From Ewan Day-Collins, UK

Sustained success has never been something particularly associated with England. While other more tenacious nations choose the path of pragmatism, seeking longevity in their position of power, England never seem to have consistency in their play. Supporting England has been a trial of patience, the pain occasionally forgotten when victorious moments such as the Ashes victory in 2005 occur. These moments precede a sharp snap back to reality when yet another defeat soon turns up to spoil the joyous celebrations.

A sense of optimism is stimulated by just a small sign of possible power, before yet more tribulations soon quash that feeling. It is these inklings of brilliance that keep the fans and the fanatical Barmy Army turning up, judicious beliefs, sometimes seemingly obvious outcomes that are often overtaken and nullified by unrealistic thoughts of prosperity.

We lambaste the players, the coach, the ECB, when things go wrong, of course. But the constant flux in results creates rapid forgiveness, before more accusations are thrown at whoever is seen fit to receive them.

Being a loyal supporter of England is not difficult, however. Our craving for brilliance, the expectation often being ridiculous, always remains. This sense of false hope is wonderful, occasionally backed up by the players’ achievements. The few moments we enter sporting utopia fuels our desire for more, and more, and even more of the same. We thrive on the sensation of tranquillity, when all goes right for England, though this perfect equilibrium is rarely durable, rocked too often by our own security and complacency.

Supporting England is, as they say, a journey – an incredibly changeable one at that. Each series is given a grand branding, which too often it fails to live up to. We reward our players dutifully if they win however, many receiving MBEs, knighthoods and open-top bus parades.

If they do not succeed in their quest, we discard them with unwavering ruthlessness. We fling them to the wayside, before anticipating the next, untried batch to be winners, subsequently erasing the memories of past troubles.

Each country has their unique culture of cricketing fans. Some are faithful and partisan, some are calm and prudent, and some soon lose patience and vociferously voice just that. England also has its own identity, though it is difficult to clearly define. A team in fluctuation, a cautious board and unrealistic expectations from the fans often ends in a lack of clarity.

If a player appeases and wins over the supporters but then – like Andrew Strauss currently – has a lean patch, we will spare him the slaughterhouse, choosing to be faithful and kind. However, if a player we dislike is in a rough place we will respond quite differently, though always with deference and respect for his attempts. This is the English way.

As with any country, the emotion of supporting England also changes rapidly. If, as England supporters, we had been experiencing self-pity before the new guard of Flower and Strauss took control of the reigns, we are now firmly in a state of assurance, we trust in guaranteed success, catalysed by the whitewash against India on home soil.

We have confidence in the team, though only continuing success will ensure their security as past experiences have detailed. Now we look ahead with the faith that the team will do well, after so many years of poor performances, punctuated with brief moments of greatness. We seek more of this greatness, and hope it is more regularly achieved.

As an England supporter, I do not see the future will trepidation now but with hope, a hope this time supported with evidence. I am not ashamed, when in the company of Australians, to declare my nationality, though I am wise enough to maintain a clear sense of reality: the England team must not become ostentatious or pretentious, but must exert its authority as the world’s No. 1 in the Test arena.

Perhaps now, speaking as a supporter inspired rather than embarrassed, England will make up for years of austerity. But we must not enter the dangerous land of complacency, otherwise, once more, our expectations will not be duly met.

From Arish Rajan, India

I have never watched cricket in a stadium.

I remember when Sachin made his debut. That was around the time I started paying attention to cricket. It is now 22 years and he will be gone soon. Even Dravid and Laxman will be gone soon. They have been wonderful heroes. For once I decided I must go to a stadium. I must see them bat once in real life, before they go away.

I live in Pune, a few hours from Mumbai, making the Wankhede Test my obvious choice. I bought a season ticket via the internet, but of course work does not allow you to take five days off. So day three was chosen. A full day of India batting and maybe even the amazing century of centuries might happen.

Getting inside the stadium

In India, it is still not easy to get inside a cricket stadium. I woke up at 4.30am. Took a 5.30am bus to Mumbai from Pune. Reached Dadar (Mumbai's transport hub) and then took the local train to Churchgate station, which adjoins Wankhede stadium. Reached Churchgate around 9.40am.

