India Awaits: A fun afternoon at M. Chinnaswamy

Australia have been touring India in the cricket and the last game of the series, and the decider was in Bangalore at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. We were very excited about going and the boys thought we had a real chance of winning - Mike and I were not so confident.

Getting to the ground is about a 1+ hour drive from home and you can't really get anywhere near the ground due to security and crowds. So Anthony dropped us off and we walked through the streets with thousands of people - seemingly ALL Indian!! We got lots of odd looks, questions of where we're from etc. which the boys lapped up.

We had been warned that you basically can't take anything into the ground. No food, water, cameras, alcohol, pets, flags, firecrackers (yep, firecrackers, remembering it's Diwali) the list goes on..... Knowing that all food options would be local, we thought we would take our luck and wear cargo pants and stock our pockets with some candy, crackers, biscuits, bubble gum etc - it's a long day at the cricket with Jack and Max being hungry !!!!

We got to the gate, showed our tickets, twice, then had to go to security - women one way, men and boys the other. When stocking my pockets with 'stuff', I forgot about the very frequent 'Indian frisk'. I entered the little tent for my pat down..... I argued quite a big about the crackers and cookies but she kept pushing and pulling at my clothes, asking what's this, etc. She then found a small tube of sunscreen - nope not allowed!! I lost the plot and just refused to give it up and walked out. She followed, of course, but then I ran into Mike having a similar argument over Jack's Epipen. We demanded to see a manager, who came over wobbling his head, and then we just walked off thinking all was good but then had to go through another 'security' check!! Bugger!!

The same argument over the sunscreen occurred and I ended up going hardcore - "we don't have dark skin, we are all fair and will burn in the sun without it!" I wasn't proud of pulling the racist card but this was ridiculous. Some more pushing and pulling occurred but we forced out way through with sunscreen, Epipen and half our snacks.

We found our seats (brilliant position, thanks Mike) and settled in as the only non-Indians in our area for a run-fest!! It was a tough start with India scoring a gizzilion runs and with every boundary and six, there was screaming, wolf whistling and banging. We had a couple of very high points - Kholi out for a duck was very nice, but by the end of the Indian innings our 'friends' were very confident. With every wicket (not that there were many) we had the whole crowd behind us push down and jump over us to get a closer glimpse at their heroes. I was quite shocked at the attitude of the Indian players - I was surprised at their arrogance, selfishness and all-round obnoxious behaviour. The locals, however, love them - to the point of ridiculous. It was like watching teenage girls going 'One Direction' crazy - and this was grown men and women, the kids were actually mild in comparison.

Of course, the food did end up being local - apart from some crisps and soft drinks. So lucky I managed to sneak in a few items for the boys. They thought an afternoon of candy and crisps was brilliant. As always, Max needed to try some of the food on offer, so we had some rice and chapattis to easy the hunger pains. We managed to get on TV and Mum saw us in Australia - very surreal for her I'm sure. Max also ended up on the big screen at the ground - must be that blonde hair and blue eyes. We were getting increasingly annoyed at seeing people with cameras and flags, as these were all supposed to be banned, and then in the second innings we even had some firecrackers. Our sunscreen was really going to cause an issue !

The second innings was much quieter, as there wasn't so many opportunities for the Indian wolf whistling but the Diwali celebrations outside the ground made up for it. We left early as the boys were exhausted but we did manage to see the Aussies make a go of it. Every six and four was followed by 4 crazy Aussies screaming from the terrace.

As we left we had the most ridiculous time trying to get out of the stadium - yep, that's right, it was impossible to actually get out. The turnstiles were in place and you had to actually scan your ticket to get out !!! It was the most insane thing I have seen - they insisted that the big gates would be open at the end but I was not confident that would actually happen………

All in all it was great fun to experience !! The Indian passion for cricket is infectious - they are so devoted to their team and players and I would love to go again one day. We were hoping to see Australia play in Sri Lanka next year but it doesn't look like they will tour - damn. We will just have to go to a couple of IPL games here instead.