Whistles, tip-cricket and old chestnuts

Ntini has become a crowd favourite and, once he’d finished his nets bowling, gave the crowd a lesson in whistling. It was classic call-and-response: every whistle from Makhaya was answered from the crowd.

Old chestnuts are the usual diet whenever former cricketers gather and there was no shortage of that in the Kanpur fog. Sanjay Manjrekar told one about how Sarfaraz Nawaz once appealed for bad light. Coming in to bat on a foggy day, he waled up to the square leg umpire and started taking the stance. The point wasn’t taken.

Anil Kumble told his own after the match, one for the future. ‘‘After the television interview on the field, I lost way to the dressing room.’’

But if it’s Kanpur, there must be a Kaif story. The local man got hold of a bunch of boys and started a mini-cricket match in front of the dressing room. He first divided them in two teams, had a mock toss and later joined them. ‘‘It’s called tip-cricket’’, he said. Essentially under-arm cricket where one runs every time he hits the ball.

A couple of hours later, to the crowd’s delight, Messrs Sehwag and Gambhir were doing the real thing.