Local knowledge can go a long way in a bustling city such as Mumbai. Black and yellow taxis, for example, cost far less than the blue and silver ones, with the sole difference between the two being air-conditioning when simply winding down the window works fine.
Heading to the cricket? The ticket office is at Gate Two but booking online is the way to go. Rucksacks should be left at the hotel, water bottles will similarly be confiscated, while sun cream and cameras are touch‑and‑go items depending on the mood of the guard who greets you at the airport‑style security scanners.
Cash, if you can find an ATM dispensing any since 500 and 1,000 rupee notes were demonetised a month ago, is king inside a sporting colosseum that, for all this officiousness on entry, still represents a highlight on the tour of India, sitting just off the lively Marine Drive waterfront that looks out on to both the shimmering Arabian Sea and Mumbai’s high-rises in the distance across the bay.
In Jos Buttler, England possess someone in their ranks with a splash of local knowledge. The 26-year‑old is one of two players on show during the fourth Test to ply his trade for the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League and in 2016, thanks to the World Twenty20 in March, he has played as many games of cricket at the Wankhede Stadium – seven – as he has at his home ground of Old Trafford.
On the second day, one that proved challenging for the touring spinners in the evening session, this was needed first thing, with Buttler helping to get England to the hallowed 400-mark – a first-innings score from which they have never lost previously in Asia – and demonstrated that his game need not be all about pumping bowlers out of the park despite a paucity of first-class cricket over the past 12 months.
“It helped, having practised and played here,” said Buttler after stumps, with his 76 from 137 balls having taken him to 186 runs at the Wankhede in 2016, coincidentally the exact same figure as he has made in Manchester during this time. “Having experienced the IPL, you get used to the noise and chaos going on around you – and you learn to deal with it and not get distracted. I think familiarity is good.”
Buttler, who gave his junior partner Jake Ball plenty of strike in a vital stand of 54 with the No10, has seen his white-ball specialism in 2016 well-documented and, despite his special talent, it had been used as reason not to usher him back into the Test team at the first opportunity during the summer. He instead needed the chaos of a tour to make it happen as a specialist batsman at No7.
The player, whose score was his best in Test cricket since 85 on debut, believes the break from first-class action, bar one match for Lancashire in September, has actually benefited him, however. “I don’t feel like it mattered to me at all. Probably the best thing for me is having not played any red-ball cricket for a year, and having some time to think about my game,” he said.
“We play so much cricket that sometimes there isn’t enough time to think, break down your game and [work out] what is vital to me to get the best out of myself. I feel like the last year I’ve probably learned the most about myself and about cricket in my whole career.”
Buttler admitted he did not expect to get a Test this winter and has no idea where it will leave him come the English summer. The temperament shown, in both closing out the first day before ushering the tail on Friday, must surely prompt his retention in some shape or other, even if there was a sense of what if when he was stumped off Ravi Jadeja by Parthiv Patel attempting a second booming six when a late T20-style blitz failed to get off the ground.
IPL team-mates they may be, but the India wicketkeeper was less than glowing in his praise of Buttler’s innings. “He was honestly very lucky, [on the first day], with a lot of balls off the inside edge and missing the stumps by a little distance,” said Patel. “He batted well today but when you don’t have pressure you tend to play well. Once a wicket fell he had to play with tailenders and play a few shots. I would love to see him defending a few in the second innings if it turns and bounces.”
Patel, whose Test debut in 2002 predates even Jimmy Anderson’s, was happy to play a few more shots after stumps, too, when giving a somewhat withering assessment of England’s spinners, Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid, compared with those of India.
“We’ve definitely tried to spin the ball more than they have,” he said. “We’ve kept theirs quiet. On a red-soil wicket, it’s very difficult to contain the scoring rate but [our batsmen] don’t have to go over the top, or try and play a sweep or reverse-sweep because we know there might be a bad ball coming soon.”
Comparing them with Jadeja and Ravi Ashwin – the latter having earlier secured his 23rd five-wicket haul and his seventh in 2016 – might be seen as a touch unfair. After all, when it comes to local knowledge, the India pair have it in spades.
