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"Players, Kolkatans, Mr Buchanan ... korbo lorbo jitbo!"
© AFP
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One of the many delights of being in India is the understanding that cricket is not so much a sport as a lingua franca. I promise not to fill this blog with too many facile comparisons, but it’s safe to say that if you get into a taxi in England and ask to be taken to the local county ground, it is not usually the cue for a riotous debate with the driver about the prospects for Derbyshire’s new overseas paceman. Today I flagged down one of the thousands of auto rickshaws that make India’s streets feel like a giant beehive, and, sure enough, the driver and I were talking IPL almost before I had sat down.
Actually, “talking” is stretching a point. We roared a few words at each other over the steady drone of the traffic and managed to construct a fairly meaningful conversation about tomorrow night’s IPL opener here in Bangalore between the Royal Challengers and the Kolkata Knight Riders (whose name I will at some point be able to write without thinking of David Hasselhoff and a mysterious talking black Pontiac).
Manfully ignoring the cacophony of horns – is there really any point putting up signs telling drivers not to honk? – we established that my driver reckoned the Knight Riders were going to win. Why? “Because they have more experience and Shah Rukh Khan.” The earnest reference to India’s King of Bollywood and owner of the Kolkata franchise was a reminder that cricketing punditry over here transcends the “he’ll be disappointed with that” school of obviousness.
“But he won’t be playing,” I said.
“No, but he can maybe motivate the players to do great things,” he replied.
I could see from the look in his eye that he was deadly serious. Sadly, even cricket’s lingua franca lacks the nuances I needed to formulate my reply, but my mind’s eye developed visions of a nervous Sussex side on the eve of the county season being roused to great deeds by the stirring words of Helen Mirren.
And then, as I paid my rupees, it struck me. Bollywood and cricket are powerful enough entities in themselves in India. Throw them together in the shape of one man, and they approach divinity. Who am I to say the great man can’t deliver a more stirring pep-talk than the Knights coach John Buchanan? We should find out more tomorrow.
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