Nowhere to Go

Talking about the awfulness of cricket arenas in India, Bishen Bedi has a lovely story about lavatory facilities at Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi's only Test stadium.

'I was captain and I was sick of outsiders using the players' loo. So I sat a couple of policemen in front of the lavatory door with instructions that only players were to be allowed in. We were batting, so I settled down to nap. Suddenly I woke to stomping sounds: the dressing room was crowded with soldiers in uniform. "What?" I asked. "Sir," said one of them, "permission to use the bathroom…the President..." It wasn't the President of the BCCI he was talking about, it was Mr Fakhruddin Ali Ahmad, the President of the Republic. He needed to go, but this was Feroz Shah Kotla: there was nowhere to go to!'

This is a democratic story: whether you're slumming it on the concrete terraces or sitting in the pavilion, the Feroz Shah Kotla treats you with equal contempt.