It would be fair to say my experiences of Nagpur in India, are at best, bittersweet.
JL's Blog: Delhi Belly in Nagpur
After last week those feelings have been heightened, as my time there was spent lying in my hotel bed clutching my stomach and looking up at our medical staff with pleading eyes, hopeful for a reprieve from the dreaded ‘Delhi Belly’ and its related symptoms.
The last time I was lucky to be in Nagpur, the final result was one of the great weeks of my life, but the time in between was at the very least, testing.
Taking an excerpt from my last book, Australia You Little* Beauty, gives a clearer insight into Nagpur and my mixed experiences there.
“I am sure Nagpur is a nice place in many ways, but its charms weren’t really on show the night we rolled into town in October 2004.
"It was late at night, probably around midnight, and the temperature was stifling; somewhere in the mid 30s.
"The crowds – thousands upon thousands - were lining the road from the airport, joyful and welcoming.
"We felt like the Beatles but it felt typically claustrophobic by the time we battled through the masses to check into the aptly named Pride Hotel which stood at the end of a dead straight road from the airport, on the way into the city.
"When we staggered slowly off the team bus, there was another (10,000) Indians outside the hotel waving, chanting and snapping their cameras.
"By the time we entered the foyer of the Pride, there were hundreds more cricket loving fans in the foyer wanting autographs and photographs.
"The whole thing was so surreal that it felt like we were moving into twilight zone of the Eagle’s Hotel California.
"Even though we knew we had a great chance to conquer the final frontier, if you will, it would be fair to say the boys were a bit edgy and Nagpur wasn’t exactly the ideal place to calm the spirits.
"Arriving late on that first night we were not only tired and grumpy but most of us were also mightily hungry.
"Always unsure of what to eat and drink in India we were confidently ushered into the hotel restaurant which proudly offered Chinese cuisine.
"A serve of fried rice and the like sounded pretty tempting as a midnight snack before bed.
"Unfortunately this perceived feast quickly turned sour when one of the boys found a floundering cockroach in the soy sauce.
"Horrified, we left panicking at things to come for the rest of the week.
"Thankfully the ever prepared Master Chef Matthew Hayden had planned better than most and to my eternal gratitude came with his very own kitchen in a bag. In fact, make that, two bags.
"It’s well known that Haydos loves to cook, often visiting hotel and restaurant kitchens while on tour and serving meals for his mates and admirers, sometimes for charity.
"On this occasion however, he had hatched a master plan to cook for the three members of the exclusive Platinum Club of the Australian cricket team– Haydos, Damien Martyn and me.
"I don’t have any idea why he chose Nagpur to expose the secret of his two extra cricket bags, but Haydos turned up like a magician to help make this one of the weeks of our lives.
"Most players have one cricket bag on tour and I must admit I often wondered why my big mate was lugging an extra two around with him throughout the tour.
"Apart from his normal gear, and unbeknown to us, the second bag was bulging with kitchen machines and utensils while the third was packed full with tins and packets of food.
"Eyebrows were being raised when he banged and clanged his way on and off the team bus, leaving hotel staff totally confused about what they were bringing into their five-star hotel.
"It wasn’t until our first morning in Nagpur that he unraveled his hidden treasure chest.
"I was in the room across the hallway from Haydos and I woke up pretty early with the smell of freshly made bread drifting into my nostrils.
"I’d been kept awake most of the night by buzzing mosquitoes the size of birds and the trains going past my open window.
"My head was thumping and it was already hot and sticky at 6 o’clock in the morning.
"I walked out into the hallway to find where the smell was coming from and realized it was from Haydos’ room.
"Apart from the aroma of the bakery in room 127, I could also hear a familiar gurgling sound as I banged on his door. Matty opened it with a grin and showed me in.
"To my absolute amazement the magnificent bouquet of baking bread was coming from a bread maker that was perched up on the desk in his room.
"Mixed with the perfume of freshly baked bread was another familiar and delicious smell.
"Not only had he baked bread but he’d also managed to get hold of a Starbucks coffee machine and was brewing a pot of fresh Starbucks coffee.
"I rang Damien’s room, woke him up and got him to come down before anyone else got a whiff of what was going on.
"On that first morning in nightmarish Nagpur, we sat there, on the day before what was going to be one of the biggest Test matches of our careers, having fresh coffee with vegemite and butter on warm fresh bread.
"We could have been anywhere in the world and I found it hard to stop laughing and joking with my two coffee buddies from the Platinum Club.
"During that first breakfast Matty opened up the bags he’d prepared and started pulling out equipment as if from Doctor Who’s Tardis.
"Apart from the coffee machine and bread maker he had a gas-powered camp cooking stove, toasted sandwich maker, saucepans, a frying pan, tongs and utensils like some master chef.
"The other bag was full of food, mostly from England where he’d been playing in the Champion’s Trophy leading into India.
