On the Road with Zaltzman

My first full day in Dhaka began with a fortuitously-timed rickshaw ride (my debut on the transport mode of choice for all right-thinking international cricket captains these days), which dropped me at the Shere Bangla National Stadium just as the Bangladesh squad was arriving in its team bus. I have never seen a bus earn such a rousing reception just for turning up somewhere, not even an unusually delayed N159 night bus from Trafalgar Square to Streatham. I just hope the Tigers’ team bus can cope with the levels of expectation on its journey to the stadium on the big day today. It would be an enormous shame if, when the pressure of a nation is on it, and with the powerful Indian bus looming in its wing-mirror, the Bangladesh bus takes a wrong turn and ends up taking the team to a cinema or furniture shop instead.

I imagine all cricket fans are hoping that Shakib Al Hasan and his team are inspired rather than intimidated by the frenzy of hopeful excitement in their nation. Personally, I usually wilt under the pressure if my wife is watching me boil an egg, so I cannot imagine what it must be like for a young, emerging team to shoulder the aspirations of their country. Even the scoreboard looked excited on Friday morning.

If Bangladesh perform well against India, even in defeat, I think they will have a strong tournament. India should be too strong.

I arrived in Dhaka on Thursday evening, to scenes of understandably wild jubilation. People thronged the streets, horns were honked at my taxi as it weaved through the traffic, the route from the airport was festooned with flashing lights, joyous rickshaws laden with cheering cricket fans sped past. All for the humble author of a humble cricket blog. This place must really love cricket.

It has been suggested by other members of the ESPNcricinfo team that, given that my arrival coincided with the opening ceremony, some of the festivities might not have been exclusively in my honour. Some even went so far as to suggest that street-thronging and horn-honking are by no means unusual events in this buzzingly excited city. I will let others be the judge of that. Suffice it to say that, as I recall, there was not quite the same sizzle of anticipation when England hosted the 1999 tournament. There was barely even a fizzle of anticipation. There seems little chance of the World Cup slipping under the public radar this time.

Little could be read into the team captains’ opening ceremony rickshaw ride in terms of predicting how the tournament will progress. Strauss was giving little away about the likely make-up of the England XI for their opening game with the Dutch in Nagpur as he sat in his rickshaw, waving at the crowd, whilst Shahid Afridi seemed unperturbed by the recent turbulence in his nation’s cricket as he sat in his rickshaw, waving at the crowd. Mahendra Singh Dhoni sat in his rickshaw, waving at the crowd with quiet confidence, whilst Ricky Ponting sat in his rickshaw, waving at the crowd as if he had fully recovered from the devastating psychological sledgehammer blow of losing Nathan Hauritz to injury. It’s all very tactically cagey at this stage.