These are not the most blissful of times in London, and the Diary will admit its long beard has made more than one native uncomfortable.
There has been a couple of nervous looks in pubs, and one proper hostile stare on the tube late one night. It seems silly and devoid of sense; as if wearing an eye-patch makes one a pirate. But fear and suspicion often need no logic. One evening, the Diary finds itself in a taxi driven by a man with a beard much longer than its own. Masud, it turns out, is from Afghanistan. His family fled the civil war there in the nineties, when he was still five, and moved to the UK.
“After all these attacks, my father wanted me to take my beard off,” he tells the Diary. “But I refused. It’s not my problem if they give me dirty looks. Why should I give up my faith just because someone else doesn’t like it?”
Masud has a word of comfort for the Diary as the trip ends. “Don’t take your beard off, man,” he says. “It looks good on you.” It is all the reassurance the Diary needs.
The Oval
Kennington station on the London Underground’s Northern Line is normally a quiet place but this is no normal day. India is playing Sri Lanka at the Oval — the next stop on the line — and the atmosphere is akin to that at some carnival. Scores of blue shirts stream into the train at Kennington, and even standing room is hard to find on the train. Indian fans are in full voice, much to the annoyance of a couple of office-goers. At Oval station, the staff are overwhelmed.
Escalators are crowded, turnstiles are creating bottlenecks, and people are losing their cool. Someone opens an emergency exit on the side, and disables one electronic turnstile to ease the flow of traffic. At the ground, India’s fans outnumber their Sri Lankan counterparts 10 to 1. “Indian people are everywhere,” Angelo Mathews had noted with a smile on match-eve; he is not wrong. With 10 overs to go, though, not one Indian voice can be heard. Instead it’s Sri Lanka’s trademark papare (brass) band playing with gusto in one corner.
“Disappointing, man,” says Aman, a young man of Indian origin who has made the trip from Hounslow, near Heathrow airport. “We’ll beat South Africa, though, and then England in the final.” The Diary is curious that Aman should root for India and not his country of birth. “I only support two teams,” he says. “India at cricket and Arsenal at football.” Well, at least one team does not go on holiday in January.
A long walk
It is a long walk from the Oval’s Sydney Pardon press box to the Ken Barrington indoor nets, where post-match media conferences are held. The quickest and most straightforward way of getting there is to be escorted by the ICC’s volunteers, who lead a convoy of journalists onto the outfield, along the boundary, and out through another gate.
This walk along the ropes is unsettling, for it takes the party dangerously close to massed ranks of inebriated supporters, who are amused by the spectacle. “Indiaaaa, Indiaaa,” one boisterous fan roars right into the Diary’s ear, with what seems like volcanic rage. Two steps ahead, a portly scribe is taunted with calls of ‘Hey, Pav Bhaji’. The Diary is trying hard to suppress a chuckle.
Comments
SHARE