An evening of thrill and excitement!!!

I am not a fan of cricket, but I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday’s DC vs MI live at Rajiv Gandhi stadium, Uppal. Hyderabad.

My husband’s company has booked a whole box (9 seats) for the IPL series at Uppal.This ticket is only for the employees and not for their family, so only he can watch the match. Not wanting to disappoint my sporty crazy children, my husband booked tickets for the family to catch the match.

We reached the place an hour before the scheduled 4.p.m and so positioned ourselves comfortably below the shade of the camera crew at West pavilion terrace.

The experience of watching a match live is different from watching on a TV. It was indeed nice to be among the sea of people who went on to cheer irrespective of whichever team hit a four or six. I was only worried about the crowd but it was totally organised till the end.

I had anticipated the craze for sachin but perhaps underestimated it. After a lot of vacillations between ‘Will he?” or Won’t he?. (owing to the ill health of his spiritual guru Sai Baba) . He appeared for the net practice at 3.p.m along with his team mates and God, you must have seen the euphoria of the jam packed stadium ( 38,000+ spectators). I have only read about the craze for him from newspapers , but every time he touched the ball, or bent down their was a high decibel ear-drum shattering roar, not to mention the chants of ‘Sachin, sachin’ through out. It was indeed sad that the world renowned spiritual guru’s death coincided with his birthday. ( sachin is a follower of puttabarthi sai baba)

Huge cut outs, banners claiming him as God and king and wishing him for his 38th birthday were all around the stadium and on the road leading to the stadium.

Banners ranging from :

‘ You never get older with age, you only get better with age, Happy birthday, Sachin’,

’ der was only banality and then god decided 38 years ago let der be cricket’.

‘ cricket has fans, but God has followers, sachin is god’ etc.

'If sachin permits, I would put my head at his feet'

Some fans had even painted their t-shirts with the single letter ‘Happy birthday sachin’, and all of them had to stick together so that they could be read. What caught my attention were these people more than the match. It was more interesting to see these fans vying with one another and screaming to catch the attention of players close to the fence. Interesting people, really!!


I’m sure if Sachin uses all these good will for noble causes, he would simply be followed.

It was definitely an experience to catch the thrill and excitement Of a match in the stadium than on TV, with a small grouse though. The security did not allow us to carry water bottles, mobiles and handbags of even ladies who claimed they had their baby's food but it was puzzling to see so many people have binoculars and knap-sacks on their backs. The boy sitting next to me told he carried his cell phone in his socks but how could a big binocular and knap sack go unnoticed.

So much for our security.

Nevertheless I caught the thrill and excitement of the live match and the Disc jockey who held the audience to the sway of the Mexican wave. It was a lovely sight to see the rise and fall of the spectators as the wave kept going to the instructions of the jockey. Unrehearsed synchronisation.

KD'83 to DD'11

I was'nt following cricket for the past 20 years except in movies like 'Lagaan' but my super positive apartment people's enthusiasm rubbed on me since the Indo-pak match. They bursted the crackers much before the win and the way the little ones and elders went about with the huge flag of India around the complex, my heart too swelled with pride.

My son and my jetlagged hubby(early morning he returned from a long term) were watching the match on a big screen in the club house with all our co-residents, while my daughter who was watching at home dragged me to watch the final over.

Like most Indians, I too was a great cricket enthusiast long long ago.I had maintained a scrap book with all data and details of the cricketers those days. I remember taking permission from school to watch the prudential cup in 1983 and yesterday after a long time , I was truly ecstatic when i saw Dhoni's men hold the cup aloft. All along though I was'nt keen about the game I was always in awe of this man called Dhoni.

The way he handled the situation and the winning interview yesterday was simply exemplary. He has a cool body language. A matured head on young shoulders. No glamorous business degree on management can hold light to the team-managing skills of this guy.

Now all the apartment kids have replaced KD'83 (Kapil's Devils 83)( Thanks to chain kuli ki mein kuli) on their cricket bats with DD'11 (dhoni's dashers of 2011).


Two thumbs up to Dhoni's dashers for capturing the cup.