This podcast episode features author Aditya Iyer discussing his book, "Gully Gully," which chronicles his experiences traveling across India during the 2023 Cricket World Cup. Iyer shares captivating anecdotes and insights into the remarkable performance of the Indian cricket team, highlighting that this squad boasted not only a stellar batting lineup but also an exceptionally talented bowling attack. He reflects on the unique atmosphere created by team leaders Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid, which fostered camaraderie among players and contributed to their success. The conversation delves into the significance of cricket in uniting fans across India, illustrating how it transcends regional divides and evokes deep emotional responses. Listeners will gain a deeper appreciation for the intersection of sports, culture, and personal stories that shape the narrative of cricket in India.

Takeaways:

• Aditya's journey from being a science student to a cricket journalist is inspiring and relatable.
• The camaraderie among the Indian cricket team players is pivotal to their success.
• Aditya emphasizes the importance of the fans' experiences and stories in cricket narratives.
• He believes cricket serves as a medium to explore the diverse culture of India.
• The Indian bowling lineup is currently the strongest it has ever been in World Cups.
• Aditya's writing style blends personal anecdotes with broader observations about cricket and society.

Links

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Gully Gully: Travels Around India during the 2023 World Cup Book Online at Low

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Aditya

Iyer (@Iyr_Adi) / X

Foreign.

Hello and welcome to the Last Wicket.

I'm your host Benny and thank you for joining us.

Aditya shares his experiences of following the Indian team through their memorable run to the final, interspersed with memorable anecdotes and quotes that transport you right back to that heady campaign.

If you're an Indian cricket fan, that is.

Mayank and Aditya chat about all this and more.

So do keep listening.

All right, thank you so much for joining us.

We wanted to start with you.

In your book, you've mentioned you've studied in Mumbai and interned in Kolkata, you know, Bangalore.

So tell us about your journey.

How did you get started?

And then how did you get into cricket?

Well, I mean like a lot of kids raised in the 90s, like growing up at that point, you know, a big, big cricket fan, right?

But ended up following the herd, the, the rat race.

I was a science student in the 90s.

Like a lot of parents from like, you know, these metro metropolitan cities around India.

I was pushed into like, I mean they had ambitions of me becoming an engineer.

I didn't.

But I ended up doing pure science from St.

Xavier's College.

I did physics or at least I attempted to do it.

And yeah, I mean I somehow managed to like get through it.

And like a lot of science students ended up going to the other end of the spectrum.

Like once I found freedom, I thought why not get paid to watch cricket, right?

That's like the ultimate dream.

But I didn't know how to do it till this really set into pictures.

Chance meeting with the editor of a newspaper in Delhi.

I was, I was riding from, I was riding my motorbike from, from Bombay to, to Nepal with, with a couple of friends.

And in Delhi I ended up meeting the, the sports editor of the Indian Express and we had like a very quick interview in the office in it.

You're from Delhi, right?

You know, the lay of the land.

Yeah.

So I rode my, I rode my motorbike to.

Ito had the interview and pretty much never went back.

And he made me a trainee on the sports desk.

And 10 months later when, you know all the big guys at that point.

Like the Big wigs.

At that point, they didn't go to Zimbabwe, and they sent, you know, pretty much a, like an India, A team led by Suresh Raina and Kohli and Rohit had a few big firsts over there, and they decided to take a chance on, like, a really young kid reporter in the Express.

So I.

I went along.

As I've also mentioned in this book, I was the only reporter there from all of India.

I mean, there were a couple of TV reporters, but from print, I was the only guy because Express kind of had that, you know, that, that belief in the fact that, you know, these are really the kind of places where you can get fantastic stories from.

I mean, it was still Mugabe land and, you know, there was this great, like, division between whites and blacks in.

In.

In.

In Zimbabwe.

And the stories from there were fantastic.

And to.

To.

To even, like, you know, just be around, like, to.

To kind of like, hear Guy whittle or, you know, some of our heroes from way back in the day, or Henry Olonga, who had already moved to.

To.

To the UK or like, you know, Brian Strang, like, riding me around on his boat motorbike, and I'm wearing, like, his Zimbabwe test helmet at the back and he's telling me stories off the country.

It was great.

And yeah, after that, there was pretty much no turning around.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

One thing that's, I've, you know, realized in the book and as you were speaking about your Zimbabwe experience, is you obviously care about all the other aspects around the cricket as well.

So I guess, you know, traveling for this long, talking about this specific World cup, you were on the road for more than six weeks, encountering so many people, so many situations, and then, of course, exploring the history of each of these cities.

I guess.

What was your.

What was your method of going around it?

Because, you know, there's a lot of details to remember which you've done really well in the book.

But also there's, you know, you probably didn't know every single city in India or you went to Zimbabwe.

You didn't know Zimbabwe.

So apart from obviously asking the locals did you do your own research on some of the history, I'm just curious how you went about it.

Yeah.

So, coming to the first part of your question, I've often been accused as a cricket writer, you know, even journalistically, to not focus too much on the cricket.

It's basically all the color around, you know, a big event that's happening.

So that worked well.

It came in handy while writing this Book.

Because cricket, I think, is always a medium at best to tell a very, very good story.

I know there are some fabulous like cricket analysts out there who you know, with just like the speeds and variations of a certain bowler can construct a story around him or her.

I'm not one of them.

I need my color.

I need what the situation means to people.

Because I, I really think the people make the game.

Otherwise, you know, cricket would have, if, if the masses weren't into it like the way they are here in India, I think it would have languished like it is in most of the cricket playing nations now.

What?

I mean, there are like four or five who really care, right?

The rest of them, I mean, I think that was like fantastic video.

And they're like two reporters and, you know, he's pushing his own like trolley out and there's nobody really there, like, who cares that, you know, this guy's just won the 50 World cup in India.

So we're not that nation, right?

And for me that's always been more important.

Like why do we care as much as we care for this game?

I mean, why isn't it safe for football, right?

I mean, like the whole world loves football.

We do too.

It's.

I mean, it's kind of catching on again like in the metropolitans.

But it's a late thing.

It's like, it's more a marketing push now.

No, it hasn't like organically come to us.

So what was it about cricket that made us go crazy?

People say the 83 World cup, post Lib India in the 90s, it was Sachin and it was.

Yeah, I mean, they could all be factors, but this kind of mania, people have a lot of theories for it.

