One local second generation Gujarati who offered his E-mail facility on the opening day, was livid that the ECB had scheduled India's matches for small stadia.

``Forget the Shahs and the Desais, I can fill a 50,000 seater stadium in England for every India match with just Patels,'' he said contemptuously.

Tickets please

Thousands of desi Indians have landed up in England just for the World Cup, and according to the grapevine, many more are expected over the next few days. One common question on their lips is: Can you organisetickets?

The response from India and Indians has been so overwhelming that even the English newspapers are at last beginning to acknowledge that Indian money has fueled this World Cup. They accept that the cola wars in India whose money, along with that of Hero Honda, Daewoo, LG and others, have made this World Cup a financial success already. (The 11 million pounds they have already made is short of the 25 million Pounds they hoped for, though).

One newspaper admitted that the ``moving and shaking power in world cricket was no longer England, but India'' ``...Indian audiences drove television rights to new levels and Indian crowds provided the boisterous atmosphere the TV cameras needed.''

The best place

Speaking of television, India is without doubt the best place to watch this World Cup, at least for television audiences. Few matches are being shown on BBC. Their rival, Sky TV, a satellite channel owned by the Star TV owner, has bagged most of the matches, but its reach is pretty poor. Anumber of apartments, hotels and houses do not have satellite TV.

Thus Indians in India have the best deal as far as this World Cup coverage is concerned.

Apalling facilities

The facilities for the media here are appalling. When the World Cup was staged in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the ICC demanded that the press box for each league match ought to accommodate 100 journalists; 150 for the quarterfinals; 200 for the semifinals and 250 for the final.

However this time around they have been silent about the capacity in the press box. Thus there are desk facilities for only 16 journalists in Hove for the India vs South Africa match. As per their priority, international news agencies, national news agencies, England's national newspapers and competing nations' national newspapers get first preference in that order.

The Indian Express is the only Indian newspaper with desk facility at Hove. Four other Indian newspapers have been given observer status, but many others who have landed inEngland have not been given even a seat in the Press Box.

It is the same case in Bristol (which accommodates 10 journalists on the desk); Taunton (24); Leicester (35) and Edgbaston (70) where India are to play their remaining matches of the league in the World Cup.

The Indian Express is the only Indian newspaper to be desked at every centre India is playing.

Poor communication

One would have expected a country like England to have brilliant communication facilities.

But that is not the case, especially if you do not have an international credit card (Indian international cards are not accepted). Internet centres (only a handful available) will not touch a floppy even with a barge pole (unjustified fear of virus or simply hoping you log in more time on their machine to key in your copy). The mobile phone they sold unsuspecting journalists simply do not transmit data (something to do with overloading of the network) even after all the checks and software are loaded. The alternative is tohire a phone line at the venue at exorbitant cost.

Incidentally, the British Telecom has started accepting in-built fax and modem for notebooks only recently.