Take it from a first-timer. Sitting in the media box requires a strong heart and nerves of steel. Oh dear, another Indian wicket’s fallen? Notebooks come flying out, pens poised for quick dictation. Runs? Bowler? Minutes at the crease? Isn’t this how he went two Tests ago? No surprise, concurs the print and television contingent. Off with him, bring out the next lamb! So on Saturday when Anil Kumble, masking his pain bravely from what is later confirmed to be a broken jaw, is caught by Shivnarine Chanderpaul off Merv Dillon, it’s time to flee the clinical detachment of the press enclosure and make for a little haven constructed with the tricolour. Not the mandatory India flag hoisted outside the radio commentators’ high post before every match by a television crew member, but the fluttering assemblage in the lower right-hand corner of the Richie Richardson Stand to our left. They have coloured their patch well, they are working up enough cheer over even the most casual of singles to give competition — no matter how feeble — to the conspicuously enlivened Rude Boy and Double Decker stands, but there are just a handful of them. India’s most popular export, they are young doctors from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The group of 20 is completed by a bunch of Indian Audits & Accounts Service officers on deputation to the still newly independent Antiguan government. ‘‘See, we have got flags, we have worn Indian dress,’’ says amiable Pushpa Tiwari, ‘‘but they are batting so badly.’’ Hospitality is instead lavished on friendly journalists. Indian food, transport to the stadium, a guided tour of this island where every licence plate proclaims ‘‘Antigua & Barbuda: land of sea and sun’’? You only have to ask. My mysteriously red eyes are attended to, the harmless local allergens patiently counted down. Ah, the unconditional niceness of strangers. At the start of the third day’s play, they are a more content lot. Home is so far away, sighs pretty Rini Sen, resident here for 18 years but hardy enough to make the journey back to India every six months. So when the Indian team comes calling, she keeps the rendezvous at the Antigua Recreation Ground. She was here for the last two tours, she’s shown up today, you’d better believe she’ll be back yet again. The Caribbean is good place for that inscrutable breed of cricket fans keen of brushes with the men in white flannels. As a young NRI couple from California discover. There they are on the beach jabbering away in Marathi when their voices carry to an Indian commentator. Thereupon follow 48 hours in nevernever land. Sonali and Rahul are escorted to team practice at the Jolly Beach Resort. Sachin poses with Rahul, Sonali shakes with goose pimples so violently that Ladbrokes could lucratively invite wagers on its blurriness quotient. Rahul’s beyond care though. ‘‘See,’’ he shows me, ‘‘Sachin’s got such a good heart. He wrote, ‘best wishes’. Their little bag of miracles keeps filling up. VVS Laxman promises to pass on a couple of tickets before the match, so I can in turn hand them to the Californians in time for them to grab a suitable spot at the ARG. And to alert a television crew about their whereabouts, so India’s few but fervent fans here can be profiled. CLR James was right, as he was on all else to do with West Indies cricket. The funny old game binds the play and spectators in the Caribbean like nowhere else.
