AFTER four days of reasonably durable sunshine, the rain finally comes pouring down in Trinidad’s Port-of-Spain. In the Caribbean, even the rain gods occasionally heed the demands of cricket, and it’s no surprise that they delayed their fury to allow two drizzle-interrupted one-dayers with the visiting Indian team. In any case, it sets the mood for a little homage that must be paid before leaving the island, a quick dash to Tunapuna, on the capital’s outskirts, accompanied by a well-thumbed copy of Beyond A Boundary, CLR James’s memoir about personal readings and West Indian identity.

The deafening rhythms of the steel bands are now echoes only in the mind, Lord Beginner’s calypsos have been drained of all political content, and the parties in the stands are now just memories that will bind a long, winding month. At this moment Tunapuna appears to be where it all began, and where it is, appropriately, ending: A return to the imagination, a rendezvous with the spirit of a little boy who’d watch village cricket from his window and would one day write the grandest book on the game.

Cricket travellers pace their itinerary to a unique cartography. They thread in and out of cricket tours to touch special reference points, to give their wanderings a framework, and to gather entire cultures, sprawling sporting traditions and all the significant trivia of history. At a time when a tourist’s choices vary between kitschy exotica and the beige-carpet-and-black-granite sameness of hotels, one place begins to look very much like the other. Not to the cricket traveller. The game’s exaggerated interrogations of national character and steadfastly maintained rituals give the traveller hooks to connect with local cultures, as well as the time to arrange an exploration of local sights and entertainment.

In other words, cricket is not just a game between flannelled superstars. It is not another reality television show. It is our opportunity to be participant observers. It is our guide to a shadow sociology of the stands. It is a window to the host city’s soul.

Calcutta’s post-Independence class politics, for instance, was shadowed in the 1930s when preparations to host the first Test were on. Richard Cashman, in Patrons, Players And The Crowds, a study of Indian cricket, recalls that two weeks before the Test, a fire demolished a huge section of the awning at Eden Gardens. It was believed to be the work of an arsonist who was agitated that the Green Stand, accessed with cheaper tickets, was open to the blistering sun.

Shivaji Park, Mumbai The nursery of Indian cricket
Tunapuna, Trinidad Catch the view from CLR James’ window
Iqbal Park, Lahore Wasim Akram’s old playground
Chail, Himachal Pradesh The world’s highest cricket ground
Barbados Gary Sobers’ island has had the most Test players per sq km
Chepauk MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai Spend time with the most sporting spectators
Nevill Ground, Tunbridge Wells Amidst the burst of rhododendrons, imagine Kapil Dev’s 175 that was never filmed
Bombay Gymkhana Site of
India’s first home Test
Bowral, Australia Do the Don
Gully Cricket A few minutes at a roadside game, anytime, anywhere

Even today, the liveliest action in a cricket ground can be found among the spectators most exposed to the sun. At the Antigua Recreation Ground, they call that stretch “independence avenue”—this is where the barrackers work up their chants, where they hoot hysterically when an umpire miscalls a no-ball, where they dance and sing without respite, where food and drink are passed around to friend and stranger. This is from where they keep the men out in the middle honest.

Bombay too once had such a tradition. It has been written of the East Stand at the Brabourne Stadium: “In terms of cricket, Bombay’s East Stand is as famous a landmark as the Hill at Sydney. To secure the approval of the East Stand is almost as good as securing a place in Wisden.”

But as television becomes the final arbiter of style and substance, perhaps the cricket traveller’s zone of excursion must necessarily be enlarged. For instance, in Mumbai one must exit Wankhede’s smart environs and head for Shivaji Park in Dadar. Here one will see five-year-old boys sporting towering pads. In their cherubic concentration, one understands how a little boy with curls became a baby-voiced exponent of the world’s most graceful straight drive.