Here's a few day's worth...

Sunday 19 October

Stand up if you were in the gay bar last night

Sunday 19 October

For sale – ticket to day 5

Sunday 19 October

Can we avoid the follow on? 13 runs to go.

At least the middle and last sessions (to date) have been more positive. I’d say out of the six sessions on the first two days, our boys could only lay claim to victory in the first days’ second session.

9 to go now.

I did miss the first session today due to stumps being called quite late last night (or perhaps this morning is more accurate). A decent group of us celebrated International Day of Man Love by going to the local gay bar. Which is possibly insultingly named Down Under.

8 to go.

Just lost Watson. Nine down. Bugger.

The facebook photos of myself and a few others will paint the picture of the night. In brief, my mouth after the Butter Chicken wasn’t the only thing ‘flaming’ last night.

Big six from Mitchell Johnson, aka Derek Zoolander, over long on. 2 to go.

Siddle stumped.

No follow on employed. My countdown turns out useless, much like the lane markings on the road here.

Go the draw!


Wednesday 22 October

AFD count: nil.

Location for this blog is a comfortable first class carriage on the well-patronised train between Chandigarh and New Delhi. We’re currently around two-thirds of the way through the 266 km, 4.5 hour trip, with a trip of around 190km again to be endured to arrive in Agra, the city famous for the Taj Mahal.

Although it sounds like a slow trip for the first leg, the train does pick up some decent speed at moments. It is the sizeable periods of low, cruising speeds, and lengthy stops at stations, that racks up the time.

At the moment, my preference is this method of transport around India as opposed to planes, particularly where the distance between two destinations is similar to that between Chandigarh and Delhi. To stand at the open door (yes Mum, I’m being careful!) and watch India go by is a relaxing yet awe-inspiring experience.

Obviously we’re disappointed by the result of the second test but I’m sure that many people’s thoughts of the series having been decided and the glory days of the Australian cricket team being over are premature. So premature in fact that I’ve called for the well-advertised nasal delivery spray. The key points that come to my mind are:

In both games we’ve been “in” the game well into it. In the first test the locals were 4/140-odd and then around 6/250 with the boys already having posted well over 400. One more wicket in either of those two situations and the game is very different. Again, in the second test, India were about 4/140 on the first day. If Rudi Koertzen happens to call for the third umpire and Ganguly is given out stumped on 35 by the third umpire the game changes once more.
We did lead the first test for its duration.
The Aussies have lost tests early in the series and come back before. And will do so again. The 1997 Ashes tour comes foremost to mind.

According to the local press, the Mohali venue is one of the top test match venues in the world. Top 4 or top 6 are the rankings I’ve heard bandied about. Happy to go on record to say that’s the usual Indian press bias and not an opinion to be considered as worthwhile. Clearly the journos have not had to have a number two in the area of the ground we’ve been situated in. Cubicles that haven’t been cleaned since WWII, complete with faeces decorating the walls, makes them the most disgusting toilets I’ve seen anywhere. Add to that the decaying concrete terraces, the dirty plastic bucket seats, the lack of shade and decent feeds and the meagre crowds (no more than 500 people were in the stadium for the first ball of the first and fifth days) and I think I’ve got some pretty good arguments.

Anyway, I’m cruising along, watching the Indian countryside, and now the slum and sprawls of Delhi pass by the open train door. This is living.

Thursday 23 October

Well, did yesterday turn out to be a day of contrasts. After yesterday’s blog things went steadily downhill. First of all, we progressively fell behind our scheduled arrival time at Central Delhi station of 1:30pm. We were to arrive there around 2pm. Our connecting train from Delhi to Agra was to depart from another Delhi station, Nizamuddin. The group’s original intention was to disembark at Central Delhi and catch a 4 km taxi or rickshaw to Nizamuddin in the scheduled 90 minute break between trains, however once we identified that the train from Chandigarh was to pass through Nizamuddin anyway, we decided to stay on the train, through the half hour stop in Central Delhi, and simply switch trains at Nizamuddin.

Long story short, the train arrived at Nizamuddin after the 3pm departure of the Goa Express, including a stop at Agra Cannt. As a result, we jumped onto another train which would pass through Agra which departed at 4pm, although this time it was cattle class all the way. The contrast in comfort between the train from Chandigarh in the morning and the train to Agra in the arvo couldn’t have been more stark. Ineffective fans replaced airconditioning, hard, synthetic-covered benches replaced padded seats and beds and crowded open carriages replaced private booths.

And this was all after sitting in the open door of the train at Delhi station, non-platform side, watching the locals turf their rubbish out of the window into the ‘drains’ between the tracks, and the rats, of a very decent size I might add, sniff out the food from the general junk. Add in the constant bad stench and the dense mass of people and it’s fair to say that the Delhi is going to be a very different place to Bengaluru and Chandigarh once we are there in a few days time.

The best was yet to come. It’s around 4:30pm by now and we’d just left Nizamuddin. I’m switching between standing and sitting on the floor of the open area at the end of one of the carriages in the lowest class section of the train, along with 4 other men and the bags of around 10 from of our group. A local has just advised us of the throng of people about to get on at the next ‘stop’. Actually, the train never stopped, or went directly past a platform. It passed a station around 3 tracks away from the platform. But unfortunately it did slow to a crawl, allowing a stampede of people to push, in a ridiculously dangerous manner, their way onto the carriage. I was certainly concerned for the safety for a few, particularly the small number of women and kids coming onboard, although suspected that I was going to get through it OK. It was a disgraceful situation and one that the locals should be ashamed of, but with the absolute inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the authorities here, be it police or security, there’s nothing to stop such occurrences. Clearly this same process happens every day, providing a huge number of Delhi residents with a free ride home. Thankfully a most of the free riders jumped off around 20 minutes later, again not at a platform but onto the open railway, granting us relief for the rest of the trip.

Unfortunately the only pics I’ve got of the crush are on my phone, due to some technicalities difficulties with my extremely cheap (read dodgy) e-bay digital camera (note to self for the next time I log onto eBay - you get what you pay for).

We did get into Agra safely but around 3 to 4 hours late. Luke aka Sparrow, team leader/tour operator, thinks this was the first time in his 175 train trips around India that he has missed, so it sounds like most trips are more comfortable than this. I’ll take Luke’s word for it as he has significantly more negative than positive things to say about the Indian infrastructure. Still, there’s bound to be a few of us a little toey when heading to Agra Cannt for our train back to Delhi on Sunday.