cricket, the menu has some constants: Masala dosé, coconut chutney, tomato rasam with Fryums, and curd-rice. The masala dosé are the most popular item on the menu and with good reason: adhering to the best Bengaluru traditions, they are crisp and golden on the outside and smooth and fluffy on the inside, smeared with red chutney and enclosing a dollop of potato masala. Folded in half, eaten with coconut chutney (no sambhar forced into the mix), they are as solid and comforting as a Rahul Dravid innings from ages ago.

Of course, the flavour of this meal always lives and dies by two condiments: the cricket and the crowd. This week, the contest (as you may have heard) has been gripping; the bowling, fielding, and some of the batting, of the highest order; the result is genuinely in the balance till the last hour of play. The Chinnaswamy roar - a wall of sound amplified by the acoustics of an enclosed stadium - is a living thing that pulsates with the rhythms of the game, reaching its manic crescendo when the final wicket falls on the fourth day. Not even the best possible TV experience can match the atmosphere of watching a close game with 25,000 people. Trying to savour the experience at home is like ordering the masala dosé from a food-delivery app. It sates hunger - but only a fresh one makes your soul glad to be alive.

Now if we could just work on getting the paneer right for Virat.