A novice’s narrative of a cricket match!

A novice’s narrative of a cricket match!

The joyous winners Photo: Mint

Last Sunday in Lucknow, India beat England by 100 runs in the ICC Men’s World Cup, 2023 series. You would already have heard about it, seen the action on the ground or on TV, read about it, rerun some videos, and conducted a post-mortem!

Yet, when a friend suggested that I, a cricket non-fan, share my observations as a spectator of the scene outside the ground, I thought why not, even though it would not be as exciting as the game actually was.

Watching it live was a mega-picnic with a noisy crowd of nearly 50,000 participants who had managed to reach there after a long hurdle race.

The parking was a couple of kilometres away. You trudged the distance to pass through several barricades, showing your tickets at every point. Iron barricades and uniformed personnel made one feel more like you were coming out of prison on parole and not going in to watch a fun game. Several hands at various points of entrance rummaged through your belongings to ensure security measures perhaps stricter than airport security; nothing more than wallet, glasses, mobile phones, medicines, were allowed. I was told children below seven years of age were also not allowed.

It seemed as if there was a uniform to watch the match-
the Indian team jersey 

The stadium is the place to soak in the atmosphere. Perhaps the only time our true nationalist spirit surges collectively without any doubt, is when India is playing a cricket match.

Everyone’s focus is on the action going on in the ground, and those few hours being lived by the spectators are never recorded in history. After watching it live, I feel as if the noise in the stands is jammed or blocked out during commentary on radio and television because you hear very little of how the thousands of people are shouting when the dozen players are on the field.

I was perhaps one of the few out of uniform on-lookers as the whole human presence seemed to be covered in the blue of India. With cheeks painted in the tricolour hues, rising from their seats like penguins bobbing out of ocean, waving various sizes of tiranga (tricolour), dancing, singing, picking up the DJ/announcer’s lines, clicking selfies, screaming and shouting our players’ names at every four or six hit by the latter, they sighed and groaned in unison whenever the rival team scored or got a wicket. The imaginative attire and headgear of some was also worth-noticing.

Top left: Tricolour everywhere (Hindustan Times)
 Top right: Special make-up & headgear for the match (AFP)
Bottom left: We have yet to learn to celebrate the bowlers
Bottom right: Everyone rising to applaud a six!

One category of people pushing legs this side and that to walk through the stands throughout, were the vendors selling chips made by hitherto-unheard-of companies, soggy bhel (spicy puffed rice mixture), stale cream rolls, cola drinks gone flat, oily samosas, ice creams pops melting fast into their wrappers and the smallest Domino’s pizzas, at exorbitant prices.

For those of you who want to follow the game seriously, stay in front of the TV and the bigger the screen, the better it is. In the stadium you have to keep peering at the giant screen to know the details. And as our dear friend RNM watching a match long ago, had asked shocked, what, no replay?

My fear of not being able to see the ball from that distance, however, proved baseless. The white sphere shone bright in the merciless lights as it bounced from the hands of the bowlers and fielders, or the bat of the batsmen, slithered on the ground or flew into the sky.

My moments of glee? Whenever the LED stumps flashed red, someone getting bowled, stumped or run out. I would like to call it my sportsman’s (woman’s) spirit that it did not matter to me who was declared out, for me it was the connect between the wicket and the red light. It was like tree-lighting on Christmas for me!

As England batted in the second innings, there was hardly an inch in the stands to move.

I had sympathy for the present citizens of England who have had to watch the karma of their forefathers coming to haunt them. On top of having a prime minister of Indian origin, they lost in a game that their ruling poorvaj (forefathers) themselves had taught their now vanquishers who were their then subjects.

Recently, there was a comment doing the rounds about how the people of Chennai had cheered and supported Afghanistan in the Pakistan vs Afghanistan match. What choice did they have? Between the two, they had to pick one team to support. Skip the bigger global comparisons of Ukraine vs Russia or Hamas vs Israel, nearer home isn’t it merely the question of choosing the lesser evil? Thankfully China does not play cricket yet, if Pakistan was playing China, who would we support then?

As I write from my perspective, let me disclose that I was Mani’s proxy as he was not in town. Inching slowly towards my aim of leading a minimalistic life, the experience was a wonderful gift for me which I might never have again.

No wonder then, one must admire the patience level of our friend’s children, even their cousins and friends who not only allowed me this time, but even smiled at my non-participation.

Top: Newspersons and photographers covering the event
Bottom: Groundsmen preparing the pitch for the second innings

 That Sunday evening ended.

• The country cheered the cricket team as they went out of the stadium winners.
• The state was proud that the national team had won on their soil.
• The people of Lucknow rejoiced that their city had hosted the event which could go on to make history.
• The spectators in the stadium coming from cities and towns near and far, screamed and jumped with joy as they witnessed India-11 tuck another victory under their belts.
• Watching crowds flood out cheering and shouting, dispersing into the darkness at the end, the hundreds of state policepersons on duty felt good about having managed the event without any mishap.
• The scores of vendors and hawkers went crazy counting the cash they stuffed into their pockets in one evening which they could not possibly have earned in a month.
• The dozens of newspersons were happy they had caught a historic moment.
• The team and their coach left the stadium confident that they were becoming invincible.
• The event managers, the groundsmen and the stadium staff went home with the story about their important role.
• It was only a small group of workers who came back Monday morning to pick up and clear out the aftermath of the game. Nobody heard their tale when they cleared thousands of water bottles and paper glasses, mounds of cardboard wrappers, paper napkins, cleaned the drying sticky spilled drinks or the puddles of water around the tanks!

Whichever team takes home the trophy and USD 4,000,000 prize money on the 19^th of November, this band of people and their kinds in all other cities are the only ones who can never claim that they played any significant part while history was being written. 

                                                                                             - Anupama S Mani