Every sports fan’s first piece on a favourite sport or even
a casual spectator’s recounting of a sports experience typically starts with
tracing his or her history with the game. Should I follow the unwritten rule or
break it? Maybe, I will include my “history” somewhere as I go along, and keep
up with the tradition to a small extent atleast.
Though I should have begun my sport chronicles with the F1
seasons of the days of yore of Schumi or with the FIFA World Cup 2010, I never
really got around to that. So this time I was determined not to miss out on yet
another of my “firsts” – a live cricket match from the stands! It was something
indeed. It wasn’t a breakneck-paced Twenty-Twenty or even the conventional ODI,
it was a Test match! I know how even a hardcore cricket fan would react to this
– “Um.. Test.. Interesting”. And I know
it hardly sounds interesting, but it was nevertheless a cool experience.
It was the first day of the second test of the series in
Australia’s tour of India 2010 – Oct 9, 2010. It was the “Border-Gavaskar
Trophy series” – I knew this only when I looked at the actual gate-pass. It was
a match that would go on to become legendary, but we are yet to enter the
stadium, so we have quite some ground to cover before we get to that ;) The Indian
side having returned fresh from a win at Mohali, skepticism prevailed as to
their performance in the second test at Bangalore. Well, what do you expect?
Our boys have been known to put up their feet after a win… and end up with a
thrashing in the next match.
So it was with the least expectations of excitement that we
started to the match. We were an assorted gang – myself and my roommate, a
senior and a junior and a friend from work. It all started with spotting the
ticket sales on bookmyshow.com. The first day fell on a Saturday, and we
thought, why not? We leisurely made our way to the stadium on the appointed
day. The match had attracted quite a crowd, largely thanks to the brilliant
idea of selling the tickets on bookmyshow, I believe. Here, I shouldn’t forget
to mention the innovative methods of securing the stadium. “Cameras,
Audio-video equipment not allowed”, the website had stated sternly. So it was
with a little worry that we carried our brand-new handycam to the stadium. The security guards let us
carry it in, but they had a handycam of their own and clicked a picture of each
spectator, cam in hand, at the gate :)
So, there we were, tickets collected, queues cleared and
armed with our handycam, walking into the C-Stand. We felt a small tinge of
disappointment that India had lost the toss and was fielding. Alright, we will
atleast get to spot all our guys, we consoled ourselves.
As we entered the stands, we noticed two things immediately
- the choicest seats were taken and the ground was smaller than we had
expected. The second observation meant something good for us; we weren’t going
to be staring at ant-sized figures in white all day without any clue as to
where the ball was or what was happening. So coming back to the seats, we
learnt our first lessons on live sports viewing:
- The best seats vary from one sport to another. In a cricket stadium, the best seats are the ones nearer to the boundary, you can follow the footwork and the ball better. You get a good view however further back you are (we were pretty much at the back, but still got a good view), but the front ones are the best. It probably works the other way round in football, I suspect.
- It is better that you aren’t assigned seat numbers – there are these huge pillar supports that can block the view squarely and there comes your luck
- The lighting matters, so do the weather and the direction of your stand.
Ok, the good thing about these lessons is that we did not
learn them the hard way - we got pretty good seats(unassigned, you pick them),
in the west stand(the sun doesn’t hit you full on that way) and the weather was
cool too. So yes, the gyaan was for my
enjoyment and your torture ;) Ok, I will move on now. Hey, stay with me, no
more lessons, I swear!
Just as we settled in to our seats, the first thing we did
was… yes, look for Sachin! And oh, he was at the boundary near the East stand :(
That was when I realized what Sachin really meant to every cricket fan and
every Indian. The crowd cheered every move of the little master. If he bent to
pickup the ball or adjusted his cap or stretched his hands, every move was
greeted with cheers. Yet, for all that, he was modesty personified. Once in a
while, when the crowd pleaded constantly for acknowledgement, he would turn and
give a shy wave. That is Sachin for you!
We spent sometime identifying where each player from the
Indian side was positioned. The spectator crowd was mostly the IT workforce of
Bengaluru, with a smattering of student population and a some bunches of
families. The action on the pitch wasn’t hot and just as we were starting to
feel the thirst for action, the first Aussie wicket fell to Harbhajan Singh.
The crowd cheered in good spirits and the team celebrated at the pitch.
Just as I was getting a feel of the handycam – zooming at
the right speed, moving the cam in a steady fluid motion of the arm, I got my
reward, I caught the next wicket on film! Or HDD or whatever, but does that
matter? Me, at my first cricket match, at the first instance of handling a
handycam recorded a wicket!
As we finished our lunch of sandwiches and bananas, we got
our next reward, Sachin was stationed at our side of the field. We trained the
cam on him, patiently waiting to click our very own Sachin-pic. After about a
minute of two of endearments and cajoling from the crowd, the man of
five-foot-five, who rules the hearts of many an Indian, turned and gave us a
wave.
The next two wickets fell at roughly forty-minute intervals
(or as one of our friends remarked, after every food-break :))
and we dutifully cheered. I caught one more wicket on camera and was
congratulating myself on the good fortune when Ponting walked in, and with that
our frustration. He wouldn’t budge, nor would North. We were getting restless
and my roommate declared over and over again, that she would be satisfied with
the day if only Ponting’s wicket was taken. Another declared that the match was
too drab, and he would prefer that the Aussie hit a few good shots atleast, to
spice things up. The clock was edging towards 4 pm and we were making our plans
to leave, when Raina(Raina!?!) dismissed Ponting for a lbw. So we left
Australia at the crease nearing the end of first day of play at 236/5 and
walked out, happy with our money's worth - Sachin and 5 Aussie wickets, in that order. What more can one ask for?
Now, for posterity, I will make a mention here of how the rest of
the days played out – Aussies were packed off only at 478, Sachin and Murali
Vijay put up a century each – Sachin’s 49th century and his 6th
double ton, India’s first Innings score stood at 495, Aussies put up a 2nd
innings score of 223 setting a formidable target of 207 for India, and on the
final day of play, debutant Cheteshwar Pujara and Sachin batted away, or rather
blasted a way, to India’s victory.
P.S: My history of cricket-watching isn’t all that
interesting, it started with watching the 1996 World Cup and has been
continuing on-and-off :)
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