India losing, on and off the pitch
ADELAIDE: The driver of the Scania K480EB India team bus suddenly got up from his seat as if he remembered something. He took out a red rug and placed it in front of the door on the road and went back to take his position behind the wheel.
“Did you just place a red carpet for this bunch of losers?” a voice from among the motley pack at the St Peter’s College Main Oval ground shouted. From the awkward accent you did not need to turn around to know he was an Indian settled here.
The reasons for his comment were manifold. India’s performance Down Under has given them precious little to be thrilled about. A laboured victory against rookies Afghanistan in the last warm-up match did make Gulham, our cabbie on Friday who is from Kabul, rather proud even though he says “most of them are not Afghans, they are Pakistanis and I am not interested in cricket”. But failing to get Afghanistan all out even under the pressure of chasing a 365-run target has actually pushed the cricket loving Indian community here further into a corner, as if one thumping after another by Australia wasn’t enough.
The immediate provocation for the “losers” shout was two-fold. The first was the security personnel who kept the media and fans restricted to their 15 yards by 15 feet area throughout the four-hour practice session, doing a good job of it. The other reason was — and it seemed touchier than Mangal Pandey discovering that cow and pig fat were being used in the cartridges of the Lee Enfield rifles — that the team bus backed up strategically to such a position that standing within the restricted zone, the fans could barely get a glimpse of the cricketers training, forget the chance of getting an autograph signed or a selfie clicked. The cricketers on their part did not even look towards them, ignoring their shouts of “Dhoni, one photo, please.”
The Australian security officer holding them at bay rubbed it in. “Had it been our Michael Clarke or a David Warner, he would have come to you and patiently signed autographs for everyone, hardly 20 of you here.”