But instead of theorizing, I just wanted to kind of tell the story of these fans, right?

Like people who make this game, this game, right.

I mean, you go anywhere, like you go to, go to South America and you say you're from India, they will either mention Bollywood or they'll be like, oh, that's, that's the country in which cricket is so crazy, right?

Like we're kind of known to be like cricket nuts.

So what makes us cricket nuts?

Or what makes us stick more than.

I don't know, I mean, see, listen, I'm no anthropologist, right?

Like, I just, I like to observe and that's coming.

You know, it takes us, it segues very nicely to the second part of your question, which is I love to observe.

I mean, I just love to people watch be trains or cafes or wherever, right?

Like, even, even in a cricket stadium.

Most journalists, most cricket journalists like to sit in the press box because that's where you have, you know, like a television screen giving you the replay and things like that, right?

Like things to jot down.

I was never one for that right from the beginning again, good thing and a bad thing, I suppose.

But I love going to the stands and watching it with the people.

I mean, the reason why we became cricket journalists was because we were, we were fans of the game initially, right?

Like, we loved it, we loved sitting in the stands and, and, and, and soaking it all in.

Now, I know like journalistically you can't take sides and stuff, but like that's, that's for when it, when it comes down to the writing, I think you're still allowed to enjoy the game like a fan, you know.

So I, I, I didn't care much for reporting on, you know, how cool the press box is or what the food in there was because we tend to get a bit myopic, like for us, our world, once we're sent on a tour, it's taken care of by the newspaper or the, you know, like a cricket portal or a publication and, you know, everything is very streamlined into covering the match, having the best access and getting out of there.

I didn't want that to be the book, right?

Because then, then it's just like a cricket centric book.

I wanted, I wanted to be about like, what the fan goes through when he tries to get in and watch a match.

So even if I might have relatively easier access to the press box and to like the press conferences and stuff, I just wanted to be like, you know, fly on the wall and also tell the story of that guy's misery or that girl's misery who's standing outside the stadium in Gaunje and can't get in and is stuck in a stampede.

It's, it's, it's the story, it's the story of India.

It's, it's terribly difficult because of, you know, demand and supply.

It's, it's so difficult to get into these stadiums and these lucky few, those 50,000 or 60,000 for like an India Bangladesh game in Pune.

I don't know why I'm going back there because I think that stampede, like, situation really shook me.

Right?

And also you're so Far away in the middle of the Western Ghats, man.

You're so far away from, like, any kind of, like, you know, medical or, like, emergency help, like, and I saw people, like, getting crushed.

And these are the lucky few who can get in and watch, like, an India game.

Right.

Why not turn the lens towards them and see what they have to say?

How are they experiencing the cricket?

Yeah, the trick is basically to never switch off.

Anyone can really be a story.

Everyone has a story to tell everyone.

It's obviously not just the cricketers or, you know, people, like, in the periphery of cricket.

It's anyone, anyone who's a fan and who's around and is wearing a road 45T shirt or a Kohli T shirt.

Or that guy who desperately wants to get in because his son's crying and all he could do was focus not on his exams, but try and get into the stadium.

Like, you know, they're all stories, man.

And I really like reading travelogues, not just cricket ones.

I mean, of course, like, Rahul Bhattacharya's Pundits From Pakistan, as we discussed earlier, is such a fantastic book.

That was a real inspiration, as was Mike Marcusi's.

Sorry, it's a confusing name, War, minus the shooting at the 96 World Cup.

But I like travelogues in general, like Naipaul's India Million Mutinies now or among the Believers, which is about the Middle East.

You realize very quickly that absolutely anybody he speaks to is the story, is the protagonist.

So I thought, why not apply the same sense to, like, a cricket travelogue?

And, yeah, I mean, the people I met were funky and amazing.

That's awesome.

I might actually jot down a couple of those names because I've obviously read Pandits From Pakistan, but Among the believers and some of those, I would absolutely be, you know, excited to read.

One other question around the process of writing the book.

Did you always know that you were going to write it?

Or, like, at what point did you say, I think now that I'm traveling across, I think I should be able to put something together.

Like, I don't know how that process goes.

So curious, right?

So I had the idea as soon as the World cup was announced in India, so that obviously, a few years ago, and I was just wondering how to kind of present this to one of the publishing houses.

Right.

Like, I knew there was a story to tell.

I didn't know that the Indian team would be as fantastic as it was.

You know, when it unfolded, we didn't really look at even leading up to the tournament, right?

Like, yeah, there was that great Asia cup final win and all of that, but there were few and far between.

It was a good team.

Not the most fabulous team of all time, as they turned out to be.

Despite losing the final.

I still think that's.

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people agree that we haven't quite seen an Indian team at like a big, big event like that.

So that helped the fact that that ended up happening.

It made it easier to sell the idea.

But wait, again, like I said right in the beginning, like, cricket's just a medium to tell the story of this country, right?

And, you know, I thought, what is.

There is nothing that unites us as much as cricket does.

I know that's a cliche, but it's also a cliche because it, it really exists.

I mean, we live in tumultuous times politically.

Like, things are rife and you know, it's, it's like the country is spectacularly divided, but the one thing that gets the left and the right and you know, the fence sitters, everyone together is cricket.

Right.

And like when it's a World cup at home, a World cup that matters to us, the old World cup, the 50 over World cup, the original World cup.

And with India traveling right through the nation, I thought this is a fabulous way, like a fabulous tool, a fabulous vehicle almost to tell the story of a nation or many nations in one through cricket, through this one team.

It's almost like, you know, an old school circus.

It passes from town to town and it moves along with its big strobe lights and massive carriers with cages and these lions and these tigers and like, you know, the natives, the village folk are attracted as soon as this carnival enters town and the lights are on and the music is on and everyone's very excited about it and it draws in all kinds of crazy people and normal people who want to be crazy for those hours.

And then the, the carnival kind of like passes through and it goes to the next town.

A World cup in India is very, very similar.

It's just that we were blessed with an Indian team that was doing what it ended up doing.

But even without it, I think the story would still have held.

A story of India while the World cup is on is a fabulous way of telling the story of a country.

It's not, it's really not so much about the cricket.

Absolutely.

And speaking of, you know, you mentioned the cliche of how it unites people.

I, I mean, I remember I was Talking to you.

