Allan Donald has brought an aggression to New Zealand's bowling department © Getty Images

Two South African journalists travelled on the diverted flight that went to Dhaka to fetch the New Zealand cricket team and carry them to Colombo. When they got on the flight, they found that the seating plan was non-existent since the plane had made an extra stop and seating for the few passengers from Dhaka was free. They chose a row of three seats, leaving one free for a countryman of theirs – Allan Donald.

The fast bowler walked on to the flight, spotted the familiar faces and soon found he couldn’t escape their familiar sound. “Howzit Allan,” they said. “Hi,” he replied. Hi?? Their faces dropped. He said hi. A few months in England, and now some time in New Zealand, does this to you, they eventually concluded. You have to say hi and not howzit. But they let it go, understanding that Donald is a professional, who puts his job first, and if his job is coaching another team that don’t say howzit, then so be it.

Donald is a passionate man; that people have known since the days of his fiery fast bowling, but South Africans were surprised, and even a little alarmed, to see him punching the air and high-fiving his New Zealand colleagues on Friday night. Donald, to many South African fans, will always be the man who dropped his bat and caused the run-out that saw South Africa exit the 1999 World Cup. That semi-final against Australia could well be the moment that started the choking phenomenon, and to see Donald celebrating a choke in that fashion led to much criticism.

“I’ve copped some stick back home from journos and the public,” Donald said to his two companions on the flight. “But the guys I respect will accept that when you do a job you want to do it properly.” Properly is an apt description of the way he has gone about his duties as New Zealand bowling coach. He has managed to turn an attack that boasts no out-and-out pace bowler and that traditionally relies on its ability to scrap into one that could defend 221 against a South African side that looked destined for victory.

Not all of it is Donald’s doing, of course. Some of the persistence and patience New Zealand showed during the quarter-final in Mirpur was down to what they call “Kiwi fight”, but the attitude of aggression is something new to them, something they credit Donald with bringing to the team. “It’s a different voice, it’s a little bit more aggressive,” Jacob Oram said. “Immediately when he came into the camp, we were standing there and thinking, this is Allan Donald, and as soon as he started speaking, the guys were listening.”

Donald has that sort of aura about him. When he talks, people listen. When he talked about travelling through Sri Lanka to the South Africans who were making their debut trip to the island, they listened intently. But he couldn’t stay long. As soon as a gap opened up in the seats where the team was sitting, he politely excused himself from the journalists’ company and went to sit with his new bunch.

There, he laughed alongside Brendon McCullum, who had perched himself on the armrest of Donald’s chair, and watched Nathan McCullum and Daryl Tuffey play cards and James Franklin read a book. That's what the New Zealand team that had just caused a major upset by knocking South Africa out of the World Cup were doing on their flight to the semis. There they were, doing the same kind of things a touring bunch of schoolboys may do, and they looked as carefree and happy as teenagers might. So did Donald.

Lance Klusener lit up the 1999 World Cup with his power hitting © Getty Images

Lance Klusener always preferred doing his talking with the bat. It’s a horrible cliché, yes, but for this man, his bat was his mouthpiece. Find some archived footage of a post-match conference featuring Klusener as Man of the Match - and there are many - and you will see a few mumbles, eyes shifting nervously, fingers twiddling incessantly and feet tapping, waiting to make a hasty exit.

It was nothing like his persona at the crease, particularly the Klusener we came to know in the 1999 World Cup, the best bludgeoner of them all. He was the only batsman in the top 15 to have a strike rate over 100; his bat didn’t just talk, it shouted every word with! an! exclamation!

Twelve years and three World Cups later, Klusener does not have a bat to do the talking for him, and it seems to have helped. The words flow as the runs once did, maybe not as fluently, but with as much spark and zest. There’s even room for a joke or two. We caught up in Chennai, with the sun baking down at over 35 degrees.

He, in his commentator’s shirt and tie, had not one drop of sweat on him. Me, in my reporter’s gear of whatever is coolest (not in terms of style, but what beats the heat) was dripping. We agreed to stand in the shade to chat but there was only room for one of us in the small patch next to the field. “You need the shade,” he said. “No, please, you have it, I’m fine.” I lied back, while wiping my brow and letting out a big sigh.

South Africa had just bowled England out for 172, and not knowing then that they could have done with a batsman of his intent to chase the total, Klusener spoke about how South Africa were doing fine without a big-hitting No. 7, and how they were able to rely on the top order to score the kind of runs that he used to.

He meant the team no longer needs someone to accelerate madly at the end because they are top heavy when it comes to batting, and whether he is right or wrong is a debate for another day, but his point about the philosophy of South African batting having changed is spot on. When Klusener was still around, he was the finisher and what finishes he had.

His favourite was one against Pakistan, in that 1999 World Cup, at Trent Bridge, for reasons that will boggle the mind of those who think they know how Klusener liked to bat. He came in with the score on 135 for 6, with 14 overs left to get 86 runs. Quick scoring was needed but also patience.

