The police are confident that they can thwart any mischief the Shiv Sainiks may get up to on their own. But not snakes. Last month, the Shiv Sena's Delhi unit chief, Jai Bhagwan Goyal -- of the Fire and pitch-digging-up fame -- had threatened that his men would release snakes inside the stadium if the tour was not called off.

Now, though the tour is on and the Shiv Sena has officially withdrawn its agitation, the police don't want to take any chances. ``Not with reptiles crawling towards the newly-laid pitch, or sliding down the freshly-painted railings,'' said a senior official. ``The policemen are trained to tackle riots, catch thieves or even diffuse bombs. But lathis and guns are not enough to catch snakes.''

So the police scoured the city for snake-charmers, and found a village-full of them in the Badarpur area of Delhi. This evening, the police and the match organisers held discussions with the snake charmers' sardar to brief him about his role.

Says DCP (central) S.B.K. Singh: ``The sardar has already inspected the stadium and told us that two snake-charmers will be sufficient for an enclosure. This means that 20 of them will be there to man the stadium.''

He said that Ministry of Environment and the Delhi government are working out the modalities. And the government will pay the snake-charmers for ``their hard work''.

With the snake-charmers around, the police feel they are prepared for any eventuality. ``There is a little hitch, though. If any of the snake-charmers happens to be a cricket fan and decides to blow his reed whenever a player hits a six, we've had it. There will be panic''.