Virat, Rohit 'Searching for Relevance?'

Look out for 'Mom's Veg' at the VCA Stadium

Initial impressions after 24 hours or so confirm that the SA20 has, indeed, established a small footprint in the Indian market. More like the wispy impressions a crab makes scuttling across beach sand than actual footprints, but certainly more than the other leagues competing simultaneously for Indian airtime, which have landed like butterflies.

The Qualifier Match between MI Cape Town and the Paarl Royals was on Star TV in the hotel in Nagpur, albeit on channel 455, but there was no sign of the others. One can’t be sure if this a good thing, but presumably it is. There was a sports magazine programme on another channel in which Dinesh Karthik and the Paarl Royals were being discussed.

For all Supersport’s production skills and expertise, the neatness of the packaging and even the quality of the cricket, the tournament won’t make it big unless the Indian market embraces it as their ‘little brother’. It will also need the BCCI to treat it as a little brother – one which can be controlled and has no ambitions beyond being a favoured junior. So far, so good.

England face India in the first of three ODIs at the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) Stadium here tomorrow and it would appear the tourists have suffered no emotional bruising after the 4-1 belting they took during the preceding T20I series. “We did some good things at various times so there’s no need to change our approach,” said captain Jos Buttler. But they will certainly need to do more good things, more often. And prevent India doing even better things, as often as possible.

The TalkSport commentary team has kindly invited me back for the series, for which I am grateful and indebted. We are sharing the Indian team’s hotel. Or at least, parts of it. The gym and swimming pool are off-limits to other guests except when the boys-in-Blue are at training, which seems inconsiderate given the rates people are paying. The hotel manager made an ‘exception’ for me to use the fitness facilities and when I arrived the place was literally empty. In fairness to the team, it’s a hotel initiative rather than a player or management one.

Veneration towards Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli is always obvious by the hundreds of fans gathered outside the hotel, held back 200 yards from the entrance by dozens of police behind temporary riot fencing, and it obviously extends to the management of the Radisson. But fandom evidently does not extend to all of the media with the Times of India running an unglossed preview suggesting that both men would be searching for ‘ODI Relevance’ during the forthcoming series. Gulp.

The VCA is an intensely proud organisation and venue which attempts to maximise every big international occasion it is granted. It has produced a few extremely ‘awkward’ pitches in the last decade, some made to order, and there have been crowd problems, too. But if the live, green grass on the surface today – and the thousands of police in rehearsal – are anything to go by, the locals have decided to things ‘their way’ this time.

Which means strict crowd control (draconian by other cricket standards) and what looks like a belter of a pitch. As always, spectators won’t be allowed to bring a host of prohibited items into the crowd (including their own food and water) but, if the menu at the concession counter one floor below the commentary box delivers on its promises, there’ll be plenty to choose from… and there’s always cricket from SA to watch if the live one goes bad quickly.