Bangalore

“You simply must see a cricket match,” my colleague Raghunandan insisted, because, “The Indians are mad about cricket like the Germans are mad about football.” We’ll see, I thought. Two days later, during one of my rambles through Bangalore I found myself standing in front of the Karnataka Institute of Cricket. In the midday heat between one and two, they were intensively training the duel between the bowler and the batsman on ten pitches.

The players looked very professional in their matching blue uniforms. I entered the training grounds, watched for a while, took some photos, and asked a few questions of an older trainer who was just leaving the office. He sent me in to an office full of trophies for the boss, Irfan Sait, himself a former professional player, was inside. He was assistant coach of the Indian men’s team for the World Cup in 1996 and today holds a variety of functions in international cricket sport, as the certificates on the wall revealed. Coincidentally, two stars from his women’s team were with him: Karuna Jain (26) and Vanitha V.R. (22). Both of them play in India’s women’s team. As I learned, the institute is the only training place in Bangalore where women and men train together – otherwise they train separately.

I took a photo of the two star players and the cup they won in 2011 for the women’s cricket league of the state of Karnataka. Both of them are professional athletes. “It’s a good job, well paid,” Karuna confided in me. She begins with training every day at 6:30: first in the fitness studio, then five to six hours playing cricket, and in evening back to the fitness studio once again. As long as her health permits she aims to play actively and then hopes to work as a trainer. There is nothing about her sport that she doesn’t like. But, then she did think of something: “Sometimes the matches last six hours. Playing six hours in the sun is the hardest part.”

More than 1,000 players of ages between 6 and 25 years train at the private Karnataka Institute of Cricket. They come from all over India and are coached by 40 trainers from around the world. Talented young players stay at least one year and can live in one of four hostels. Training is non-stop on 365 days a year, there are five two-and-a-half-hour innings every day between 6:30 AM and 9 PM. One whole year of training with one unit daily costs 17,000 rupees (270 euros), two units daily cost 20,000 rupees (317 euros).

Now that I had chanced upon the topic of cricket, I wanted to see a proper match at Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium. The first attempt failed because it rained that evening and the match was cancelled. For the second attempt it was as hot as ever and a match with the Indian Premier League was scheduled: the Royal Challengers Bangalore against the Kings XI Punjab. Srikant Sharma, sport photographer at the Deccan Herald, got me a ticket and took me to the stadium, which has 40,000 seats. Already two hours before the match began at 8 o’clock the access roads were jammed, which is no wonder because it is always rush hour in the evening in Bangalore. As for football in Germany, hoards of fans streamed into the stadium. Outside t-shirts, pennants, and clappers were being sold for the Royal Challengers Bangalore, or you could have your face painted in their colours. Following security controls, I had to leave my water bottle at the stadium entrance, just like in Germany.

The tickets costs from 300 rupees (a little under 5 euros) to 60,000 rupees (952 euros), but the latter are catered seats in the VIP lounge. My ticket cost 825 rupees (13 euros). I sat on a plastic chair next to two Indian women (sisters) and their children. Some of the children also play cricket. Their husbands did not have time to come, were busy at work, the women told me. To be honest I did not really understand the rules of cricket. Yet it was great fun to experience the atmosphere in the full stadium, the cheers, and flag-waving when the home team made important points. I at least quickly noticed that Chris Gayle, a Jamaican with long, black dreadlocks, is the idolized star of the Royal Challengers. During the first inning the home team entered the pitch as the batters. This means only their two batsmen played, while all the players of the Punjab team were on the field as bowlers. Gayle and his teammate Virat Kohli, the two batsmen for the Royal Challengers Bangalore, attempted to hit the balls as far as possible and thereby gain points (runs), while the Punjab Kings first had the role of bowlers. When I saw Kohli in his full gear in an interview on the video wall before the game began, by the way, I thought he had a certain similarity to Borussia-Dortmund coach Jürgen Klopp.

“Don’t you want any dinner?” one of my Indian seat neighbours asked me at some point. What I didn’t know was that dinner was included in the ticket price. It was served up on the tier. I joined the queue and was given a full-course “meal” from a row of large pots, consisting of various types of rice, vegetables, meat, sauces, and desserts.

The match lasted until about 11:15 PM; I did not stay to the very end. The many parents and grandparents with their children did stay, for it is now summer holidays in India. In the nerve-wracking finale, the team from Bangalore sadly lost, I read the next morning in the newspaper.