'Re-scan, too many plugs...'

South Africa breaking records

    It’s so loud the walls are vibrating with the sound of the traffic and the ‘bar-lounge’ next door. The streets are so bright with neon it makes your vision blur and the smells of the street food overpower the other fumes.

And the familiar yellow cabs of Kolkata. They don’t just belong to New York.

    As an overall assault on the senses, it ranks as high as any I’ve experienced in 30 years since my first visit to India. The vibrancy rips through concerns about getting a good night’s sleep, or any, because it doesn’t appear to be a concern for anybody else.

    The Hotel Majestic, in the Chandni Market district of Kolkata, is being refurbished and building work is ongoing at 9:15pm as I write. Despite the promise of the bright lights outside, the ground floor entrance is dust and rubble. As always, first impressions while budget-travelling India can be misleading. When you get to the room, it’s often a haven.

    There is an aggressive ceiling fan, an air-con and also a fridge, a relic from the times when fridges were invented. It’s looks filthy inside but it is just harmless rust. It fixed two Kingfisher lagers from warm to chilled in 30 minutes. No doubt with the help of plenty of the wrong gasses.

    Surprisingly, the journey from Pune to Kolkta came in at just 11 hours having been strongly tipped to challenge the current record of 12 hours between Chennai and Pune. Mostly due to a frenetic 30-minute changeover in Hyderabad.

    Having scanned everything even remotely electronic in order to get on to the plane in Pune, twice, there are 280 steps (I counted them) to the domestic ‘transit’ desk. Where you have to do everything again, despite never leaving the secure zone.

    Four different electric plug varieties in India require a lot of hand-luggage space. And they all have to be scanned. With the queue moving at snail’s pace and boarding for Kolkata having started 15 minutes earlier, nerves become frayed. Not because I’m desperate to get on that flight, or because I’m worried about waiting six hours for the next one, but that missed flights can (used to) mean waiting three days for your checked-in baggage to catch up with you. I always travel with a spare shirt, pants and tooth-brush in my laptop bag, but that’s only so far they will get you.

    The pace of life and the time it takes to complete simple tasks, especially on travel days, does at least provide moments to reflect on the magnitude of what the South African team and its individuals have achieved so far. There are too many records to record in full and, no doubt, MoC readers interested in stats will glean them elsewhere.

    Marco Jansen has taken 12 wickets in the first Power Play so far. That’s TWELVE. Before the tournament started, I suggested that 10 Power Play wickets by a single bowler during the course of the tournament might be enough to swing the World Cup their way. And Jansen has three, perhaps four, matches to go.

    The South African batters have not just hit the most sixes in this World Cup, but any World Cup. Already. Nobody is suggesting that they will falter before the final, but I am suggesting that South African supporters might consider appreciating the extraordinary cricket they have played so far.    

And finally, many thanks to tonight’s dinner chef. Just fancied something ‘light’ after the travel day and it was perfect. Will introduce you formally tomorrow, should I street-dine again.