India still loves Sachin and so it still loves Test cricket. The road outside the Churchgate station was full of people desperately looking for tickets. I felt great having the prized ticket in my hand.

The first step is to submit your printed online confirmation to get the actual ticket. This was luckily easy for me. I saw that office quickly. But if you are unlucky then you could be roaming around for half an hour searching for it.

The next step is to find your gate to get inside the stadium. For me this was a one-kilometre walk around. There was a long queue at the gate. Ahead in the queue, I see something crazy. College kids just throw down their bags on the pavement, and enter the stadium.

I find out that bags are not allowed in. Also, they do not have a locker facility. There were more than a hundred bags lying on the roadside. I find it crazy that you have to leave your bag lying there for a whole day, and hope it’ll be safe. That too in Mumbai.

I was also tempted to leave my bag there on the roadside, but I had made some elaborate preparations for this big day. There was a camera and a binocular in my bag and I didn’t dare leave it on the pavement.

Churchgate station has no lockers. Everybody is wary of getting entangled in any terror activity. So, no shopkeeper will keep a bag for the day, even for 100 rupees. There is no hotel nearby.

So I have to go to CST station, two kilometres away. The clerk there would not take a bag without a lock. So I buy a lock. Then I make a hole in the bag, so that the bag can appear to be "locked". Then I rush back to Wankhede and am greeted by an even longer queue. It is more than half a kilometre long. It is past 12 now. The queue hardly moves. For once I am angry with this country, absolutely furious. Nothing, absolutely nothing works here. It is 12.30 now. The first session is over.

Watching the cricket

But two sessions are still there.

In the queue everyone had only one thought. Sachin ki entry nahi miss honee chahiye. Jaldi chalo andar. (Can’t miss Sachin’s entry, get in soon.)
It was probably like the anticipation for an Amitabh movie in 80s or a Rajni movie today.

I get inside and find that Gambhir and Dravid are batting. Entry miss nahi huwi (didn’t miss the entry).

The first thing that strikes you is the beauty of the ground. A cricket stadium has a beautiful atmosphere inside.

The second thing was the size of cricketers. They were not special in anyway. Just average guys. Some of the West Indies players are really small and scrawny.

Test matches seem to have quite a relaxed pace. The West Indies fielders stood around lazily.

We used to play some good competitive weekend cricket with tennis ball. Many of us were passionate guys, running fast singles and chasing the ball hard to save the boundary. Then there would be a few lazy ones who would try to get a fielding position in the shade where the ball doesn’t come often.

The fielders on the ground looked like the lazy ones in our team.

A real cricket ground is also not very large. Our weekend cricket ground was almost as big, though we did not have runs behind the stumps.

Things started brightly. It is pleasant to watch cricket in the winter sun. Dravid reached 13,000 runs in Test cricket. The cheers went on and on. I am glad I could be a part of it. Then he reached 1000 runs for this year, more cheers.

Gambhir hits a couple of crisp boundaries. The crowd became affectionate and started calling him Gauti and then Gautiya with a Mumbai lisp. Then he gets out, and the crowd knows who is going to come.

The affection is forgotten. The West Indies team and the crowd, everybody is happy. Actually the crowd is happier than the West Indies team.

Sachin walks in. I think most of us will recognise him even if he wears a mask. We know each of his little mannerisms. The way he walks, stands, jogs or looks up to the sky. The crowd erupts. The cheers go on and on. For some time, each of his runs are cheered.

Test cricket seems to be a game of skill. You hardly feel any power. It is all timing. Frankly you end up thinking that batting is quite easy. Let me go in and face an over, you think.

Bowling looks quite difficult. Whatever they do, batsmen easily hit them around. Ravi Rampaul though was able to send down a few good bouncers.

Then Dravid got out. Everybody feels for him. The crowd in a stadium is different from people watching TV cricket. They love the players more and criticise less. I think many were like me, coming to see these three heroes for one last time.

