I was being dragged from a favourite holiday which I didn’t want to end and was being forced to board the flight back home. This might have been how Sehwag would have felt when, batting on 200 odd and belting bowlers all around the park and smacking his lips in anticipation of some more carefree stroke-making; there is a tap on the shoulder and the umpire says this is an ODI and 50 overs are up. Or what Pujara might have felt when, batting on 12 and the fielders in the deep are lying on the ground taking a quick nap, he is smacking his lips in anticipation of a few more hours of doughty batting, when there is a tap on the shoulder and the umpire says, this is a test match, man, you have batted for 1800 minutes and five days are up. I was on a merry spin on a foreign land and I had not had enough of it.

Is this yet another article on cricket? Or am I going to write about my own trip now? No, no, but the feeling I have tried to describe is exactly what I felt when I....