And as India won, especially in the knockouts, it felt like a celebration, you know, like the people who did not know each other were hugging each other, high five, high fiving each other.

They were in Mohali.

I remember people just stopping their car in the middle of the road and dancing on top, not caring for the cops who were standing meters away.

And it really does unite you, you to stop worrying about whether it's, you know, inflation that you're worried about your job, whether it's whatever it is that you know, is on your mind takes a backseat.

Yeah, having, having seen all of that, was there something that you learned from the people's mood that you had not expected or, you know, was there a character you came across which surprised you in all of this?

The quarter is the semis and the final.

And there was this amazing moment on Marine Drive.

As soon as we won, I was still writing.

I mean, I tend to really stretch deadlines and stuff.

And the Indian Express was of course, like, you know, holding the edition back because this was the World cup final and we'd written on a few pages, including page one.

So I was late getting out.

It was about 1:10, 1:15 by the time I got out.

And of course, Marine Drive was chocolate block, right.

And talking about how they were celebrating around cops.

Were you talking about Mohali at that point?

Yes, but the anecdote I have is from.

He's from Bombay, right?

And I get out of the stadium, I'm walking towards Churchgate Station and there are people sitting on top of cars and celebrating.

And there was this one guy who was holding a.

A road cone, right, like as the World cup trophy.

Drunk out of his wits and celebrating like he was.

He was basically like hoisting it up like one would a trophy the car, because I'm sure the driver was also drunk.

He smashed into the back of the car in front of him and this guy lost control and the road cone fell down.

The cop who was standing right next to it, like the traffic policeman, picked it up and handed it back to him to celebrate.

He just went like, here is your.

Your mock trophy, man.

Continue doing what you're doing.

So, I mean, yeah, I mean, I think like, as you also mentioned about what you must have seen after the India Pakistan match in Mohali, like it's.

Yeah, like it's, it's disorderly and lawless in a beautiful way, right.

Like, you know, there's going to be no harm done because everyone is in a really celebrate celebratory mood.

And yeah, really nothing unites like, like a, like an India match.

I mean firstly, it's called India, right?

Like a, like a Shahrukh Khan or a Rajnikanth film, even if you get the regionalism off it.

I'm just trying to think of other things that unite this country.

It's, it's.

Even if, even if you take out the regional aspect of it, it's, it doesn't, it doesn't stand for a nation.

No, I mean there's, there's very little else.

I mean take, just take a person from the Kutch and let's go really far east, someone from Kohima and down south from say like Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu and someone from Kashmir and put them in a room, man, like, what else?

But this game unites them, right?

And the fact that they're, I mean they're like technically Indians, but like each of them have so much more in common with people across each of those borders, but they're all Indian at the end of the day.

And one of the very, very, very, very few things apart from these titles that kind of unites them is this game.

And even people who don't really care about the game when a World cup is going on seem to care like, you know, because everybody else is talking about it.

So it kind of just uplifts and washes everyone, whatever, slipstream together.

So yeah, nothing quite like it.

The celebration is just madness.

And like alternatively when we lose, it's just as devastating, right?

It's as big a trough as that spike was as that like if you look at it as a sinusoidal wave, like it goes just as low, it's absolutely gut wrenching.

So.

And that is also some form of unification, right?

Like we're all sitting there and feeling like horrible about like what ended up happening to like, you know, the fates of these 11 men.

So, yeah, and I guess my curiosity, obviously, you know, that unification is amazing, but sometimes on social media in particular, with the world of IPL being so popular and I think younger fans having, you know, supporting one player versus the other, there's all these fan clubs.

When you see all of that happening and it becoming more and more mainstream, the IPL expanding, do you see this being something that is going to last?

And that's a tough hypothetical question, but I'm just Like curious because I think until now the Indian cricket team is still the most important thing for vast majority of cricket fans.

I don't know if that's going to hold for 20 years, especially as maybe the ODI format goes out of fashion.

So curious on your thoughts as to the future because I don't think Test cricket inspires the same amount of passion.

Unfortunately not in the masses at least.

And T20 maybe.

But do you think IPL fandom and that regionalism that you talked about is going to become a flavor in the future?

Well, see other international sports have managed to, I mean like you know, live with this regionalism, right?

Like look at like football in any of the European countries.

They are so divided year long because you know, it's, it's primarily a club sport.

But when a Spain plays or an England plays, okay, I think Spain may not be the right example because of, you know, Barcelona's want for freedom and stuff like that.

But take any other country, take France, take England, the big nations.

No, take Argentina.

They're divided along lines of, of their principalities, their states.

Watch what happens to Harry Kane when, when he was a Tottenham player.

Like you know, when he used to go and play at you know, Arsenal or any of these other places.

But for a Scouser from Liverpool or like a Jordy from, from Newcastle to kind of put like his or her you know, year round interests at bay and support him as the captain of the England team, it's very possible.

And you know how rabid it gets in England, right?

Like we are trying to get there.

I mean in many ways we've mimicked their idea of a league.

And you know, how players from different countries ought to get together and intermingle and form the best possible team, the dream team and beat other teams, it's not so much about like what it once was.

Even with football, like it's not a blue collar sport where the miners and the laborers had like a like a week off to either play or watch.

And that's what kind of cultivated the interest, you know, the kind of like fandom and madness.

That particular sport like draws.

But like once Lalit Modi came up with the ipl, he just kind of like manufactured a lot of these, you know, love for your club which entails not loving players from the other club.

It didn't exist in the first few seasons in ipl, you know, because I've basically again I was in the Indian Express at that point and Mumbai Indians came to town and every shot of Tendulkar's And I know he is Tendulkar, like, you know, caused like the greatest cheer.

And I think he was caught like somewhere on the boundary by somebody in the Delhi daredevils.

Like, and he got, that person got like a resounding boo.

Right?

Like, because like Tenelkar got out.

It's not the case anymore.

And I know what you're talking about.

Like these Virat fans going after the Rohit fans and Rohit fans going after Virat fans.

Oh my God.

It's really gotten quite ugly.

No.

On, on social media and.

Yeah, and it's totally seeping into the sport because I remember after India lost the World cup final in Ahmedabad, a lot, like, I should not have opened Twitter, but I did.

And there was so much hate for like, it was just like pure bile, like vitriol, right?

Like towards Rohit.

And a lot of them were Indian fans.

