Cricket / First Test: Calcutta's smart parrots know the score: Simon Hughes sees a side of life missed by Gooch's men

IT IS an eight-minute walk to Eden Gardens from the luxurious Oberoi Grand Hotel, where the England team have been staying during the first Test match. To reach the stadium you have to cross the Maidan, a vast swathe of parched grass. The Maidan and its vast throng of people is one of the many pleasures denied to the England players here. They are driven to and from the ground, although this hardly saves time.

Graham Gooch's men arrive at the ground at 7.45 am, at which time the smog completely obscures the wicket, and warm up, intermittently coughing and wheezing. Only the ultra-fit Graeme Hick has not been struck down by the dust, and the scorer, Clem Driver, has already been sent home.

By 8.30 am there are already a few thousand in the stands, their number swelling as the grapevine promises an Indian victory. (Though partisan, the crowd are appreciative of good cricket. Yesterday they warmly applauded Mike Gatting's cuts and sweeps.)

Outside, people are making their way across the Maidan, which in a city of exceptional congestion - both roads and nasal passages are constantly bunged up - provides untold relief from the surrounding chaos. Yesterday, however, my progress was hampered by a large herd of goats and the familiar ticket touts. 'But Gatting is still batting,' they said persuasively, ignoring my press pass. 'Come on, sahib, very good seat 200 rupees (about pounds 5).'

The Maidan is at its most alluring at lunchtime. There can never have been such a fantastic selection of foods at an international cricket match. Hawkers jostle, ring bells and announce their fare - drowned out by a hundred transistors blaring out the match commentary.

And as the spectators haggle for their bhel puris and biryanis they assess the English demise. 'Oh, Hick is no good, very vulnerable,' says one. 'Our spinning Bermuda triangle is too tricky,' says another to an Englishman in an MCC tie.

Everywhere there are fanatical supporters writing pro-Kapil Dev slogans or painting impressions of their heroes on the wooden food stalls, while sipping milk tea from miniature clay cups.

At the end of the day's play, the Maidan stages an extravaganza of Indian sporting and social experience. The barefoot games of cricket and football are inevitably disrupted by the masses trooping home, but they linger to watch the 'Kushtia' - a strange form of adolescent wrestling - acrobats, painted dancers, singers and even the West Bengal mounted police practising polo.

Sport is an integral part of life in this city. The Calcutta Cricket Club is the oldest outside England, founded in 1792, and it reared, among others, Sue Dexter (Ted's wife), whose father, Tom Longfield, was president. Nearby is the Tolly Gunge, complete with polo field and golf course, where she remembers having guava jelly and snipe paste for tea.

There are equestrian centres and rugby clubs (the Calcutta Cup was presented to the RFU in 1874). On the pristine metro system you can watch old FA Cup finals on TV monitors erected by the platform.

Back at the Maidan, the musicians were drowned out last night by the celebratory din of car horns. For a few clues as to the outcome of the Test match, you could consult one of the fortune tellers squatting with caged parrots, set free to choose your fate from a selection of cards. Rajmu told me that India would win by eight wickets - but, frankly, you didn't need a clairvoyant bird to predict that.