Laxman comes in and I think he gets almost as hearty a welcome as Sachin. Vee Vee S ... Vee Vee S... Vee Vee S. Inside the stadium, this chanting resonates and creates an eerie effect.

Batting continues to look easy. Poor Fidel Edwards gets tonked around every time he comes in with his extra pace. Then batsmen slow down towards the end of day. You could easily doze off around this time. But it is a happy contented sleep.

The day is over, but we get an unexpected treat. Virat Kohli and Dhoni come out for practice. We stand around for a while. Some girl keeps screaming Virat … Virat.

It is time to leave now, and a long journey back home. It was 11.30 pm when I reach home.
A kind of warm happy afterglow envelops me.

Back in college one used to be really happy. While leaving college, I had thought that I would re-create that feeling again and again. Today I have to admit that I haven’t been able to do so.

But once in a while you come across a really happy day. Like this one. Cricket in the stadium is a far more beautiful sport than what you see in TV. Try it once.

From Arun Sagar, France

I once sat next to Rahul Dravid. Now, if this was being written by one of the illustrious group of cricketers, former cricketers, cricket writers and journalists who contribute to this site, that opening sentence would be followed by an interesting story or tidbit: ‘I once sat next to Rahul Dravid in the Lord’s dressing room, and he seemed …’; or ‘I once sat next to Rahul Dravid on the flight home from the Australia tour, and he said …’, and so on. But in my case, that first line pretty much says it all. I once sat next to Rahul Dravid. Or rather, I sat behind him, with my back to his.

It was 2010, in a London restaurant where I had dropped in to visit the owner, an old friend. Dravid was there with people who knew people I knew, and so it should have been the easiest thing in the world to get an introduction and have a brief chat, maybe even get a photograph. Instead, flustered and tongue-tied, I sat down at the table behind his and ordered a drink. What could I possibly say to Rahul Dravid? A gushing ‘Oh God I’m so thrilled to meet you!’? A confident handshake, a casual ‘Hi Rahul. Big fan.’?

And so I said nothing, and later on that evening someone else took that celebrity photograph. They posted it online; you can’t see me, I’m out of the frame on the right. I can’t help secretly wishing that I had snuck into it somehow.

As you’ve probably guessed, Dravid is my favourite cricketer. My only other brush with cricketing royalty was as a small boy, when I was introduced to Lala Amarnath in a tailor’s shop in Connaught Place. I didn’t know anything about cricket at the time, and I didn’t know who this bespectacled old man was. But twenty years of cricket-obsession later, the sight of Dravid up close, in flesh, had produced in me the physiological symptoms one usually associates with schoolgirls meeting rock stars. In fact, I almost wished I was a schoolgirl, so that I would have license to behave like one.

Being a fan of a sport or of a sportsman is a state of mind that’s hard to communicate to someone who isn’t. Among people who spend their time browsing Cricinfo, who rhapsodize about straight drives, who stay up at odd hours to watch Test matches in which their country isn’t even playing - that communication isn’t needed. Most of us here, I imagine, are cricket-obsessed, cricket-lovers, cricket fans, call it what you will.

The complicated mix of emotions involved in this obsession, this fandom, is implicitly shared. I’m sure I’m not the only Indian one who, when he or she hears ‘1998’, thinks first not of anything from their own lives but of Sachin at Sharjah. That was the year I gave my Class 10 Board exams and went on my first trip abroad, but my most vivid memory is that straight six off Kasprowicz. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who still gets the chills watching and re-watching those twin hundreds, somehow getting excited even though I know exactly what’s going to happen next.

But try explaining this to someone who isn’t really a cricket fan and who isn’t a fan of any other sport. Try explaining why the failure to chase 120-odd in Barbados in 1997 still hurts if you were an India fan at the time. It doesn’t just ‘rankle’ or ‘disappoint’; it hurts. I don’t remember much else about 1997, but I remember the details of that innings, the umpiring error, the airy shots. It is a painful memory of a deeply painful experience.