I mean, it wasn't from like, you know, the other nations or whatever.

Like, you know, not, not, not like an Englishman and Aussie would have been really happy with India losing.

No, I mean it.

Yeah, these are like Virat fan or so called, quote unquote, Virat fans.

Are they really fans if they get like this aggressive about it?

They were like, of course India was going to lose because Rohit was captain.

They deserved, we deserve to lose.

Because it's not we anymore.

It's there because Rohit is in charge.

We bring back Kohli.

Kohli has nothing to do with this.

Right.

I don't, I don't think he even knows these people exist.

Like, it's ridiculous who they're actually fighting their battles for, but they're, they're doing it.

I mean, just like nameless, faceless people.

People who now have an agenda because so far they were just called trolls.

And now like, you know, someone told them in some whatever, in some way that they're like a Kohli fan.

And in a misplaced way they feel like they, you know, they need to go to battle for him, for every, for every little thing that happens.

But yeah, you're spot on, man.

Like, it's, it's, it's kind of become what fandom means in this country now.

And I think it has very little to do with ipl.

It's just we're divided along lines of who's the greater superstar, who's the greatest celebrity.

These are the same people, when they go to the stadium, end up hero worshiping, like, you know, the guy standing at the boundary rope, like the greatest match could be going on.

You might, you might have like 20 to win off.

Well, when, you know, as Kohli does, like, he comes to long off or long on to field because, like, you know, that's.

That's where they utilize them best.

And you'll see an entire section of the stands, like, having run down just to look at the back of his shirt, right, and maybe get him to wave at them.

And these are Rohit fans, Kohli fans, whatever.

But, like, they are in the presence of, like, a celebrity and that's it.

Their focus is on this person.

I don't think they ever cared about the game.

It's just that it sucks that more people want to kind of be like these people now because they have the loudest voices on Twitter.

So, yeah, I think you're pretty spot on.

But it's also a warning sign.

If this is where cricket fandom is going in India, we're all in a little bit of trouble, man.

Yeah.

And I think the best thing that I heard on this was a long time ago, one of the Indian comedians, I forget his name, was doing a standup and he said, are you a Dhoni fan?

So somebody replied, no, I am a Rohit fan.

And he replied, you can be a fan of both.

They don't even know you exist.

So, you know, that, to me, sums up the situation.

There's a lot of people who have taken ownership of defending their stars when their stars don't even care.

I really think Mayank, like, I have no way to prove this.

Obviously, this is just a hunch, but I can almost imagine Virat and Rohit sitting in the dressing room with both their phones on and looking at the hate that they're getting, you know, on behalf of the other person and just laughing away, like, calling them all kinds of names because of how ridiculous they are, and rightly so.

And laughing.

Like sharing a high five and a chai and laughing.

Yeah, absolutely.

We talked a lot about, you know, everything around the process of writing the book.

We've talked about just the experience of watching cricket.

The one aspect of the experience that we didn't touch on was just the fan viewing experience.

Actually, not just the fan, but even you in the media box talked about how, like Pune, for example, there was almost a near stampede.

That is an area where there's still so much to be, you know, done from.

From an Indian perspective.

Because, you know, having watched games in England, for example, in South Africa, the experience is so much easier.

And I get the numbers are not the same, but the number of people watching and all that.

I mean, absolutely.

Like, you know, they take fans, they, as in like the BCCI and the administration and like these little administrators take the thing that really makes the game what it is in this country for granted.

It is so ironic, right?

Because these fans, these guys, the throngs really make the sport what it is.

They are like stripped off, like, every single aspect of their dignity.

Getting into the stadium, made to queue up like many hours earlier, latte charged into the ground, stampede like situations that we often see in many of these.

Even some of the bigger grounds, actually, like all the ones in the big cities, I think they're not excused of these accusations either.

They're all equally terrible, right?

You go in, they strip you off your coins.

Like, you can't.

What.

What are they going to.

What's the guy with the 5 rupee coin in his pocket going to do, man?

Or like in Chennai, you can't walk in wearing a black T shirt because they think you're protesting something.

You're sitting in that heat.

There's oftentimes no water, like, in every which way we take the guy for granted or the girl for granted or the uncle for granted.

And yet they know, and this is why they can take them for granted, right?

They know we're going to queue up again because, like, our love for the game just does not diminish.

Like, at the end of the day, we're just like so excited that we saw like this amazing match and Kohli scored this beautiful 79 or like Bumra did what he had to do.

Imagine, man, like, you go through all that excruciating stuff and then you manage to sit, like, somewhere in the vicinity of, you know, the area, like in the V, like, basically behind the bowler's arm and imagine that bowler is either Mama Chami or Bumra.

And you get to watch that kind of art in action.

Of course you're going to go back home happy, right?

Despite how you were treated.

So, yeah, it's just that the game and the way these administrators treat the players because at one point, at least in the 70s and the 80s, we treated them all the same, like, equally rubbish, right?

Like, we didn't pay the creators, we didn't care about the fans.

And this is the time when fans would basically show up for like a Ranji trophy final in, like, real hordes.

No, I mean, there'd be people standing outside the stadium.

Like, there are all these, like, lovely stories that Ram Gua and people of his ilk have Told where I think the Chinnaswami is full and there's still 10, 10, 000 people outside.

But back then, at least the cricketers didn't get paid.

They weren't superstars.

There must have been one among so many.

Now like you, you go to like.

I don't, I don't mean a single amount for any reason, but I just, for some reason, Ume Shadav came to my head.

If he walks down to like, he walks out of his house, he's going to be like, you know, absolutely, like thronged.

Right?

Like surrounded.

So we worship these guys, but it's, it's skewed.

Like the fan following is completely taken for granted.

In fact, you can actually even take cricketers wanting to represent their country for granted.

Give them 20 rupees a month and they will still want to play.

Right?

You would still want to play for the country, but it simply didn't grow that way.

So it sucks.

And like you said, you've seen cricket in England and in South Africa, man, you can, you can cook.

I mean, you can like cook some meat on a bride on those grass embankments, carry your own, like, you know, ice, tub of beer in.

Have a great time with your family and friends and come back home.

It's such a lovely outing here.

You feel like you've experienced something, right?

Yeah.

You're like, thank God I didn't die and thank God I managed to watch that match.

Right?

