India v/s West Indies (Photo by Nirmalya Dutta)
Watching a match in real-life is something else.
For long I have carried the unfortunate allegation of being an Indian who doesn’t care too much about cricket, which in these vitiated times can often be construed as the worst sort of anti-national behaviour feasible, up there with refusing to chant ‘Bharat mata ki jai’ or questioning MS Dhoni at a press conference about his retirement.
However, the recent World T20 piqued my interest, more so because in my profession one can’t afford to be ignorant about anything, and Virat Kohli’s antics with the bat certainly deserved a more-than-dilettante interest in proceedings. People were talking about him in the same terms they use for Messi, Federer and Hamilton, as a greatest of all time.
His knocks were certainly impressive, particularly in the second innings and where he seemed to play his shots like a pool shark making his pots, as if the outcome had already been decided. And despite some lacklustre batting performances by his mates, MS Dhoni’s Sir Alex Ferguson-like ability to pull a rabbit out of a hat helped India end up in the semi-finals against the West Indies.
And that is when I had the opportunity to actually watch the match live in Wankhede Stadium at a place they call the Grand Stand (thanks to the great thing called corporate seats which my magnanimous colleague passed on to me).
Now I have never been to Wankhede and my stadium excursions have been limited to watching an India A match in Roop Singh Stadium when I was a kid in 1997 (and the team included a certain VVS Laxman) and an IPL match at DY Patil between KKR and Pune when Sourav Ganguly turned up for Pune and played one of his less memorable knocks, looking clearly out of touch.
When Virat Kohli silently took his position at the long on fence
Neither of these incidents helped raise any excitement about the game, but a semi-final at Wankhede was certainly a cause to give the jazzy new version of the gentleman’s game another chance.
We reached the Wankhede at 5 PM, two hours before the match and were stripped off our water bottles and coins at the gate, but what they call the “Grand Stand’ was quite a huge surprise. For the uninitiated, the Grand Stand is situated next to the MCA Pavillion where the real celebrities sit, while here everyone looked vaguely familiar, other than those like the author who were there, thanks to corporate seats. Those present here were either on the way to becoming famous or had seen their fame slip away and the only ones I managed to recognise were former Indian cricketer Ajay Jadeja and Bollywood actor Sanjay Kapoor. Incidentally, Sanjay’s brother Anil was in the Sachin Tendulkar Stand with ‘God’ and the Ambanis which will probably lead to some awkward questions later at home.
There was also to my utmost surprise a well-stocked bar and finger foods, which showed me just how different the same experience can be for the rich and privileged, because when I took a general ticket to DY Patil, I wasn’t even allowed to take a water bottle inside!
The Grand Stand was bang opposite to the press box and one storey above the sight-screen and it was so close to the action that it was shocking. You could literally see the players. So as I sipped on my whiskey, as I saw the Men in Blue start to bat, I got an inkling of how much this game really means to people.
Till now cricket was something I saw on TV or saw the cricketers on ads. To see them in flesh and blood was something else, not to mention the fact that there were no annoying ads after every over (the irony that those ads probably paid for so this corporate seat is not lost on me).
A view of the magical Wankhede Stadium
While the stadium was loud to begin with, it reached a different level when Virat Kohli walked in and it made you wonder just how do these cricketers manage to perform when the entire nation is looking up to them. And yet most of the time they do, while rest of us would probably fail to tie our shoe-laces if we had so many people watching.
At the end of the day India failed, mostly because of our bowlers’ ability to overstep whenever they were likely to take wickets but it was all in all a thoroughly exciting experience.
Cricket might have been a British sport but T20, with its slam-antics, music and cheering, a quintessentially modern Indian phenomenon which more than anything shows us the potential for a new India.
With a mash-up of Bollywood music and fireworks, this version of the gentleman’s game has become the strongest symbol of modern India. It’s a signal to the world the we have thrown off our colonial roots, and also that there's an India coming along, one that like Virat may be brash or arrogant but knows that it’s time to take our place in the new world order.
Despite the semi-final loss, this experience more than anything reiterated the belief that India is charting a glorious new path. To use our PM’s phrase, “Acche Din Zaroor Ayenge”. Bring on the IPL season, there's a new cricket fan in town.