The noise starts small, the swells like a blister about to burst -- rising rapidly through the decibel levels till it becomes so vibratory, it seems as if the entire stadium is enveloped in a crackling swathe of electricity, of energy you can feel tingling in your fingertips. It is an atmosphere like no other -- and you find it when the likes of Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dravid go out to bat. You take it for granted when India plays at home -- but as all England is finding out, the Indian fan does not need the 'home advantage' to wear his heart on his sleeve, to make the rafters ring. Staid British grounds, used to the sight of old codgers going 'Oh I say, good shot!' before taking another genteel sip of the whisky, are erupting to noisy, vibrant life. It is this energy -- so reminiscent of a rock concert, really, with performers and audience fusing into one pulsating whole -- that has the likes of Tony Greig, Ian Chappell, Geoffrey Boycott and others rhapsodising about the Indian cricket fan. Greig, in fact, went so far as to say that if cricket is alive today, the credit goes entirely to the sub-continent in general, to India and Pakistan in particular. The Indian fan needs to take a bow, here. In fact, he deserves a standing ovation -- it takes a tremendous reservoir of patience, of faith and blind trust, to have continued to back this team through recent heartaches. India have, thus far in the ongoing edition of the World Cup, played four matches. In that time, fans have traversed the gamut of emotions: from the cautious optimism following the game against the Proteas to the abject misery that followed the debacle against Zimbabwe; from the emotional, melodramatic intensity of the clash against Kenya to the euphoric high of the slaughter of the Sri Lankans. The British media talked of how the fans were deserting the side. Of tickets, bought in black, being sold for a song. And yet, came the day and the stands were packed with cheering throngs, four-square behind their team. The crowds bring with them an energy that appears to have galvanised the players, helped them lift their game, their performance levels, to undreamt of heights. Meanwhile, the oft-asked question: why does this team swing so rapidly, so unpredictably, from the ridiculous to the sublime? The answer, perhaps, lies in a statement some wise guy once made: It is only the mediocre that are always at their best. India, being a talented side, tends to oscillate a bit between the extremes. I don't know about you, but I find myself, time and again, ready to forget the exasperation, to forgive the occasional horrors they inflict on us, simply because this team is also capable of giving us such sublime moments. Meanwhile, Madan Lal appears to have copped it in the neck. His crime? From his 'expert-commentator' seat on television, he critically analysed the bowling of Ajit Agarkar. Apparently he has violated pretty much every single provision of the Indian Penal Code, and the death penalty is in order. So says the Board of Control for Cricket in India, arguing that since Madan is a selector, he had no business talking about players in the team. We appear to be the only country in the world where this is a problem. The Pakistan captain and coach and selectors discuss their players quite freely -- Wasim Akram, in a column to this paper before the World Cup, had in fact openly said that he did not think Afridi's pinch-hitting style would work at least in the early stage of the competition. Allan Border, head of the Australian selection committee, openly discussed the Shane Warne question when the ace leg spinner was flopping in the Caribbean Test series. 'AB', in fact, writes a weekly column in which he discusses -- with no punches pulled -- the performance of the various players in course of various competitions, and even indicates which players are in danger of losing their place. The South African selectors, captain and coach openly went to the bat over the question of a quota for coloured players in their eleven. And so on. But not India. Everything to do with team selection, with player performance, is hush hush. 'It will damage the morale of the players,' is the most often cited reason. Is that the true reason, though? I suspect not. I suspect the real reason is to keep the truth from emerging. To keep the media, and the cricket following public, in the dark about what actually goes on behind the scenes. Why is this necessary? Because more games are being played behind the scenes than on the cricket field. Consider this: In the last seven days, Board president Raj Singh Dungarpur made a statement -- carried in Rediff, among other sites -- fully backing the captaincy of Mohammad Azahruddin. "I can't fault him on strategies and tactics," Dungarpur said, in a ringing endorsement. One day later, the volte face. The selfsame Dungarpur tells the media: "I was never in favour of Azharuddin getting a second chance as captain," he says, unblushingly. "It is the selectors who insisted and made him the captain." Either this man has an incredibly short memory, or he just doesn't care a fig for public opinion -- and I don't quite know which is worse. In the first place, Dungarpur -- who is so concerned about the morale of the players and the captain that he is constantly ranting about the media and taking us to task -- might like to answer this one: By saying, in the middle of a competition, that he was not in favour of Azhar being made captain for the World Cup, does he imagine that he is actually uplifting the captain's morale and putting an end to dissension within the team? More to the point, though, Dungarpur, in making the latter statement, was guilty of a blatant lie. Think back to the selection committee meeting in Bombay, a week before the tri-series in India involving India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The day before the meeting, chairman of selectors Ajit Wadekar clearly indicated in a press briefing that the selectors would be picking a team and captain for the upcoming tri-series, that on the last day of that series they would name the captain and team for the subsequent Sharjah tri-series, and that the captain for the World Cup team would be announced a day after the triangular in India ended. So we go for the press briefing next day, and what do we get? First crack out of the box, comes Wadekar's terse announcement: "Mohammad Azharuddin will lead India in the World Cup." The assembled media is puzzled. Wasn't the World Cup captain to be picked after this series, we ask. J Y Lele, that ever-willing foot in mouth artist, comes to Wadekar's rescue. "Mr Dungarpur, the honorable president of the Board of Control for India, told the selectors to appoint Azharuddin as captain for the World Cup, because he felt that any more delay in naming the captain would damage Azhar's morale and that of the team," Lele says. There is one point worth noting here. Dungarpur did not ask the selectors to end the uncertainty by naming a captain. Rather, he pre-empted the job of the selectors by naming the captain himself. And today, he turns right round and goes, all wide-eyed innocence: who, me?, I never wanted Azhar, the selectors wanted him. The selectors, of course, won't contradict him. How can they? Madan Lal is in trouble merely because, as a commentator, he talked of a player. If he dared talk of the board president, they would probably banish him to the Gulag, or some such. And this is the real reason why there is this official clampdown -- on the players, on the selectors, on the coach, on anyone and everyone remotely connected with the team. Not because free speech will harm the collective morale, but because free speech will expose the games those in power play. I know that common wisdom is that we get the leaders we deserve -- but what on earth did we cricket fans do, what awful crime did we commit in this birth or the last, to deserve this godawful lot? Tailpiece: Doing ball by ball commentary on these games is fun in its own way, but I find myself envying my colleague Faisal Shariff. While I am stuck with describing the minutiae of the on-field action, he is the one who gets to stay put in the chat room, discussing the game with the fans. I take a sneak peak every once in a while, say during the drinks break, and the action in there at times is even more fun than it is out on the ground. Never mind the great debates raging among the fans, it is the humour that gets me going. Like, the other day, there was this bloke who, shortly after India posted 373 against Sri Lanka, strolled in to chat and went 'Hey, Sri Lanka can do it!' Which, of course, got the Indian fans going, several of them kind-heartedly advising him to eat his hat instead of talking through it. So the gent says, this time more emphatically: "Sri Lanka CAN do it!" One exasperated fan asks, what the hell is it you think Sri Lanka can do from here? Pat comes the response: "Sri Lanka can score 173 and avoid the follow on!" That had me -- and in fact the whole of the Rediff office -- in stitches! Thanks, pal, for reminding us -- amidst all the frenetic discussions of run rates and points tallies and super sixes and suchlike -- that sport at its best is meant for fun, for laughter, for enjoyment. Does Prem Panicker need an introduction?
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