I had seen it many times from the train
and had always been in awe of its huge stands. It was always my dream to enter
that huge stadium to watch a game and see the international stars right in
front of me. The final of the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup was to be held in the
Wankhede Stadium. That year apparently the tickets were sold on the basis of a
lucky draw thingy where people had to apply online (2 tickets per person).This was done so as to prevent people from mass booking. I was lucky
to get 2 tickets for the event. Me and a friend of mine(he’s actually old
enough to be an uncle) went for the match. I was thrilled as I would finally
enter the Wankhede Stadium. Yes, I had been to a stadium prior to this but it
was just a 4 hour T20 game at the home of Indian cricket(The Brabourne
Stadium), but this was something else as it was an international game.
Seeing banners being held up in the crowd
in various other games in the group stages, quarters and semi finals, I too
decided to carry one with me and, had taken great pains to make one.
Finally the day 2nd April, 2011
arrived and everyone could feel the excitement in the air. India were the
favourites and playing at home and the whole world was anticipating a home win
and seeing Sachin Tendulkar finally win a World Cup.
We reached the stadium at 11:30A.M. which
was 3 hours prior to the start of the match. While looking out of the train on
the way to Churchgate station I was alarmed at the size of the queues outside
the common entrance to the Gavaskar Stand and the North Stand. They were huge.
We were wondering if we had left for the Stadium a bit too late. Finally, we
stood in the line and waited in the sweltering heat. News vans were parked all
across the street and reporters were speaking to the cameras and pointing
towards the people in the lines presumably talking about how the heat hadn’t
deterred the fans from making it to the stadium. When the cameras panned
towards the fans there were huge roars from the people and many of them (myself
included) waved out. The policemen shooed away the reporters when they got to
close to the people in line as they would get busy in a news interaction and
the ever slow moving line would move even slower.
Colourful cotton wrist bands of the Indian tricolour
were being sold by vendors at a very reasonable price of rupees 5 per band.
However, taking advantage of the severe heat people were selling bottled water
at inflated rates like for a bottle of 15 rupees people were being quoted a
price of 45 rupees. As we reached the first check-point I saw a sign that
really disappointed me. It read “NO BANNERS OR OUTSIDE EATABLES ALLOWED”. It was
disappointing as the banner had taken a lot of effort to make. The people in
front of us in the queue who also had a bnner asked the police why the rule was made. The reply was
that the organisers wanted everyone to have an uninterrupted view of the action
and the police felt that wooden objects could be sneaked inside on a cardboard
banner and weapons inside the stadium was a major security threat. There was a
huge pile of banners just there and my banner was added to the pile. The
entrance to the stand we were to be in was on the east side and the entrance
was a funny one where you had to climb two flights of steps and walk through a
metal detector at the entrance to a footbridge. Beneath the bridge were the
railway tracks of the Western Railway. In the middle there were ticket barcode
detectors.
Finally after a wait of a hundred and five
minutes we descended the bridge and were inside the stadium premises at 1:15
P.M. Still plenty of time for the game to start so first we headed off to the
refreshment counter and had a Pepsi to quench our thirst. The entrance to the
stand was still quite a walk away and we had to pass the official merchandise
stores and the wait over there took up quite a lot of the time as we had
received requests from numerous people to get a souvenir for them. Twenty
minutes later we ascended the steps to stand where we had to show our tickets
once again so that stadium officials could ascertain whether we were entering
the correct block.
Here
I saw the ground for the first time. There was still three quarters of an hour
left for the start of the game and the players were engaged in their warm-ups.
The spectators were shouting out the players names at random and when the
players raised both their hands in acknowledgment the cheers became even
louder. We found sun visors and long air balloons which emitted a steel
clashing sound when clashed with another balloon. The sun visors were useful as
our stand would have to contend with the setting sun as we were bang across the
Arabian Sea.The Sri Lankan players were having their warm ups on the opposite
side of the ground in front of the Vijay Merchant stand. From at least a
hundred and twenty metres away the only player who could be identified was
Lasith Malinga courtesy of his curly mop.
As I saw the toss being held in the
distance I had finally gotten something to ponder about. The people in the stadium
couldn’t hear a word of what was being said in the middle, yet on the T.V. the
fans viewers always hear a roar when a captain mentions the fans in his speech.
How did the fans know when they were being spoken about? There was a huge groan
when India lost the toss and an even larger groan when the news that Sri Lanka
would be batting first was flashed across the big screen. It was understandable
to hear that as all Mumbaikars had turned up to watch home hero Sachin
Tendulkar bat in his last world cup appearance.
Twenty
minutes later the World Cup was carried out to the centre and the teams
accompanied by the mascots and the umpires made their way out for the National
Anthems.
The crowd
was completely Indian except for a small number of Sri Lankan fans packed in
the top tier of the stadium. That was the only place that had dark blue shirts
and Sri Lankan flags. The rest of the stadium was packed with light-blue clad
people waving the Indian tri-colour. When the Jana Gana Mana was played the
entire crowd sang it with great enthusiasm and everyone could just feel the
electricity in the air. The crowd was getting charged up for the big encounter
and in turn charging up their players as well.
And finally
the match began as the bowler ran in the crescendo built up and reached its
loudest when the ball reached the batsman.