“I enjoyed it because I was able to bide my time and plan an innings,” he said. I must have looked surprised. After smashing South Africa to victories over Sri Lanka and England and even going down in a blaze of boundaries against Zimbabwe, surely Klusener did not want to bide time. “It was nice because we had to catch up with the scoring rate and Mark Boucher and I were able to do that. Shoaib [Akhtar] and Wasim [Akram] and Saqlain [Mushtaq] were bowling well, so it was a real battle, not just a smash and grab.”

It was interesting to hear that Klusener did not just want to be a daylight robber, but, like any batsman, wanted to craft any innings from ball one. So what fuelled so many bruising knocks at that World Cup? “It was a lot of luck actually, and some of it was circumstance. I was hitting the ball really well.”

Wide roads and open spaces, a feature of Chandigarh © ESPNcricinfo Ltd

This week was the first time that I travelled on a train. I’d been on those little novelty choo-choos that whip kiddies around the zoo or the amusement park but I had never actually journeyed, from one city to another, on a train. Johannesburg’s Gautrain, which goes from the heart of the CBD in Sandton to the airport in 16 minutes doesn’t count.

The Jan Shatabdi Express, part of one of the largest railway networks in the world, now that’s a train. It was far more elaborate than any of the ones I had seen in old Bollywood films. Nothing nearly as exciting as what happens in the movies happened to me, but I was still thrilled to be on it. It was bumpy and bustling. It left Delhi to pass through kilometres of fields and approached Chandigarh with the sight of rolling hills, although only their shadows were discernible as darkness descended.

It was the ideal, surreal start to three days in Chandigarh, where the roads are wide, the streets are quiet and the big-city edge is non-existent. In anyone’s book, it would pass for a small town. Perhaps not in its entirety, but certainly when looked at one or two sectors at a time. Sector 63, where the PCA is, reminded me of where my grandmother stays, 80 kilometers North West of Johannesburg in a town called Brits.

It’s the kind of place I would go to a few weeks before exam time to make sure I could study with no distractions. It’s the kind of place where a woman of almost 90 can live by herself in big, bad South Africa and feel only a little insecure. In Chandigarh, even that little would be erased. There’s something different about it, not a feeling of greater freedom, although it can be interpreted that way, but of greater space.

I was able to go running on the road the morning before the match, without wrestling with autos or ambassadors. I was able to walk right up to the Sikh Temple, just a few hundred metres from the stadium, where the Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab was attending prayers (so I was told by the police officer) and was let through by every member of the security force and only stopped before entering and advised to cover my hair. I was able to see what looked like miles of open space. It was totally different to the big smoke that Delhi had been and quite similar to the small towns that are so precious in South Africa.

Move to Sector 35, and it becomes a little closer to Bloemfontein . The strip, where the restaurants and shops lie, is apparently the busiest in the city. Two other sectors fit the bill but I didn’t have the time to visit them. It was missing the student feel that Bloemfontein’s rowdy bars have, but it retained the small-town feel. The kind that celebrates families going out for dinner in big bunches and thriving communities where everyone is an acquaintance. The manager was wearing a Tommy Hilfiger designer rugby shirt – quaint, I thought, quaint like Bloemfontein.

It’s not often that a person’s name represents what they actually are. Think about Graeme Smith and Graeme Swann – neither of them could be described as a gravel area, could they? What about Allan Donald and Allan Lamb? Neither of them are too harmonious. Some people, however, fit their names perfectly - like Dipender, a volunteer at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi.

Dipender, whose name literally means “lord of light”, was certainly a shining beacon – and completely dependable - after a difficult day at the stadium covering the South Africa-West Indies match.

Reporters have no right to complain about not receiving free internet or food when they go to work in a stadium, but given it’s commonplace in press boxes and journalists love freebies, complain they did. Both eventually arrived and stories were filed on time, empty stomachs were fed, and just before midnight, bags were packed.

Then, it was time to hit the town. Dipender knew exactly what to do. He gathered a few them and offered a lift to popular Connaught Place in his own car, ushered them into a bar, saw to it that their drinks were ordered, that they were seated comfortably and that their cab was organised to collect them at closing time.

It was a typical gesture of Indian hospitality that has become world renowned for its policy of “guest is God” but there was something a little different to finding it in a tournament volunteer who had been shouted at by some of the people he was being so kind to, for things that were totally beyond his control. Volunteers are usually passionate people, the type that just want to get involved in the game, no matter what the cost, both on their time and their humanity.

They are usually the die-hards but my impression of them had been tainted somewhat by an incident in my home country. During the football World Cup, one of the volunteers threatened to “smack” me after I could not find my seat at a Bafana Bafana warm up match and was looking in the aisle to see if someone else was in it. He was desperate for me to move and I was desperate to stay on the halfway line, where I had booked my ticket, and it all got ugly. That was before the tournament had even started and I avoided them at all cost once the real kick off arrived.