Or, to the newest generation, try explaining why Sydney 2008 was so traumatic. Or why Perth was so cathartic. Try explaining, actually putting into words, what exactly was so special about Sachin scoring the winning runs to bring up his match-winning, fourth-innings big-score-chasing century in Chennai in 2008. But your non-sports-loving audience, no matter how intelligent, open-minded and sensitive they are, no matter how well-read in other fields, just won’t get it. Oh they’ll ‘understand’, they’ll explain, they’ll rationalise, contextualise … but they won’t really get it, feel it. They won’t be able to comprehend, to truly grasp how events in the field can have such a profound and lasting effect on your emotions.

And this gets even worse when one tries to explain being a fan of individual sportsmen, especially in a team sport. When facts and figures, lists and averages don’t work, you’ll find yourself coming back to the adjectives you started with, and desperately seeking new ones – stupendous, magnificent, satisfying, gratifying, fantastic, incredible. You’ll add accents and emphasis. If you’re writing, you’ll italicise.

And this is hardly a surprise. There are many things, emotions, experiences that are hard to explain to someone who hasn’t lived them. It’s not easy to describe why a certain song, painting or film is so profoundly moving. Not to mention more fundamental emotions; think of what falling in love is like – try explaining that to someone who hasn’t felt it.

Of course, people far more insightful and eloquent than I have written reams about sport and sports-men and -women, how they embody our strengths and our frailties, how and why we can live their victories and defeats, their triumphs and disasters. And many have written about individuals, about Dravid for instance, extolling his many virtues, evoking why he is a uniquely human – as opposed to superhuman – hero, why he personifies all the best qualities not just of sportsmen but of his sport itself.

But I suspect these writers are most (best?) appreciated by those who know these feelings, who recognise them within themselves. Just as one can divide the world into people who know what falling in love feels like and those who don’t, I suspect one can divide the world into those who know what it means to idolise a sportsman, and those who don’t. In fact the schism is even more profound, because one can always be surprised by falling in love for the first time, while sport is either written into one’s DNA or it isn’t.

And so, as you’ve probably noticed, I’ve embarked on one long digression from what I really wanted to try to write about. I wanted to describe exactly what I felt that London afternoon, with the sunlight on that Soho street outside and the cool drink in my hand, as I strained to hear the conversation at the next table. That trip to England was a memorable one for me for many reasons that would be easy to explain - personal reasons, professional reasons. But what I remember most vividly, with both pleasure and regret – poor inadequate words - is how fast my heart was beating, and how I could not bring myself to say hello to this man, this man I worshipped so, sitting just a few inches away from me.

From Sankaran Krishna, United States

Over the years, like many of you, I have been alternately exhilarated and exasperated by the reader’s response section at Cricinfo. It is a cauldron of emotion, over-reaction, jingoism, flames, and for all that, also an entertaining theatre showcasing the culture of sports in the different cricket-playing countries of the world. Based on a completely unscientific methodology - impressionism - and a nice single-malt to loosen up the writing muscles, I now offer my typology of Indian cricket fans.

First, we have the Capitalist. Forget about Marx, markets and modes of production, this Capitalist believes in dealing only in capital letters. His first act on getting onto his computer is to hit the “Caps Lock” key. He is blissfully unaware that (a) this is the equivalent of shouting at the top of your voice, and (b) most readers immediately, and quite sensibly, skip his post altogether. The Capitalist’s most used punctuation mark is the exclamation point and he uses every one of the 500 words allotted to him per post.

Second, we come to the Dadaist. Invariably from Bengal, or a part of the worldwide Bengali diaspora, for him life and cricket revolves around Maharaj, his beloved Dada - Sourav Ganguly. The Dadaist is notoriously thin-skinned about any insult, real or perceived, directed against Ganguly and cannot understand how the rest of the nation, or indeed the world, can be blind to the fact that Dada is the greatest player/captain ever to play the game.

