S . Sreesanth stood with his nostrils flaring. Pakistan needed one run to win from the last ball of the match. Like most other encounters, this game between India and Pakistan in the inaugural ICC Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa was headed for a close finish. Sreesanth steamed in and bowled, Misbah ul-Haq swatted at the delivery and sprinted, Yuvraj Singh ran him out. It was a tie! India had qualified for the next round, we heard Ravi Shastri shriek. My friends and I hooted and danced, a cola bottle overturned somewhere, and there was a confetti-like shower of potato wedges.

But, horror of horrors, minutes later, the teams returned to the ground. Whatever for? This was certainly an unexpected development. Billy Doctrove, one of the match umpires, sagely declared that the outcome of the match would now be decided by a ‘bowlout’. Doctrove strove hard to look wise, but it was evident that he, too, had been mystified.

But then, Twenty20 cricket would flummox not just match officials, but television viewers as well. One gets to see a boundary or a six once every two deliveries. And every time that happens, all hell breaks loose. Two eccentric women, in red sports bras and black hot pants, hop on to a makeshift stage and start dancing. There are a couple of bare-bodied men as well, with equally uncontrollable limbs. Music systems explode, people make faces into the camera, and television commentators scream like rockstars. Another ball, another hit, and the mayhem starts all over again.

Inside the field, the players behave oddly too. Batsmen rush down the pavilion, two steps at a time, take guard, and start hitting. Bowlers, their shoulders drooping, run in, deliver, and watch the soaring ball disappear over their heads. At that moment, most of them have a resigned smile on their faces. The fielders are the busiest of the lot though. They run, dive, catch, throw… all at the same time. It makes our heads swim.

The fielding arrangements appear novel as well. The in-field looks deserted throughout an innings, while the boundary lines are packed with agile men. And batsmen pick up wickets regularly, while the bowlers score plenty of runs.

There isn’t even a dressing room. The coach, the physio, the reserves — everyone is seated on the sidelines. Most of them chew their nails inside shiny enclosures with fibreglass roofs.

The commercial breaks in between overs are short. But then, there are no drinks intervals. This rules out channel surfing, and makes bathroom breaks risky propositions. Matches are lost or won before one can even bat one’s eyelids. And there are three games, back to back, in the space of a few hours.

India won that match against Pakistan. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the long-haired, wily skipper, chose his hand well. All the three Indian bowlers managed to hit the stumps during the bowlout. The Pakistani bowlers, understandably, appeared too confused to get their act together. Shahid Afridi, the last of the three to take aim, did what two of his teammates had done. He bowled wide of the stumps. And then he grinned.

Moments later, there were more hoots and shouts. This time, it was on screen. It came from the Indian players. Things, however, were remarkably quiet inside our room, where we stared, dumbstruck, at a score-line that read, India: 3 Pakistan: 0.