On a recent promotional visit to India, Brett Lee was escorted away and locked in a backroom until a crowd of frenzied, adoring onlookers dissipated. "They kill you with love," he quipped. "This is the home of cricket."
Barely 12 months since the shopping maul, Lee has returned to India with the Australian one-day side. And, to his amazement, the game's popularity has grown in the world's second most populous country.
"This has probably been the series with the most interest since I've been coming here," Lee said. "I've been on a few tours now with the Australian side, and it's always been massive, but the last couple of weeks have been huge.
"I think the Twenty20 has had a lot to do with it, which is great for world cricket and great for India. This is where cricket is, this is the home of cricket … There would have been a couple of thousand people waiting for us at the hotel tonight."
Of all the Australian cricketers, Lee attracts the greatest affection from the Indian public. His image is emblazoned on T-shirts, billboards and magazines across the country, and his deeds on the pitch are analysed and dissected in detail on India's cricket-dedicated television channels.
Lee feels neither overwhelmed nor overexposed. In fact, he plans to increase his presence in India over the next 12 months. Following the chart success of his debut single with Asha Bhosle last year, he will record and release his first studio album in India during breaks in his cricketing schedule. And, having fielded and rejected several Bollywood approaches due to time constraints, Lee hopes to grace India's silver screens after his cricketing career.
Lee, along with his manager Neil Maxwell, is also in the process of forming a charitable fund in India.
"Steve Waugh is loved over here because he has done so much charity work, and that's how I would like to be remembered as well: someone who enjoyed his cricket, but also put a fair bit back in," Lee said. "Hopefully, I've only scratched the surface. There's heaps of other things as well I want to do over here, like maybe a movie.
"Even though there are so many people, never once have we felt threatened. We're never worried about going anywhere … It's different when we tour England, South Africa or New Zealand because they love the home side, and that's not a bad thing. But here they just cheer you, and you get goose bumps when you walk onto the field. It's just, 'Wow'. You don't see that in Australia."
- ALEX BROWN