Like, Mike Marchesi writes about this a lot and especially Delhi.

I would really recommend that chapter to you.

Yeah, actually I have read that book.

But coming back to the point about the experience, it's really true because, and I had never thought about this until I watched a baseball game in the US that in India the experience is.

Or you go despite the experience.

In pretty much other countries, it's the experience that invites you.

That's why there's a lot of casual fans who go to watch, whether it's baseball games in the US Cricket or whatever in England, in the Caribbean, it's the same thing.

It's a very nice, relaxed vibe.

And they just go there because they know that even if they don't know every single player, they don't really care about the match.

They're going to have a good time, there's going to be some music, they're going to have some beers.

That's going to be relaxing.

And in India, it's like, despite of how things are, you will still go because the cricket is, is the main show.

And absolutely, unfortunately, it's time and unfortunately it's not.

Cricket is not the only thing I had the.

I wouldn't say.

I would say like I had the unfortunate.

So really get crushed.

I.

We didn't get crushed, but my wife and mother in law went to the restroom and could not come back.

There was no way out back.

Oh my God.

So you know, it was just.

Yeah, they just didn't plan it very well in Ahmedabad and.

But anyway, so all of that said and done, I feel like that something that needs to be figured out sooner rather than later.

And a couple of my friends that watched the Pakistan New Zealand game in Chinoswamy, the World cup game, and yeah, they talked about how this guy on a wheelchair was just stuck.

He somehow made it up there to the stands and then had no way of going down.

And he was offering people money to get him drinks or food and because he knew that if he made it all the way down, he would not make it all the way back up and, and all that.

So I think those are some of the basics that need to be done.

Right.

And no ramps.

Right.

Like it can't get more essential than that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Oh, I've basically been to the ground that.

And I completely agree.

Right.

I've been to the one in your.

Yeah.

Drigley Field.

Is that what it's called?

Corre.

The Cubs play?

Yes.

I, I didn't know a single player's name when I was there.

I was basically there because I wanted to experience watching like baseball from somewhere near the, the, the, the left field or like, you know, the one closer to where the, the batter was batting, like close to the diamond.

Yeah.

And that was.

I, I sat there for about 20 minutes, ate my hot dog and had a couple of beers and I was out of there.

It was like a fabulous experience.

Right.

Like, and that's it.

Like no one hassled me or harangued me on my way in and on my way out.

And I think this was like, it was a, like something close to the playoffs or World Series or something like that.

Like, it was a big deal.

I think this is the year when the Cubs ended up winning and breaking the streak.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Right.

That's when I was in the US to cover the US Open.

The one that Stan Wawrinka ended up winning.

So.

Yeah, yeah, that was the one that won.

And like, imagine, man, there's like a title winning season.

And I mean, of course, like, there's a lot of fanfare, but there isn't madness for the sake of it, if that makes any sense.

Absolutely.

Let's talk about the on field cricket.

I know we've talked about everything around it.

It was really a near perfect campaign, like from the first game till I would say maybe the 10th over of the final where literally everything went our way.

There were maybe a few, you know, ups and downs in those games, but from there onwards, obviously, you know, Australia being Australia, very dominant at the day, fielded brilliantly, caught brilliantly, and then of course they bowled very, very well.

Thoughts on that?

Because I know your book is more on the experience, but what did you think about just the team performance itself?

The only way to kind of explain what some of us like witnessed because, like, you know, having followed India around like through the entire campaign, I can honestly tell you that it wasn't just like the greatest team to not win a cricket world Cup.

It's up there with like great teams across sport to not win something big.

Right.

Like when they dominated all tournament long, like the Brazil of the 90, the, the 98 World cup in France comes to memory because that was, that was just like a divine team and they couldn't do it, like right at the end, right.

Like Ronaldo, they say he choked.

Like, he basically had like, I think he had like an epileptic, epileptic fit, like hours before the game.

And it was, some people claim it was food poisoning.

Some people claim it was this fit.

Some people claim because it was his first big final, like just the nerves of it.

But like, at least they had somebody to blame.

We had nobody to blame, right?

Like the way we trounced everybody in those first 10 rounds, as in like nine group games.

And then the semifinal, I know the semifinal wasn't trouncing, but we didn't, we didn't really like kill New Zealand or anything.

But I mean, like, it's just we had 11 players of 14 players playing at the very peak of their powers.

No, I mean, it, it tells you a lot that Shami didn't play the first four games and then had that kind of an impact when he came in.

It's not that Shardul Thakur or Hardik Pandya were, were, were, weren't too, like, weren't good when they were playing.

Like, they were brilliant.

Like they, they were perfect for that balance for the first four games.

Right?

It's not like Dravid and Rohit got it like, you know, woefully wrong.

And then like had to take like corrective measures and brought Shami in and Suja in.

No such thing.

We just had like so many players like ready to perform so, so, so well, the fact that it was in India, home crowds.

Dravid in the very first press conference, he said more than anything else, like, this is a Kushioka.

Kushioka Tiohar.

Sorry, sorry about my Hindi.

But he was basically like, there's a festival of happiness.

And he was absolutely right because they played cricket, that was, that just really delighted people.

It made you happy to watch them IR surge right at the end.

The way Rahul saved us that first match in Chennai, Kohli really going for it in the middle, like dropping anchor, ensuring that people kind of like bat around him.

I know he got some shtick for like a couple of his innings, but honestly they were sensational, right?

Like, so he got that 100 in Pune and then he was going for 100 in Dharamshala against New Zealand where people started saying stuff like, you know, he's really batting for himself.

But what, I don't know, I, I, I couldn't see it.

And the, the stick that he got for his innings in Calcutta, which is his 49th hundred against South Africa on like a really like two paced abrasive pitch was completely misplaced, right?

So I mean like everybody else didn't even get that strict.

Like there was just like there was absolutely nothing that you could point at these guys and say, you can do this better, right?

Like one guy in a press conference told Rohit, like, don't you think, I mean, these are actual questions, Mike.

Someone actually looked at Rohit, looked him in the eye and said, sir, don't you think you can be a little more selfish?

Like, what is this?

Why are you going for giving such great studs to India?

And Rohit couldn't believe it.

Like, he looked at the media manager, Anand Subramaniam and then he looked at that guy and he kind of like touched his temple and looked at him like he was a fool.

He couldn't say that, right?

But it like the criticism became why you're doing so well.