India had a good start with Zaheer Khan
bowling 3 consecutive maiden overs and picking up an early wicket. The crowd
became even louder at the fall of the wicket. Following that it became a little
boring and the crowd lost interest as Sri Lanka set out to rebuild the innings
and were just looking for gaps and keeping the scoreboard ticking. Wickets were
being picked at regular intervals but there wasn’t a collapse as such which in
reality wasn’t a pity as no one wanted to see a 1 sided final. There were huge
cheers when captain M.S.Dhoni made some unexpected bowling changes like
introducing Virat Kohli into the attack. The loudest cheer was made in the 30th
over when Tendulkar was bought on to bowl a few overs of his leg breaks.
After the 40th over the Sri
Lankan batsman cut loose and Zaheer’s tidy economy rate was ruined. Sri Lanka
scored 90+ runs of the last 10 overs courtesy a quickfire 30 odd by Thisara
Perera and Mahela Jayawardene’s century which was appreciated even by the
Indian supporters who recognised the sheer quality of the knock. 50 overs gone
Sri Lanka scored 274-7 and India needed 275 runs to win their second world cup.
Only once in 9 previous finals had a team chasing won a final, but that was in
1999 when Australia chased down 120 odd against Pakistan . A total of 275 was
something else in itself as in any pressure game the norm is get runs on the
board and then defend it as nerves play a crucial role in such crunch games.
When the Indian openers arrived out in the
middle the crowd went wild. There was belief that the total could be chased
down. However just two balls later Sehwag was trapped LBW and the crowd went
silent. The only noise was from the small bunch of Lankan supporters but the
ground was so silent that the Lankan players cheers could be heard quite
clearly. The crowd took a few balls to get over their shock and came back into
life when Tendulkar struck as classic cover drive. On the other end Gambhir was
playing well and it looked like he was setting himself up for a huge innings.
In the 7th over the shock returned when Tendulkar was dismissed. The
destroyer in chief was Lasith Malinga(the crowd couldn’t boo him as he was a
home player for the Mumbai team in the IPL and had won many matches for them).
Kohli and Gambhir set out to rebuild the innings and with every single run
taken, portions of the crowd were yelling out “well played” and “carry on this
way”. In my opinion their method was sensible as they were building a platform
for the player of the tournament Yuvraj and M.S.D. to finish off the game. Also
with those shouts from the crowd the players out in the middle felt assured
that the crowd was still in their corner and their confidence levels and self
belief increased. When the third wicket fell courtesy of a brilliant caught and
bowled the game was finely poised with 161 runs required and 7 wickets
remaining.
Another wicket would have put severe
pressure on the Indian team. The crowd had puzzled looks on their faces when
the announcement was made that Dhoni was the next man in instead of the inform
Yuvraj. Maybe it was to gain an advantage against the two off spinners who were
bowling at the time or to maintain a left-right combination at the crease.
Steadily and steadily India reached inched closer to the target and the crowd
began getting more and more involved in the game. Gambhir faced a World Cup
final heartbreak when he was castled 3 runs short of a magnificent World Cup
hundred under pressure. However he had done enough, India were 52 runs away
from 52 balls when Yuvraj walked in to partner a well set Dhoni who was
striking the ball with precision. As India moved even closer the run rate kept
on increasing and the Sri Lankan players had completely lost the urge to try to
pull off one final spectacular moment to unsettle the momentum. The fielders
were moving lethargically with drooping shoulders. It was as if they had just
given up. The crowd including myself had climbed up onto our seats and we were
just yelling out in joy. 48.1 overs bowled India need 4 runs to win from 11
when Kulasekara ran in to bowl what would be the final ball of the tournament.
Indian captain M.S.Dhoni smashed him for 6 over the long on boundary courtesy
his helicopter shot to finish on 91* and give India her second world cup.
History had been made that night in
Mumbai!!! It was the highest total ever chased in a knockout game of a World
Cup. India won by 6 wickets. In doing so they became the first team ever to win
a 60 over World Cup(1983) a 20 over World Cup(2007) and a 50 over World
Cup(2011).
The
moment the ball was hit the fireworks were off the crowd let out a cheer so
loud that I couldn’t hear myself yelling out. The one besides me later said
that he couldn’t hear himself blowing his trumpet at that precise moment. The
noise was incredible, the Indian players had charged out to the middle. There
were many players who at post match interviews had tears of joy in their eyes. There
was a lap of honour where the players thanked the fans for their support and
lifted Tendulkar on their shoulders take him for a special lap of honour for
himself. The lap of honour was taken under tight police cover and a few daring
spectators even scaled the fence and ran onto the ground and then were chased
back by the cops. They had gained their one moment of thrill.
The
presentation was held and a cheer to match the one made at the winning moment
was made again when Dhoni lifted the cup. It was now 12:10 A.M. on the 3rd
of April. I had spent almost 11 hours inside the stadium and was sweating a
lot. We joined the crowd and headed off to the exits still randomly shouting
out “India”, “India”. A few people were still blowing their trumpets and
vehicles were moving on the road with people waving the Indian flags and
cheering and playing patriotic songs on their vehicle radio systems. Although I
was extremely tired when I reached home I had enjoyed myself thoroughly. You
should experience everything at least once before making up your mind whether
you like it or not.
Although the day on the whole was most
enjoyable I made a decision to never visit a stadium for an O.D.I. again as you
need to be very sharp eyed during a match so as to follow the ball and when
there are leading edges or top edges you are often searching for the ball and
by the time you locate it its already and the boundary or in a fielders hands.
Also when there is an incident on the ground the members of the audience are
often clueless as to what is going on due to no commentary on the ground.
Today was
the 2015 World Cup Final and watching the 93,013 crowd at the G(Melbourne
Cricket Ground) I was reminded about my Cricket World Cup finals experience and
decided to blog about it.
