The slow train to Chittagong

England’s cricketers must have a carbon footprint the size of the Jolly Green Giant. When they aren’t playing, practising or resting in a hotel, they can invariably be tracked down to an airport of some description – either jetting off long-haul to some far-flung destination, or hopping domestically from one island, state or city to the next. But of all the internal routes that they’ve encountered, Dhaka to Chittagong must be one of their most ill-starred.

On the 2003 tour, that short but intense route claimed a notable casualty in Steve Harmison, whose high-kicking hostility had been too much for Bangladesh in the first Test at Dhaka, but whose back folded like a deckchair during the 50 minutes he spent squeezed into a seat that had been designed without six-foot-several Geordies in mind. (At least that was the official line – unofficially, the management had simply lost the will to deal with his homesickness, but that’s another story.)

Six years on, and the curse has struck again, and that’s before anyone dares ask for an update on Stuart Broad’s stiff back – suffice to say, he was walking like an old woman on his eventual arrival at the team hotel in Chittagong. The England squad had been expected in town at roughly 4pm this afternoon, but after several delays that turned into outright cancellations, they were still slogging through the traffic as the clock ticked round towards 9.

That’s not to say that the log-jam in Chittagong is anything like as bad as Dhaka. There’s a freshness to the town that’s not simply attributable to the massively smaller population. Whereas bicycle rickshaws in the capital flit through the crowds like grubby moths round a flame, here they have that little bit more room to spread their wings and tinkle like the butterflies that they so clearly deserve to resemble.

There’s a hint of a sea breeze with the port opening straight into the Bay of Bengal, and the beautiful but notorious hill tracts loom away to the East, to capture the clouds and keep the weather regulated. It’s still a city with its grime and its problems, of course, but it just seems an easier place to warm to than Dhaka. Or maybe that’s simply because I’m still amused by the sight of a woman having her skirt munched as she walked past a tethered goat.

Equally, it may be thanks to the mellifluous journey conducted by the majority of the media contingent. No more aeroplanes for the hacks on this trip. Instead, we embarked on a seven-hour train ride through the tranquillity of rural Bangladesh. It was a trip that proved to be the most restful half-day of the tour. Of course, it didn’t feel that way at first – after a late finish following the second ODI, a 6am alarm call was a cruel way to end part one of the tour. But at least at that hour, the Dhaka traffic was still light, and the route to the station was disarmingly uncrowded.

And suddenly, that was the end of the chaos. The doors slammed shut and the train prepared to roll out of town, and all that was left was to kick back and enjoy the ride. The departure was signalled in an unexpected fashion, as the chimes of Ben Ben floated out of the internal PA, door-bell style, before being pursued by a burst of Bangla music, but there was none of the free-for-all that characterised day-to-day Dhaka. It was as if we’d all been placed in stasis, hermetically sealed from the bustle of the outside world.

The progress was slow but stately, as the train chugged north at first, to circumvent the mouth of the mighty Meghna River, before looping round to cut through the paddy-fields and villages surrounding Brahmanbaria and Comilla. The landscape that whizzed past was lush and fertile, stretched flat for miles and comprised entirely of varying shades of green, except on the occasions when the earth would tumble away towards the sea, revealing the scars of industry and a ceaseless flow of trade.

The England camp now has the best part of a fortnight to put down roots in Bangladesh’s second city, and discover a life in a slightly slower lane. After all, it took them long enough to get here. There seems no point in rushing.