Hectic and surreal

This diary entry feels slightly fraudulent. I leave India in the small hours of tomorrow morning and feel like my job here is barely a third done. Some Indian journalists have expressed envy that I am ditching a six-week tournament after a little more than a fortnight, and I’ve almost felt like apologising for doing what basically amounts to a runner.

“Nice of you to pop in” is the kind of ironic comment you can expect from English colleagues if you join a tour a week late (having given the all-important 14-a-side fiasco against the President’s XI a tactical miss) or depart, ooh, several weeks early. And I am prepared to take any comments on the chin. But the truth is I wouldn’t have missed this experience for the world.

I’ve covered cricket tours before, but nothing as hectic and, frankly, surreal as this. Yesterday, for example, reminded me that for all the luxury hotels the players get to stay in, for all the adulation from the Indian public, and – yes – for all the money they are stashing away for fast cars and maybe old age, it can be a strange existence.

I started my day in Jaipur, where the Shane Warne roadshow goes from strength to strength, and where I spoke to a couple of the Rajasthan Royals team about the experience of playing under one of cricket’s great motivators. I then caught a flight to Mumbai, where I waited for a couple of hours before boarding a plane to Bangalore, which is where I am now.

I left for Jaipur airport in the north of India at 12.30pm and sat down to work in Bangalore in the south at 9pm. A piece I wrote en route for an English paper might have had three different datelines. Jaipur? Mumbai? Or Bangalore? It was a toss-up. In the end, I went for Jaipur, which is where the interviews took place and the first words were written. Hell, the piece was about the Rajasthan team anyway…

But this is the kind of itinerary the players are used to. And the ones who qualify for the final on June 1 have got almost another month of it to go: it’s almost enough to demand our sympathy. But not quite.

Reading that last paragraph, I can feel prediction time coming along. Yes, I know it’s a mug’s game, especially in the changeable world of Twenty20. But sport’s supposed to be fun, so what the heck. Each side has now played five games out of 14 in the round-robin league table, and we’re starting to get a sense of who means business, even if things have been slightly skewed this week by the departure of the top Australian and New Zealand players.

Even so, if a gun were held to my head, I’d plump nervously for Delhi Daredevils to take on Rajasthan Royals in the final: the competition’s best seam-bowling attack against its most inspirationally led underdogs. The Royals have been the story of the tournament, and I’m just sorry I won’t be here to follow their progress. Rest assured: the first thing I’ll do when I get back to the UK is subscribe to Setanta. Enjoy!