Kevin McCallum and the Proteas are enjoying Chandigarh – where SA are playing Netherlands today – mostly because of the Punjab people.
|||Corrie van Zyl, the coach of South Africa, is a fit man and on Tuesday afternoon in Chandigarh he left the Taj hotel for a run around the Rose Garden, the massive expanse of land and the biggest rose garden in Asia. Team training shorts, a T-shirt, some headphones and shoes and he was off.
As he walked across the road, he heard someone walking behind him. It was one of the many, many Punjab Police officers assigned to the hotel to guard the team. He explained he was going for a run. The man smiled and nodded. Van Zyl crossed the road and began to run. Just behind him the policeman began to run. Van Zyl stopped and told him that he was going to be running far. The policeman nodded. Van Zyl ran a lap around the Rose Garden, the policeman, dressed head to toe in long brown pants, thick, brown, long-sleeved shirt, hard shoes and a beret ran with him.
After a few laps Van Zyl stopped, found a local who could speak English and told him to tell the policeman he would be running nine to 10 kilometres.
“He says he is your security and must go with you,” translated the local.
Van Zyl shrugged and carried on. After three laps, the policeman, drenched in sweat, stopped. He took a shortcut across the garden and waited for Van Zyl and ran with him part of the way. That is the way of the people of the Punjab. They are careful and caring here.
They are so careful they played not one, but two versions of the South African anthem at the Punjab Cricket Association Ground yesterday. The first sounded like they had recorded Toks van der Linde when he sang Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika with Karen Ferreira at Loftus Versfeld before the Tri-Nations match against the Wallabies, which was also Victor Matfield’s 100th Test.
It was pretty operatic and a little dramatic, although some of the youngsters standing with drums at the side of the field looked a little unsure.
The second version sounded a little more like Claire Johnston, and it may be that version some of you heard if you managed to wake up with the sparrows to watch the game today. I can tell you that they ran through the national anthem twice yesterday and that the sound system in the stadium is good in Mohali, which is on the outskirts of Chandigarh, about 25 minutes, 18 potholes and 23 dices with death from the Taj hotel by Tuk Tuk. The South African anthem is a matter of concern for the International Cricket Council and for Mavericks, the South African-based event management team who are co-ordinating bits of the protocol associated with international cricket matches.
Cutting the South African anthem in half will not happen again as it did at Delhi, when the team and 50 South Africans in the crowd carried on singing to the bemusement of the crowd. Fingers were pointed, an electrical fault was blamed, which was as good a scapegoat as any. It was a night of mistakes, as the ICC blamed the the Delhi and District Cricket Association, who in turn blamed the Delhi Police, but not too loudly as the police in that city walk loudly and carry big sticks.
The Punjab Cricket Association Ground is another dimension away from the concrete ugliness that is the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium. It is, like the rest of the city, new and well designed, a bowl of seats with a discreet pavilion on one side and a magnificent clubhouse on the other.
It was built on what was once a swampland, with ravines and took two years to put up. The floodlights here are lower than any other cricket stadiums so as to “avoid aircraft from the nearby air force base colliding with the light pillars”, according to a local report. The air force base is one of many military establishments in this town. The airport where the South African team touched down on Monday evening is attached to an air force base.
If South Africa win every game of the group stages and their quarterfinal, they may play India at this ground and it is a city they will not mind coming back to. Van Zyl’s running partner is no doubt looking for a new assignment, though.
Source: http://www.iol.co.za/punjab-way-is-welcome-respite-1.1035265
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