Mission Impossible made easy

Getting into the Gabba in the lead-up to the first Test often feels like a job for Jason Bourne or Mission: Impossible’s Ethan Hunt. Over-sized security guards stand watch, telling people they can’t come in with a backpack or a watermelon on their head, and the stadium has more dead-ends than a new housing estate. Achieving a look at the pitch gains more satisfaction than watching a Queenslander’s century.

Security has been a buzzword in the lead-up to the series due to the postponement of the Champions Trophy due to safety, and then there were recent bombings in Delhi. So it was a treat to walk straight into Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium without encountering any roadblocks or army lines.

Asking for directions to the Australian team management, I was pointed towards a gate and told “just go across the field”. It’s probably not the casual approach the cautious tourists want, but it was fabulous to step on the soggy outfield, walk past the players training, scan the pitch and wonder what it was like for Michael Clarke during his 151 four years ago.

In the stands the bare concrete slabs were slowly turning red and blue with plastic chairs, providing some much-needed colour. Kites observed from above and lots of orange dragonflies buzzed down for a closer look. The security guards only let the flies do that at the Gabba.

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Landing at the new Bangalore airport is now almost the same as arriving in Brisbane or Adelaide, which is a relief after the battling experiences and snaking journeys in the out-dated and tiny old version. While playing the Artful Dodger to pick up luggage was initially fun, the biggest obstacle was escaping the carpark, usually because an Indian Oil truck was parked near the exit. It meant travellers were more likely to get a deep vein thrombosis in the taxi rather than during the flight.

At the new airport bags and immigration were cleared as easily and quickly as in Australia and one of the main priorities, as promoted on a welcome sign, is “facilitation with security”. The only problem is it is 40km north of the city and initially the not-to-scale in-flight journey made me wonder if the facility was shared with Hyderabad. It’s not, mainly because a more accurate map shows the cities are about 500km apart.

Gatwick is a long drive from London, Belfast is a big hill and a few country lanes away from its international airport, New York’s JFK can be a bit stressful in peak hour and Dubrovnik’s tarmac is closer to Montenegro than the old town, but at least smooth progress is possible, along with a choice of transport options. Nothing I’ve seen in three visits here can match the Bangalore bottlenecks in a city with a road infrastructure that has been ruined by the exploding population. “Another three or four years,” a taxi driver predicted when asked how long it would take to build new streets in the centre of the city. He seems like an optimist.