Fishy tales, water features and fourth-floor lawns
Some of India’s stadiums have had some surprising design features. In Delhi there is an entire stand that appears to be drunk, and most of the media centre is off limits to media or indeed anyone else, thanks to the extraordinary amount of space occupied by the most inexplicable of fourth-floor water features, a babbling fountain surrounded by a generous lawn of plastic grass. In Bengaluru they have a random fish-containing device – fishtank would definitely underplay it, but aquarium might be a bit over the top – built into a column of the clubhouse, while just around the corner is their tribute to Rahul Dravid, the Indian opener popularly known as The Wall. It is a wall.
Shedding light on Maxwell-Warner lychee spat
Discussing the state of the World Cup in Tunday Kababi, Lucknow’s most famous and almost certainly most hectic restaurant, on Friday night, I was surprised to be informed that Australia’s Glenn Maxwell and David Warner had fallen out over lychees. Lychees, I asked? Yes, lychees, I was told. Warner really likes them, but Maxwell detests them. Well, they are a very divisive fruit, I reasoned, resolving to seek further information about the incident as soon as possible. Anyway, it turned out they had disagreed not about lychees but about light shows – when a ground is cast into darkness during a drinks break before coloured lasers trace patterns across the outfield and the floodlights do some extravagant flashing – and I had simply misheard. Maxwell thinks they cause players “shocking headaches” and are “a horrible, horrible idea” that is “great for the fans, horrible for the players”, while Warner enthused that he “absolutely loved the light show” and “it’s all about the fans”. But what contributed to my credulity was that Maxwell does seem to have some strong opinions on food: this week the Times of India published a special collection of recipes of his favourite Indian cuisine, after the one-man Australian run rampage let slip that he liked butter chicken and naan bread.
Mum’s the word for Curran
Many of the England players’ families arrived while the team was in Mumbai, but Sam Curran had to wait until they had moved on to Bengaluru before his mum turned up. She found out her offspring wasn’t going to be in the team and promptly left again.