Why are you not, why are you not being selfish?

Like literally.

So we were that good.

And yeah, it always sucks to talk about the final because how, how did, and you know, I never say we for the Indian team.

I never do.

I'm not being fair whether just because I started doing well, like I started saying no such thing.

But it, it really reminded me, having grown up in the 90s, quite like you.

For me, it was very much in the mid-90s, right, or early 90s.

I, I often during this campaign look back at my childhood going like, why the hell was I suffering so much with that team?

With that absolutely like rubbish team filled with like so many great individuals, right, like, who never won anything.

It was so hurtful.

I used to cry myself to sleep like every single night, like during the Independence cup or I can't say Titan cup because we ended up winning it with those really random ones like singer Akai cup, some rubbish in Sharjah.

India would go there, get absolutely hammered and I would be weeping like Tendulkar would make like 100.

Everyone would collapse around him.

Robin Singh would try his best at like number six after Jadeja and Azhar like, you know, threw it away.

Yeah, it threw it away.

I just realized what I said.

But yeah, it was horrible to watch.

And I was like, you know, I wish I grew up with this Indian team, right.

Like, I would have had like a spectacular childhood.

And I'm very, very happy for the kids who are growing up now and this is what they get to watch as a representation of Indian cricket.

Oh my God, so lucky.

And yeah, in that sense, it doesn't matter that we, we lost this one.

They just, Australia figured it out.

They knew exactly what to do.

If you read the book, there are some secrets in there on the pitch and how we tried.

We as in like the BCCI in this case, I don't belong to the bcci, tried to kind of, you know, manipulate it in our favor is to, to put it most politely.

We did that in the semi finals as well by changing the pitch to a used one, a used spinning one instead of one from the bank of surfaces that wasn't used.

It worked.

It didn't work in the, in the final to, to say the least, but yeah, I mean, Australia both had to play on the same pitch.

Yes, it flattened out a little bit because of due and all of that, like in the second innings.

But they thrashed us, man.

And on the day they did.

But it doesn't not make India the greatest team of that World cup like by a distance, by continent.

Absolutely.

And I think, you know that that was one of the things I was going to ask like as you were watching it, it would be very hard to separate the journalist out of you from the fan out of you.

How did you manage that balance?

Was it mostly as you were sitting in those press boxes watching that?

You were probably getting excited with the performance of individuals or the performance of the team.

But then when you were writing, you had to take a step back and be objective.

Is that how you had to tackle it?

So I've been doing this for a long time now, right.

I've been writing on this game and a few other games that I really care about.

I briefly mentioned covering Grand Slams and stuff.

And even more than team sports, I love individuals and I love individual sports, like tennis, for example.

Like a die hard, like, Nadal and Fedra fan from way back in the day and was privileged enough to watch them.

While they were great.

I was obviously sitting there in those press boxes too, as an absolute Rafa nut.

No, like, you can't be in Roland Garros and watching him play and, like, try and be objective about it while you're watching.

You're there to, like, totally enjoy yourself.

But when you write, you have to.

If you obviously write with, like, a lot of objectivity to it, otherwise, like, these papers will stop sending you, then it's just a fan piece.

So I get the divide.

I know how to switch on, switch off.

It's very, like, schizophrenic in many senses.

I'll give you an example from this World Cup.

It was the semifinal in Bombay at the Wankady, and it was Karthik Krishnaswamy and me.

We weren't really sitting on one of those desks.

The Bombay press box is such that it hangs directly over the top of the bowler's mark.

The.

The fast bowler's mark.

Right.

And we would adjust ourselves on, like, in the gangway on the stairs between, like, two, like, you know, like, rows of seats so that we could be directly behind, like, Shami's bowling arm.

And it was, you know, I mean, there's no doubting how much the two of us love that guy or, like, his spells or his performances.

And it was very evident to every, like, to.

To everyone out there.

Right?

But we're not cheerleaders at the end of the day.

Although there were a few in the press box wearing their row with jerseys and without jerseys and showing up with, like, accreditations.

Yeah, yeah.

It was quite something.

And in the end, like, you know, especially in the final, like, when.

When.

When India was losing, like, Surya wasn't getting a hang of those.

Those pull shots that he was going for because they were basically bowling slower bouncers.

Like, really hitting the deck with their slower balls at him.

And he really wasn't able to, like, execute the pull.

There was this guy, a journalist.

Like, I, I mean, I'm not, I'm not trying to keep him anonymous.

I honestly don't know his name.

I don't know how he got in there, but it was insane.

There's like the world's media out there and they can watch this guy in a road 45 jersey banging the desk like next to his laptop going, come on, sky, what are you doing?

Like, get a hold of it in Hindi.

And everyone's just amazed.

Right?

I mean, he's also a fan, but, like, I don't think he knows how to be objective about it.

Coming back to that semifinal, like, we, again, we're there because we love watching Shamil bowl.

We absolutely, like, you know, it's like a dream to have that access to be sitting directly behind his bowling arm and seeing him do magical things.

I think in, in our defense, it has nothing to do with him being an Indian.

It's just.

It's just great art.

But it also so happens that we Indians are producing more of these artists than, say, any other place in quantity.

There's quantity and quality.

So it's a great time to be an Indian journalist and watch Indian cricket.

But I don't think you'll read, you'll see that fandom in too many reports.

So, yeah, we are objective about it.

Most of us, at least.

Absolutely.

Speaking of Shami, the other aspect which came out of your book, and I mean, not just your book, but in general, the reports that I read during the World cup was just the camaraderie between the team you mentioned in one of the press conferences.

After winning, you know, the player of the match, he comes out and starts talking in a very candid mood.

And Siraj is standing there in the corner hiding and, you know, kind of joking around, having some fun.

And Shami's, I think that that is his first game of the World cup because he obviously, as you mentioned, wasn't picked.

That's right.

And he, he says it doesn't really matter who's playing.

We just want to win.

And, you know, that camaraderie was just something else.

And I'm sure you, with access, you know, to the players, felt that throughout.

And obviously winning helps.

You know, when you're winning, these things are a little bit easier.

But in general, like, it just felt like a very relaxed atmosphere that was created by Dravid, Rohit and of course the rest of the seniors, team management.

Truly, before I come to the bond shared amongst them, like, I just want to address that specific press conference for a second because Shami was really smug, man.

