WHEN GREEN PARK SANG THE CAWNPORE BLUES

WHENEVER I hear of Kanpur or think of the city, it brings back memories of a Bob Dylan song, 'North Country Blues', made famous by Joan Baez's plaintive voice.

Its moving lyrics and sorrowful melody speak woefully of a city fallen on bad days: "Come gather 'round friends and I'll tell you a tale Of when the red iron pits ran aplenty But the cardboard-filled windows and old men on the benches / Tell you now that the whole town is empty." And so it was last week when I heard of something that smelt of the town's has-been status. Though India beat Bangladesh comfortably to go 2-0 up in the current Test cricket series, the city's Green Park stadium got bad press for its poor drainage that washed out two full days of play despite there being no rain. The washout belied the ground's fashionable name that reminds of its rich past before independence and its glory as an industrial town for at least a couple of decades after the end of colonial rule.

Only 10 Tests have been played in Kanpur in the past 40 years against roughly as many in the previous 20, symbolising the decline of the ground that was a regular Test venue in the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. This is in spite of India playing more Tests per year nowadays.

Kanpur was once ahead of even Bengaluru that hosted its first Test only in 1974.