"He had pasta from Marks and Spencer, bags of Starbucks coffee, tins of vegetables and salmon and all sorts of herbs and spices - all brought and planned for that one week.
"From breakfast on day one our week ran like clockwork.
"Each night after play had finished I’d go back to the hotel and have a session with the yoga instructor who’d been brought on tour.
"Then I’d have a shower and call home to speak to Sue and the kids.
"By 7pm I was loose and feeling great and I could hear the hissing of the coffee machine and sizzling frying pan singing from Haydos’s room where he was brewing coffee and cooking up some feast. I was in heaven.
"You could smell the aroma down the hallway. Damien and I would head into his room and we’d sit there listening to music and ‘talking shit’ while having a fabulous meal.
"One night he made a salmon concoction, another night it was chicken and pasta or omelettes from eggs he’d scrounged up from the hotel kitchen.
"Some nights we organized a few cold bottles of beer, or cans of diet cokes, to help celebrate the day that had just been and to wash down the feast that had just been had.
"You can imagine the reaction of the other guys.
"Because they were battling the nuances of the hotel buffet, they were all banging on the door of 127 pleading to come in for a feed.
"Our only reply was to ignore and chide them at their lack of membership access.
"Even though there was no concrete membership requirement for the Platinum Club we made our own rules along the way making it nigh impossible for any of our team mates to come in and feast within our walls.
"Haydos’ kitchen was our sanctuary in a place where there was not much to do but make our own fun and rules.
"Punter was the other recognized member of the Platinum Club but as he wasn’t on tour at the time, we took pity on Victorian Brad Hodge who was one of the younger tourists on the trip.
"Although he wasn’t allowed to feast each night, we gave him a gold club membership which meant he could come in sit and chill out with us on some of those long Nagpurian nights.
"Having been in his shoes many times I know how hard a tour is for those players not in the starting eleven so the least we could do was look after the young fella with a few laughs and a cold beer or cup of freshly brewed coffee.
"Even Glenn McGrath who was playing his 100th Test in Nagpur was turned away with a smile and swift kick up the backside.
"To this day he often chides Haydos on I about our ‘stupid’ Platinum Club and the fact that he was discriminated against because he was a bowler and not one of the chosen few to be allowed to enter the secret kitchen of Haydos’s tiny, sparse room in that Pride Hotel.
"Then and now we often joke about the effect such ingenuity had on that memorable tour and the result it seemed to have on the field as well.
"Marto in particular, shone. He made 114 in the first innings and another 97 in the second and reckoned later that it was all due to Haydos’ cooking.
"As the game progressed we even talked about what had been the night before, or what Haydos had in store for us that night coming.
"Imagine the hothouse environment batting in front of 50,000 screaming, chanting Indian supporters, some of whom have a habit of lighting fires around the ground, and here are Haydos, Marto and I scoring runs and between deliveries talking about what we’re having for dinner that night.
"It says something about the relationship of the Platinum Club and the ease we had of being in each other’s company.
"Such friendship was indicative of the camaraderie within the Australian cricket team which I am sure was the catalyst behind us conquering that final frontier of finally beating India on their home soil.
"When the pressure was on we were always well led and the friendships were like the glue that kept everything together; ESPECIALLY in the most pressurized environments."
When I retired from Test cricket, winning that series was definitely the highest point of my career.
Against all odds we set an Australian flag on the summit of out Mount Everest and as we celebrated hard into that night, I sat back with a freezing cold beer and was reminded of a famous line from Cold Chisel’s song Flame Trees.
‘And I am happy, sitting at a table with old friends, and see which one of us can tell the biggest lies...’
Call me a simple bloke, but my Nagpur experience told me that to be content in life all you need is a couple of mates, some good music a decent feed, and of course, a Test series triumph in India.
‘Underneath the Southern Cross I Stand...”
While beating New Zealand on Friday wasn’t necessarily a lifetime achievement for this team, it was a very good stepping stone in this World Cup.
Defeating Zimbabwe was one thing, overpowering our ANZAC brothers is another and the boys will gain confidence from that.
Since the Vodafone Ashes defeat, one of the most promising signs within the group has been the growing camaraderie.
There is a lot of laughter and good humour here. Add to this a strong work ethic and increasing confidence and the signs are good.
This said, we are all aware of the tough opposition.
The dramatic tie between India and England was a welcome reminder to us of just how tight this tournament will be.
With the wounded Sri Lanka next up on Saturday, we will need to adapt to the extraordinarily humid conditions and fanatical home crowd if we are to continue our run.
There is a long way to go and with the skilful Dougy Bollinger returning home with an ankle injury, we will have to wait and see who is coming in to reinforce our stocks.
Whoever it is, will be arriving to a happy team who will be working hard this week, in anticipation of one of our biggest games of this World Cup.
From Colombo
JL
For more about Justin Langer visit http://www.justinlanger.com.au/