Dawn start, pageantry and lap of honour: Modi serves up irregular day of Test cricket

T est cricket doesn’t normally require setting an alarm for 5:45am. One of the game’s charms is a leisurely late-morning start. Not in Ahmedabad on Thursday to start the fourth and final match between India and Australia. With the prime ministers of the respective countries due to make a ceremonial appearance, and security ramped up accordingly, working media were told to arrive hours early or risk being cordoned off outside.What followed was a bizarre display of pageantry that on reflection should be no surprise when a leader named Narendra Modi visits a place named Narendra Modi Stadium. It is a short path for a leader to start being treated as a ruler. Ahead of further economic discussions to bolster an existing free trade agreement, Modi and his Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese, arrived to applause in front of a huge sightscreen featuring both of their likenesses in a Photoshop movie poster pose, Modi’s image naturally slightly larger and further in front.

Ushered onto a podium on the field of play along with officials from the Board of Control for Cricket in India, they watched a dance performance while competing to see who could remain the most impassive, sitting with hands folded in laps and stern expressions. While the boisterous commentator, Ravi Shastri, provided a voiceover extolling 75 years of Indo-Australian friendship, the leaders embarked on a slow lap of honour from a specially crafted open vehicle. Adorned at its back with a splayed cardboard fan of oversized cricket bats and stumps, it was like Angry Anderson had swapped engineering tips with Cersei Lannister.Stadium pillars and concourses were also plastered with pictures of the leaders, as had been roadsides all through the Gujarat capital