Like, as much as he can talk about camaraderie and bonding and, you know, how they all love each other and they're a band of brothers, he was hurting that he didn't play those first four games, right?

So when he got his opportunity in a good place, Dharamshala, like, you know, really aids fast bowling and.

But he still had to do what he had to do.

And I think he got a fifer over there.

Yeah.

When he arrived at the press conference, he was smug as dude.

Like, he.

He knew he had done something amazing.

Like he felt like the bee's knees good on him.

It was cool to see that.

But you could also see that he was not, you know, sorry, I digress for a second, but Ganguly kind of said this, right?

He said he.

And if they were dropped, he wanted them to kind of tell him, why am I dropped?

Give me three reasons why I'm dropped and please put me back into the team.

Rather than.

In his words, I might be paraphrasing slightly, but this is what he told me in the interview.

He said, rather than the person thinking, thank God I don't have to play Australia tomorrow, I have the day off, right?

So he wanted the first kind, the kind like, like Kumble.

It must have been so hard for him to drop Kumble.

I think similarly, it must have been really, really, really hard to ask Shami to sit out those first few games.

Especially because when Australia had come to India, just before that World cup started, he got a five, four.

And you know how he steps it up in the big games, in these quadrennials and all of that.

In any case, right?

Second innings of a test match, whatever.

Like, he has a reputation.

So he wasn't very happy sitting out, which is a good thing.

I.

He said this in the press conference.

Not this, not these exact words, what I'm about to say now.

He said, you know, the fact that I was sitting out doesn't mean that, like, you know, I'm unhappy.

I'm very happy for the team doing so well and how do I get in?

We won the first four games is what he said.

Right?

But internally and actually externally too, because he showed it and he made sure that he showed it, that he was hurt that he missed out on those games.

And he was very, very, very happy to prove.

People are happy to be proved wrong.

Wrong, Yeah.

I don't think Rohit and Dravid were like, you know, we've given him a chance.

Like, let's see if like he can actually perform and all.

They must have been praying for this guy to do well, right?

Like, yeah.

And the moment he did, he was very happy to tell them, see, man, this is what I'm made of, right?

Like, you can't drop me anymore.

But it's also Rohit and Dravid and I've written this in the book to.

We have been led by alpha males for so long now.

I mean, Kohli was one.

Ravi Shastri certainly was one.

Gambir in the dressing room is very much one now.

But that was such a funky combination.

No, it's Ro Sharma who's certainly not alpha.

I mean like he might.

Sorry, very laid back.

Right.

And which is why, like I think he draws people to him also very naturally.

They don't look at him as a captain but like this older brother figure who they can confide in, you know, be easy with.

Have you seen Rishabh pant at when he's talking to Rohit at first slip.

They're talking like two kids at a park, man.

This is not like an international game at all.

Rohit's laughing away or like even for BCCI TV when he would interview pants.

You know, I think this is just before the accident when he was killing it.

Those covet games.

I think there was this one or two interviews that he did of Pants when England had come here where Panther saying something and like Rohit in his very Bombaya Hindi puts his arm around him and he says, and Rohit wasn't even captain then, it was Kohli.

But you could see the person he is, right?

He puts an arm around Pant and he goes like, I just want you.

My only advice to you is you focus on your cricket.

Let everybody else take care of everything else for you.

Boss be bindas, right?

He kind of led and leads.

We often tend to forget that he's still the leader of this country.

He leads in a certain way and so does Dravid.

Poor guy.

He was kind of collateral.

Yeah, he might have taken sides, whatever.

But he's such a chilled out, great, well read, beautifully knowledgeable gentleman.

Right.

And for.

And not an alpha male for sure.

I mean they might play, they might bat, like, I mean they're expressing themselves in very different ways when they're actually batting.

Right.

But as human beings they're very happy to be background men.

Dhoni was very much a background man too, but he was, he was very alpha.

Right.

These two, these two.

And what a combination.

Like not a strain of alphaness between them and yet they're commanding a team full of alphas because like full of people who shape themselves in the image of Kohli.

So it made for like a very, very, very interesting read and dynamic between all of them.

And it was fantastic.

I think it was just the kind of like firmness mixed with softness in the fist or in their combined fists that was absolutely needed which made this team.

This team.

No, they were all very happy to sit out, to get back in, to prove themselves, to have a blast.

I think that's the atmosphere created by that Rohit Dravid combination and hence we were so successful also.

Absolutely.

And that reminds me, as you were saying that that reminds me of our last fielding coach.

His book where he talked about, yes, Ashwidhar and in Ashwidhar's book he talked about how dropping Ashwin or Jaredja in overseas test was similar for, you know, whoever the captain was, whether it was Kohli or, you know, Rohit because they constantly felt like, you know, it took a lot to tell a guy with 300 plus wickets in case of Ashwin now 500 plus wickets to say that hey, you're not going to be in the 11.

And so it obviously hurt them but at the same time they made sure it did not show in the dressing room.

It did not hurt anybody else.

And at the same time everybody knew there was like this healthy competition that hey, you need to perform because like a man with 300 plus test because it's sitting on your heels waiting in the dressing room.

So spot on.

No, no.

And it's the way it ought to be also.

Right.

Like I think it must be very hard to tell Kuldeep Yadav that he's not playing a match.

Like because we're that good now.

I mean like this Indian team is so we, we can literally feel three teams, right?

Like there's one playing in Australia, one scoring like some 300 runs in a T20 game in South Africa, another one waiting in the wings to take any of their places who can all form like an 11 by themselves.

Yeah, it's.

It's.

And the beauty of that is, like, yeah, the pool is so wide and so vast and so deep.

Because usually it's vast but not deep.

No, I mean, now you got to, like a perfect mix of both or the, you know, the.

The rarest combination, right?

Like, lots of people who are very talented at the same time, and they all want to get a chance.

So when one of those who kind of feels that, like, he's good enough to be in the team but has to sit out.

And I'm not talking about the legends like Ashwin or Jadeja or can Kohli be dropped or Rohit or any of these guys, right?

But, like, I'm talking about the Expendables.

They.

They really feel the pinch, and I'm sure they fight back.

They go, like, why?

Give me a good reason why I'm not in this side.

And that's.

That's great for Indian cricket.

Absolutely.

