Mohali, first Test, day 1
Monday, December 3, 2001

At 8 o'clock on a marrow-chilling morning at Mohali, children cycled to school balanced three to a bike. Old men sat squatting on the road eating wada, a group of women dressed in warm shawls removed stones from a pit with one shovel shared between three. Inside the ground English tourists on sports-travel holidays waddled around with their duffel bags, smiling Sikh policemen browsed their papers, Steve Bucknor stood by the green pitch, an ebony giant lining up the stumps. And the England team rubbed their hands together as they warmed up on the outfield, dancing between bollards, like it was mid-April at Taunton.

An hour later, there was purple-turbaned bedlam outside the gates with people scrambling madly and leaping over each other's heads to get to the ticket office, through the body search and under the metal detector to run into the ground. Mark Ramprakash stood silent near the pitch, visualising his way through his repertoire, like Mike Atherton at Galle last year. And the sun had perked through the haze from the nearby Shivalik hills enough for Nasser Hussain to be in his shirtsleeves as he went out to lose the toss for the tenth consecutive time, accompanied by whoops from the crowd.

There were squeals for the five-minute bell. They grew shriller yet when the umpires strolled out onto the pitch and reached a climax when Tinu Yohannan sent a miserable Butcher back to the pavilion with only his fourth ball in Test cricket.

As the dew dried, the bedlam grew at the aquamarine PCA stand end. Dressed in Times of India paper sunshields, fans holding hands jumped like firecrackers, drowning out a wastrel's call of "England" from the Barmy Army. Two men in shirtsleeves held a placard: Cricket is great, not Denness or Dalmiya.

Tanya Aldred, our assistant editor, is covering the whole of England's Indian tour for Wisden.com.

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