When cricket met Game of Thrones: Modi delivers bizarre pageant to open Ahmedabad Test

Ushered on to a podium on the field of play along with officials from the Board of Control for Cricket in India, they watched a dance performance while competing to see who could remain the most impassive, sitting with hands folded in laps and stern expressions. While the boisterous commentator, Ravi Shastri, provided a voiceover extolling 75 years of Indo-Australian friendship, the leaders embarked on a slow lap of honour from a specially crafted open vehicle. Adorned at its back with a splayed cardboard fan of oversized cricket bats and stumps, it was like Angry Anderson had swapped engineering tips with Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones.

Through it all, cricket was pushed to the sidelines. Players were blocked from warming up on the ground as normal, instead shunted onto the second oval. The bowlers were sent out to mark their run-ups before 8am. All except Mohammad Shami, who had not at that point been named in the Indian XI, and had to sprint out just before the anthems. The anthem rendition was another irregularity, normally taking place once at the start of a series. The leaders lined up with the teams to sing it, arms around shoulders. Those teams had played a close-fought series whose culmination depended on this match, then seen it become a backdrop.

Not that there was a huge audience for the show, and that stood out most of all. There had been a lot of talk in the lead-up of the BJP bringing in busloads of supporters to fill the stadium, wanting to demonstrate the popular appeal of their leader. The secondary aim was setting a new record Test crowd beyond the 91,112 at the MCG for the 2013 Ashes Test. Whatever the reason, on the day it never got close. When the dignitaries arrived, the ground-level stands were at best half full, the huge top tier at more like 20%. While the prime ministers left the ground within an hour, some of the spectators even stayed for the cricket.