Wrapping up about the campaign, one of the lines that I really loved, you had mentioned this was something that a fan had mentioned to you, was this is easily the best batting lineup India has ever had at a World cup, but our bowlers are even better than our batsmen.

Imagine that.

I think that pretty much sums up, like, the.

What the World cup is.

This time it felt like the depth was just another level too, you know, and you were just making that point as well.

I think we are in a golden era of Indian bowling, which is why as this transition happens, like, you know, right now, obviously India is in Australia.

They're in this third Test, struggling a little bit, probably a little bit behind.

Like, even if our batsmen fail, our bowlers are going to keep us somewhat relevant in the game.

And it just.

Just a fascinating thing.

I.

I've never in.

In my 20 plus years of watching cricket, I've Never thought, if I have to choose, I'm going to choose India's bowling to watch.

And that's, that's how.

That's where we are.

Hey, that line, by the way, was spoken by a really drunk guy who, I don't know, like a complete stranger in my favorite bar in all of India.

It's this bar in Colaba called Gokul's.

It's basically a college haunt because it used to once be really cheap.

Now they've refurbished it so it's a bit expensive again.

But it kind of draws in the match day or match night crowd in Bombay specifically because, yeah, everyone's, everyone's really thirsty and they just want to go there.

And by the time I got there, like, it was so packed, there was only standing room.

And this guy just like poured these words of wisdom out into my ear, right?

I was really excited by it.

And I was, I've said that in the book too.

I was like, yeah, truly imagine that.

Because he goes like, our bowlers are better than our batsman.

Imagine that, right?

And I finished that chapter by saying, truly imagine that because, like, I wanted to validate what that guy was saying.

He just nailed it.

He nailed that entire campaign in one line.

We had the best batsmen and yet our bowlers are better than these guys.

So I don't know.

I mean, I completely agree.

I'm.

I'm assuming you did too.

What was your take on the bowlers, if I may ask you that?

No, I mean, I, I completely agree because, well, Bumra is Bumrah.

So it's just amazing because he was already at a level from a, particularly from a one day bowler.

He's not gotten as many chances in test, but from a one day bowler perspective, he was already so good and he came back to be even better.

Same thing with Shami.

So it's just a very exciting time and I think obviously we'll see the Harshatranas and Prasad Krishnas, the next generation, start to take over as more injuries happen and all of that.

But we'll need to be patient because it's not going to be easy to, you know, keep up with this level of bowling.

Sure.

But yeah, I think the transition, I think we have the right systems in place also to keep producing these guys now on a, on a scale that's repeatable.

Right.

Like unlike say in Pakistan where they managed to do it for so long and so well because of tape ball cricket and like a thousand other influences.

But they never like really honed in on that.

They never made a system out of it.

Like they couldn't have like an academy that just kept producing these guys because they were all like amazingly beautiful freaks, right?

Like all of them, everyone, right from like Wasim till Shoaib or whenever their golden generation was.

But these guys are all coming out of, I mean the, the transition from street to getting into one of these beautiful academies that kind of like absolutely shapes them.

Like, can you imagine being Bura's coach and not changing his action?

So even at the coaching level, even without the degrees from the BCCI and stuff, I think at a very inherent level, people seem to know what to do with precious talent.

Right.

Like, they don't change it too much.

Like, I can't imagine this.

Like at a time when I was playing cricket in school, if my coach saw Bumrah's action, he would have had a heart attack, man.

Like, there is no way.

He was, he was one of those cricket as a side on game kind of guys, right?

Like it works, which is fine.

Like, we do produce like very beautiful, elegant cricketers.

But to kind of have the genius that we have on display now, I mean these are guys who just backed their skill or whatever they had in them right from the very beginning.

And you can't tamper or tinker too much with that.

No.

But the beauty is they're all going to.

We have so many academies all over this in, in each place, all affiliated or associated with like, like, you know, top administrations.

So it's very quick to spot one.

And of course the ipl, like if we had like a limited number of scouts in India going and looking out for these guys now we have 10 IPL teams with like 10 major scouts each.

And each of them have like, you know, people with years on the ground.

Like absolutely all over India was found like that.

Right.

Like, it, it is as, I mean, as much as I don't want to credit the IPL for anything.

Like they've kind of like they've changed.

There's no denying that they changed the face of Indian cricket for the better in so many ways.

And people are.

There are very, very few talents that will go.

That kind of won't come to fruition now.

I think let's absolutely, let's hope that keeps happening with that.

I guess the last question, which I had not planned, but because you've mentioned some travelogues is do you have some recommendations for travelogues that we can read and they can absolutely be out there side of cricket.

I've obviously had the chance to read Pandits from Pakistan as well as War, Minus the shooting.

Two really, really great books.

But any others that you recommend, I'm all ears.

So yeah, the, the two Naipaul books that I mentioned.

Absolutely.

One is called India Million Mutinies Now.

A million Mutinies now is the subtitle.

India is the name of the book.

So it's about India and his travels here from a very Western lens.

But like it's, I mean it's still Naipaul.

Right.

Ignite.

And it's, it's beautiful.

Like it's absolutely gorgeous.

And among the believers is the other one that I mentioned.

There's a beautiful one around America by, you know, like a legendary writer of fictional books called John Steinbeck, who wrote Travels with Charlie.

It's basically him and his dog in an RV in a recreational vehicle driving around America.

It's fabulous.

I mean I, I didn't know that, you know, he did non fiction so well, but he is John Steinbeck.

So these three travelogues for sure, cricket has a bunch of them because like the, the sport lends itself so beautifully to these travel narratives.

Right.

Any test series, like you're basically covering like the, the geographic expanse of any country that you go to.

Yeah.

So.

And plus like because the game is structured such there is so much time to like, you know, kind of like digress, like get in and out of things as you know, that I like to do and you know, have these long interludes and talk about like the city at large or how it's lent itself to a certain thing.

So cricket travelogues, you, I mean, I think, you know, all the big ones.

But yeah, pundits.

Pundits remains an absolute favorite for sure.

The one on the 96 World cup by Mike Mar is also very, very good.

Warming is the shooting.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much, Aditya, for your time.

It's been an absolute pleasure we hope you do come back and share your lovely storytelling style with fascinating anecdotes just like you did today.

Thank you brother.

The pleasure was all mine and really honored that I managed to make it to this podcast of yours and can't wait to listen to more.

Thank you.