The volunteers at this event have been very different. They’ve managed to smile even when all the systems crashed and problems far more serious than a seat that could not be found were mounting. I wouldn’t have blamed them for wanting to smack some of the prima donnas who were bombarding them with requests they simply could not deal with. Dipender, in particular, went way beyond the call of duty, and even ended the evening by drawing up a list of places of interest the journalists may want to visit in their free time. He hasn’t yet offered to be the tour guide, but there are still a few more days in Delhi to see if he does.

The sight of dozens of people watching a single TV tends to be less common in the central areas of India's big cities © AFP

It was D-Day across the cricketing world. The clocks that had been counting down for the past 100 days hit multiple zeros and kickoff (maybe in cricket we have to call it bowl off?) was imminent. On television, Mirpur looked electric. The colours, the sounds, the buzz were all contagious and I wanted to experience a small piece of it for myself.

I had a very basic, sketchy idea of what I wanted to see: locals gathered around a stall of some description, studying the match as though their lives depended on it. It sounds as generalised as someone saying they want to come to South Africa and see someone taking care of their pet lion as though it were a house cat. Those are things that will only be seen out on a game reserve, and even then pet is a strong word to use for the king of the jungle, no matter how cuddly he might be.

Similarly, the stall idea may have been applicable to a more working class part of the city, but in big, bustling central Bangalore there was not a chance of seeing one. In the space of a few hours in the veins of the city - MG Road and surrounds - my ideal of how cricket is watched in India was shattered and replaced by something more normal and realistic, something that made me realise that Bangalore, at one level, is just like any other major city in the world.

My colleague and I, after an afternoon spent working, were only able to get out to explore after Virender Sehwag’s swashbuckling 175 and India's bruising innings. Bangladesh were about to start climbing Kilimanjaro, and although it wasn’t likely to be the most gripping of contests, we expected the fanatics to be glued to a screen somewhere, cheering uncontrollably and living out the portrait of cricket loving India we’d read so much about. Our assumption led to us being disappointed and we quickly learned that India is not a place where sweeping ideas of any sort can be applied.

We settled on a pub called Plan B, a generic sports pub catering to the yuppies of the area, most of whom may have gone home for the weekend. Apart from us, there were only two other tables occupied. The projector screen loomed large, the menu featured the usual pub grub, with the base ingredient of most dishes being beer and the music was late 80s and 90s rock. Between 7 and 9pm it filled up with a mixture of couples on a casual date and groups of friends having a catch up session.

We could have been almost anywhere in the world, having the same Saturday night most young people enjoy having. The difference was that we were in India, on day one of the World Cup, and we wanted to feel as though we were somewhere extraordinarily special. Instead, we were somewhere real and that's what matters most.

The small Ganapathy mandir in the the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai © ESPNcricinfo

So many vehicles, two wheels, four wheels, even three wheels. For a kid, most probably a boy, from anywhere outside of India, it would have been wheelie heaven. For me, it was one of the most intimidating sights I have ever seen. And it was only Chennai, not one of the really traffic-plagued cities like Bangalore or Mumbai.

Chennai is a different city to the one I met four years before when I came on a trip to India to discover my ancestry. To my eye, the sheer volume of vehicles on the road has increased many fold. It’s the most literal illustration of globalisation in Indian cities and to see it with my own eyes was both overwhelming and exhilarating.

To sit in it was nothing short of exciting. I’m certain that more accidents don’t happen on Indian roads because of the sheer deftness of the drivers. Their instincts are sharper than most fielders as they dodge and swerve while managing to hoot and act as tour guides at the same time. A journey as short as five kilometres can take up to 40 minutes but the spectacle is worth every second.

Luckily, I was able to find two elements of zen in what seemed like a sea of chaos on the roads, both of them in the MA Chidambaram Stadium. The first I saw seconds after entering. There is small temple just inside the Pattabhiraman Gate. It’s a humble structure; it’s shape nothing more than one of those houses I was taught to draw without lifting a pen. It had a small picture of Lord Ganesh. I was told that some of the officials of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association are religious and the modest temple they have erected at the main gate creates an immediate sense of calm.

The second came as I was walking to collect my accreditation from the office. While marvelling at the stadium, some parts on the outside of which are still under construction, I heard a very familiar jingle. So familiar that I hold myself back from doing the dance, because it didn’t seem the proper thing to do in a city where all the woman I noticed on the street were in traditional clothing. It was the song that defined the football World Cup in South Africa eight months ago – Shakira’s groovy track, Waka Waka.

Those first notes of the song that preached how Africa’s time had come never fail to warm my heart and hearing it India brought the concept of the World Cup alive for me. Of course, this is not India’s first shot at hosting the tournament, but, like all major events in developing countries, the questions raised about their readiness have been tantamount and often unfair. For the record, the systems worked as efficiently as they did in South Africa (which means very efficiently) and the volunteers in the stadium were some of the most helpful people I have ever come across.

Watching my first bit of live cricket in India – the warm-up match between South Africa and Zimbabwe – was almost a religious experience itself. Having a few thousand people cheering all the way was beyond heavenly. My only concern came when it was time for them to head home and back into the traffic of that bustling city.