Penultimate destination
While most of England’s squad boarded the team bus from their hotel to the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi for their first training session at the ground, Joe Root, Harry Brook and the batting coach, Marcus Trescothick, squeezed in a round of golf at the nearby DLF Golf & Country Club – designed by Arnold Palmer and “bloody difficult”, apparently – before making their own way there. They were instructed to head to Gate Four, and their driver duly dropped them at the appropriate sign. Brook was first to go inside, but popped back out a minute later and reported that not only was there nobody to be seen, it appeared to be a football ground. It turned out they had been deposited at Gate Four of the neighbouring Ambedkar Stadium, and thus two members of the England team and one of their predecessors set off on foot down one of the busiest roads in central Delhi, golf clubs slung over their shoulders, to astonished looks from cricket-savvy local people. As the players walked across a petrol station forecourt, after a couple of failed attempts to get in to the right ground through closed gates, Root struck a deal with a selfie-seeker: he could have a photo, but he’d have to show them the right way in.
