Rex Clementine
in Hyderabad

India’s airports in the last ten years have improved so much. They are top class. Delhi, Bombay, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Trivandrum and many other international and even smaller domestic airports have come a long way.

Delhi for example immigration and customs will take you less than 15 minutes to clear. Yes, 15 minutes. Our neighbours have become so efficient. Australia and England have much to learn from India. You spend easily an hour or even more at Heathrow, Manchester, Melbourne, Sydney or Adelaide to clear the formalities. Therefore, don’t judge India by Madras. The south Indian city of course is still in 1970s; grumpy immigration, lousy duty free, unclean toilets and total chaos.

Bangalore can be ranked world’s best airport and across the Kaveri river Madras can be categorized as the world’s worst airport.

Of course, Delhi is of immense importance both politically and for cricketing reasons.

Some of Sri Lanka’s best moments on the cricket field have come in the Indian capital like the first ever ODI hundred by a Sri Lankan when Roy Dias achieved the milestone in 1982. The old timers are still obsessed with Roy’s class and style.

A frequent question that is asked when you travel to India is how come we keep producing such elegant batters. Be it Anura Tennakoon, Roy Dias, Aravinda de Silva, Marvan Atapattu or Mahela Jayawardene, we have them in plenty. Not bad for a tiny island. You keep telling them that it is the quality of the coaches in the country. Which is why Aravinda harps on that we need to invest a lot on coaching because they eventually produce our match winners.

Delhi pops up some interesting topics too. It seems when Sri Lanka declared on 952 for six at RPS instead of going for the magical figure of 1000 runs in 1997, India’s coach Ajit Wadekar had appealed not to go for that milestone and declare instead. Sri Lanka apparently didn’t want to antagonize the big brother. The claim needs to be verified though. Soon after the World Cup, good chunk of time will be dedicated speaking to our heroes of 1990s to find out whether there was any message asking not to achieve the milestone of 1000. Or else, did Sri Lanka put India out of the misery on their own.

Talking of Delhi, this was also the venue where Sanath Jayasuriya ended local boy Manjor Prabhakar’s international career following the hammering in the World Cup fixture.

Apparently after the Jayasuriya mauling for the next game between the countries – the World Cup semi-final, India ended up spending the whole team meeting setting plans and traps for Jayasuriya. It worked. Both him and his partner in crime Rumesh Kaluwitharana fell in the first over. India had blundered by not preparing for a certain P.A. de Silva. The rest is history as the maestro came up with a stunning innings to knock India out of the World Cup.

Next stop is Hyderabad, the capital city of Indian state of Telangana. It is also known as the city of pearls.

When India gained independence in 1947, the Nizam of Hyderabad decided to remain independent not wanting to join the Indian union. However, a year later, after government intervention, Hyderabad also became part of India

The city famous for its biryanis has produced some of India’s finest cricketing talents, particularly some of their finest captains.

M.L. Jaisimha, Tiger Pataudi and Mohammad Azharuddin are all from Hyderabad and so is VVS Laxman, one of greats of Indian cricket.

Azhar heads the Hyderabad Cricket Association and could one day go onto become the President of the Indian Cricket Board.

The traffic in Hyderabad can be a killer and that is why most people use the metro service, which is quick, clean and efficient. It’s a pity that Sri Lanka said no to a metro in the capital city on flimsy grounds a few years ago.

An efficient light rail service will certainly ease out the traffic in the city and the sooner Sri Lanka finish it the better it is.

The Pakistan team has been in Hyderabad for the last two weeks and there’s tight security around the team. The relations between the nuclear armed neighbours have remained tensed since the terror attack in Bombay in 2009 and bilateral cricket series between the countries have ceased. The only time they play sports against each other is at ICC or ACC events.

There is lot of criticism that visas for Pakistani fans have been delayed by the Indian government. It is easy to run down the Indian government but if you properly analyze things you’ll find out that 14 Pakistani fans landed in Hyderabad prior to the tournament and authorities are struggling to trace their whereabouts.