Third, we have the Extremist. This is a man who scales the highest peaks of ecstasy when India win and plumbs the deepest oceans when they lose. He is given to highly eccentric suggestions: when India win, this fan will demand that Dhoni and the entire team be awarded both the Bharat Ratna and the Nobel, and will hail the current team as the greatest ever (never mind that the victory was achieved after five days of huffing and puffing to beat the Bangladesh B team). Conversely, after every loss, this same fan will demand the entire team be sacked, all their earnings repossessed, everyone boycott the products endorsed by the team members, and India quit playing cricket and focus on field hockey/kabaddi/gilli-danda as the latter is the “real” national game in any case. The Extremist often ends his posts-after-defeat with an impassioned statement that he will no longer be following cricket in any form. Fortunately for the rest of us, he is usually back in strong voice very soon after.

Fourth, we have the OCS (the Obsessive-Compulsive Sachinist). Irrespective of context, this fan’s sole purpose in life is to convince the rest of us that “Sachin is God". In an article on the growing popularity of cricket in Papua New Guinea, the OCS will surface in the Comments section demanding to know why Sachin’s contributions in this regard have been ignored. Any article that praises the batting of Ponting, Lara, Dravid, or Kallis is the equivalent of showing a red rag to a bull as far as the OCS is concerned. There is a substantial degree of overlap between the OCS and Capitalist. I often wonder what the average OCS is going to do once Sachin retires from cricket. Get a life, possibly.

Fifth is the Nostalgist. This species of Indian fans looks for solutions to contemporary woes in “unfairly” discarded players. Need a brilliant allrounder to take over that pesky spot No. 7? Why, the obvious answer is: Ajit Agarkar. Your current fast bowling spearhead is as blunt as a block of cheese? Bring on Debasis Mohanty. Your opener has a bat with all edges and no middle? Welcome back Devang Gandhi. Sometimes his suggested remedies include cricketers who have gracefully retired from the game (bring Paras Mhambrey back now) or even dead ones (how about Ambar Roy to settle that skittish middle order?).

Sixth is the Conspiracy Theorist.Nothing is ever quite as simple as it seems, according to this fan. All selections and exclusions can be explained on regional considerations. If Dinesh Karthik is picked as Dhoni’s understudy, it must be because Srikkanth, the chair of the selection committee, is a fellow-Tamil. If Abhimanyu Mithun is picked as the fast bowler, it must be because Srikkanth is a fellow-Southie. The Conspiracy Theorist is unfazed by contradictory evidence (I wonder if S Badrinath or Murali Kartik sometimes wish Cheeka did pick fellow-Tamils - they might get a look-in if he did!) Perhaps the main weakness of the CT is his very effort to logically explain something that all-too-often defies logic – India’s selection policies. Even the most committed of CTs threw in the towel recently when faced with explaining how someone called Wriddhiman Saha, a specialist wicketkeeper, made his Test debut- but played as a middle-order batsman.

And finally, the Agent Provocateur: This category of Indian fans is perhaps the least likeable for the sole reason he seems to follow cricket is to gloat over his neighbour’s misery. The AP often gives away the game by his choice of nom-de-plume: Inzi-the-alu, or Shoaib-Chucker, or Afridi-Ballchewer isn’t exactly going to win you points for subtlety. The AP will weigh in with anti-Pakistani comments irrespective of context and lurks on cricket sites the world over, and he especially loves needling Pakistan fans at times such as these with his holier-than-thou homilies. AP’s energetic postings are invariably brought down to earth by someone from the “other” side pointing out that in every form of the game, Pakistan’s record excels India's by a fairly handy margin.

When all is said and done, the wacky Indian cricket fans should be viewed with a degree of indulgence and detachment. They obviously love and care about the game. So, they are a bit intemperate in their judgment, often let their emotions run away with them, some of them are clearly a banana or two short of a full bunch, and they can be shrill and irritating. But before you occupy the high ground and disdain them, just remember that their passion drives the game today - and, more importantly, there is a bit of the wacky Indian fan in each one of us.

From Gopal Rangachary, India

	The late 70s was a good time in India to become a cricket fan © Getty Images

Are you born a cricket nut or do you become one? At least in my case, that is the one thing I can’t blame my genes for (I have successfully blamed them for a variety of character flaws from being disorganised to having ghastly handwriting). My father was apparently anti-cricket - thought it was a waste of time – and if he had lived long enough to see me through my teenage, the world of cricket nuttiness’ would have lost me.

