© Getty Images

If there's one thing cricket fans - and those of all sports really - across the world have in common, it's the inevitable wait to see your favourite team play. And the wait usually involves long queues - for tickets, for entry to stadiums, even for refreshments once you've made it past the first set of lines. The queues have given rise to their own enterprising side hustles - you can buy everything from newspapers and replica T-shirts to vuvuzelas to annoy your neighbours with while you wait. And it's hardly a modern phenomenon - in the picture above, a vendor sells cricket balls before a Test at Lord's in 1921.

While the wait is often long and arduous, it teaches fans patience - and poker, rummy and bridge possibly. In the photo below, a motley group passes the time with a card game while waiting to enter The Oval for a game in 1953.

Waiting in line is not a solitaire occupation Edward Miller / © Keystone/Getty Images

Queuing also provides a great opportunity to get in some R&R and catch up on your reading.

The one time when lying down on the job is okay T Marshall / © Topical Press/Getty Images

If you're lucky enough to be an MCC member, you'll be offered refreshments while in queue, because food things come to those who wait.

Posh nosh: ham and cheese for the egg and bacon? Chris Young / © Getty Images

The plebeians, though, are left to organise their own sustenance. In the photo below, school children settle in for a long night with blankets and ice-cream as they wait to get in for a match the next morning at The Oval.

Early birds get worms but earlier fledgelings get dessert Tom Braithwaite / © Mirrorpix/Getty Images

When it comes to cricket, gender is no bar. Except, of course, if you're a man trying to squeeze into the women's line.

Ladies get their own line for ODI tickets in Indore Raveendran / © AFP/Getty Images

No bar, in fact, is the mission of the preachers below, who are using Don Bradman as the ideal role model and the queue as the perfect captive audience for their message of abstinence.

Taking the name of the Don in vain: the preachers look like they could use a stiff drink after this ordeal © Fox Photos/Getty Images

All pretence at a line goes for a toss when it's time for the toss. Below, a crowd of spectators in Bengaluru rush the Chinnaswamy gates before a World Cup match.

Crush hour: Bengaluru cops get caught up in the surge of fans trying to get in inside the stadium Dibyangshu Sarkar / © Getty Images

But in India the long arm of the law comes with a lathi attachment - a bamboo stick that's de rigueur for crowd control - and the police are liberal with its application if you don't fall in line. The result? Dress code: shoes optional.

Not a shoe-in: would you rather have footwear or tickets? Indranil Mukherjee / © Getty Images

The lines aren't for fans alone. In the picture below, aspiring bowlers wait their turn at bowling trials organised by the BCCI in Meerut.

First line, then length: players learn there are no shortcuts to fame Virendra Singh Gosain / © Hindustan Times/Getty Images

Long before IPL fan parks and mall screenings were buzzwords, enterprising cinema owners were bringing the big-match experience to local theatres. In the picture below, a line of people wait to enter a movie theatre in Peshawar screening the 2003 World Cup.

Enter at your own risk: this Peshawar theatre was packing crowds of almost a thousand people for Pakistan matches Tariq Mahmood / © AFP/Getty Images

But sometimes you've got to skip the line, kick back and grab a drink.

Turn up, tune in, drop out: A young boy passes on the match to enjoy a cool drink on the other side of the Oval stands © Central Press/Getty Images

Deepti Unni is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

 

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