I have impeccable pedigree though for a cricket nut. I was born near the home of cricket (no, not in the Lord’s pavilion. It would have been impossible to have done so, as women weren’t allowed in at the time). Actually I was probably born closer to Edgbaston than to Lord’s, but at least in the country that invented cricket – and when I was seven moved to the new spiritual home of cricket, India. My primary school was at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, which is the only inactive Test venue in England today. I understand there was a turgid Test played out there about 100 years ago, where England lost to Australia.

My early recollections of sport in England are patchy. I vaguely remember kicking (or given my motor skills, missing) a football a few times, and playing one game of cricket in the street. My duties were vaguely described to me as “fielding”, and I remember being positioned at what would be a very deep long-on at the Adelaide Oval, and probably at the back of the bar on most Test grounds nowadays. Needless to say, it didn’t capture the imagination too much.

The first cricket moment I can recall was in early 1978, a few months after we came back to India. Watching a few games of backyard cricket had given me some rudimentary knowledge of the game. You needed to hit the ball as far as you could, and run back and forth as many times as possible, is as far as I had got.

Armed with this deep insight, I sat in front of a television to watch what I later realised was the first-ever series telecast live on Indian TV( India vs Pakistan in Pakistan). Indian TV, in those days, and for about 15 years thereafter meant those who were affluent enough to afford a television could watch a few hours of sanitised fare offered by the state broadcaster, Doordarshan.

The match was apparently headed for a tight finish. Pakistan needed about 150 runs in an hour and a half, and one of my cousins bet a sum of 10 paisa (the equivalent of a one quarter of one US cent), that India would lose the match. Doing some shrewd calculation, I figured that it would be impossible to run back and forth a 150 times in an hour and a half, and therefore challenged him. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been told about the existence of fours and sixes (and of some distinctly unchallenging India bowling), and India promptly went on to lose. I don’t actually recall paying up though.

The loss was followed by the inevitable soul searching and recrimination, a process which was to create a lifelong impression on me. The conversation went like this:

Me: Who is our captain?
Cousin: A chap called Bedi.
Me: How many runs did he score?
Cousin: Zero.
Me: Our captain himself scored zero. Are we such a bad team?
Cousin: No. We have one great player called Gavaskar.
Me: How much did Gavaskar score?
Cousin: He scored 97, and would have scored more if the umpire didn’t give him out wrongly.

At the end of that conversation, I was a Gavaskar fan, a Bedi detractor and a lifelong believer in the injustice of Pakistani umpiring. Rarely can impressions formed on such rickety foundations prove so long lasting. Gavaskar is still the greatest opening batsman of all time, and the greatest Indian batsman I have seen.In the late 70s being a Gavaskar fan, obviously meant being anti-Viswanath, the cricketing equivalent of George W Bush’s “If you ain’t with us, you are against us” philosophy. So I must admit that I found Vishy’s double-hundred against England at Madras excruciating, and silently revelled in his misery in Pakistan. Now I scour YouTube in vain for the occasional clip of that famed square cut!

Nor did I enjoy Gavaskar’s batting too much. Most of the time I spent biting my nails, and indulging in various superstitions, of sitting in particular positions while watching him, petrified that he’d make a mistake and I would have to face the taunts of the Viswanath camp.

The late 70s was a good time in India to become a cricket fan. Even by today’s breakneck pace of international scheduling, it was a busy time for Indian cricket. In the space of a couple of years, India had home series against West Indies, Australia and Pakistan and sandwiched between that was a tour of England and the World Cup (Maybe I can now expect a stern letter from the ICC for not calling it the 1979 ICC Cricket World Cup, or an equally ridiculous name that they have retroactively come up with).

Looking back at this period, I am amazed at how I progressed from a very sketchy knowledge of the game at the start of that West Indies series in 1978, to a frenzied spectator at Madras’ Chepauk stadium towards the end of the India-Pakistan series in Jan 1980.