Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Memorable moments in chepauk.........................

“Hindu Paathiya ? Least in tckt denomination is 400 for squatting” I exclaimed to Senthil in the 9:30 bus.
“Enna matchuka, adhukulla pottutaana ? Dei enna da solder, adukku vera ponum da” said Senthil as he made his statement in his trademark scene podara style.
Naan thittinen “Pesikiite irundha tckt ellam vittu podium, edavadhu pannu, yen ippadi irukke.”

Came Velachery it was the turn of one more of the cricket crazy fans, my cousin, to get into the bus and get excited to the level approving the idea immediately. He then called up another of his friend and promptly persuaded him too to join with us even after mentioning it to him that we were going for Rs.1000 tickets.

I didn’t know if it was my statement or if Senthil had become more responsible suddenly but he somehow made some arrangements for the tickets. Only later did I realize that it was the biggest unifying force in our country which binds one billion people together under one roof, the inexplicable madness for the game of cricket that had made him appear responsible suddenly.

The day before the match I was just devising indigenous ways to smuggle in the camera to the ground given my new found madness towards photography. Last time around I was stopped from taking in pencil batteries. Next day due to some confusion (first time I was thanking a gal for creating the confusion) some tickets exchanged hands and we were unexpectedly rewarded with seats in Royal Sundaram Stand right behind the sight screen. That was the best view of the ground by all standards and thanks to my prayers, cameras were allowed without any checking at all. But then we smuggled in extra batteries with the help of Ravi’s inhaler (Ravi told the security that it was the inhaler in his pocket and for the first time his wheezing also proved useful ;-) ).

We were seated away from Senthil and the other folks who had turned up for the match. We kept on clicking endlessly during the nets before the match and when the captains walked in for the toss the atmosphere was electrifying. Amidst all the posters, advertisement banners and others the ground by itself provided all the colors in the RGB palette across the most lively stands in the ground as against the most boring stands (near the pavilion).

Utthappa, sachin and dravid played some scintillating shots and it was so good to watch these shot executions in person rather than from a television feed which we all misinterpret to be a live feed from the ground. Many people argue that nothing much is visible from that distance in the cricket ground from the stands. What can I say to these people, they just got to grow up and learn more about the game. Too bad DADA and Dhoni were rested for that game. One rare occurrence of the match was that Sachin’s wicket was, for the first time in the history of the game, greeted with some applause, The local guy Dinesh Karthik was due next.

As is the middle name of our team “inconsistency” the Indians unfailingly wasted a nice start and were bundled out for 260+. Then came in the West Indians to bat and Agarkar plucked the first wicket off the first ball of the innings. A few more wickets and we were expecting an early finish when Samuels came back to form. Maybe a census would give us more encouraging facts about the not-so-great players to have become sensational match winners by either discovering the real talent in them or else coming back to form with a bang after a prolonged slump, just after one tour to India.

The money spent on the match was worth every penny of it to have seen both the greats of this generation play in the same match against each other and both performing so well. The shots looked more elegant in person than on TV. The lethal pace and swing of the ball were really breathtaking and was totally an out of the world experience to know what serious international cricket is all about.

Then walked in the other GOD of the game, undoubtedly the most stylish player of all times, the only other run machine or mortal who could ever be talked about in the same ranks of the little master. BRIAN CHARLES LARA must have felt he was playing in Trinidad (his home ground) given the loud cheers that he received.

The group of guys behind us kept nagging my cousin to go out to the snack stall cause every time coincidentally during the second innings wickets fell when he went out. Little did they know that such stupid superstitions were only for lesser mortals like us and that these were beyond the cricketing great who was at the crease. Ravi even tried it once only to understand the truth in the previous line even better.

Lara massacred the Indian bowling line up ruthlessly with his array of shots flowing from his willow. He showed why he was also a master of the game and still remained simply unstoppable on his day. He went on to elegantly win the match with such nonchalance and disrespect for the Indian bowlers that even the Indian crowd forgot all about the dismal performance of the home team and started cheering the West Indian Legend.

Once the match was over we took some snaps of the whole empty ground, picturing the devastation after the storm had calmed down. Broken chairs, half burnt posters, torn banners and scattered piece of the wood was the picture that the ground presented.

It would have been perfect had the Indian team won the match but then we would not have got to watch the Little Caribbean Master in action. All of us went home happy people, even though internally the dejection was there that India had lost a match,
Lara’s Knock was enough consolation for every true fan of the game of cricket.


Some photos that i took......

http://in.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/shyamguna2k/album?.dir=/33cfscd&.src=ph&.tok=phDZbSGBqTz90lOc

2 comments:

Venky said...

and for the first time his wheezing also proved useful - :)

"Lara’s Knock was enough consolation for every true fan of the game of cricket" - I disagree! Why do you state that as a consolation? It is a treat! I just go gaga over this guy! He is God-II!

"Broken chairs, half burnt posters..." that symbolised the mess our team was in that day!

As u rightly said, we went home happy! Good article that.

SNMS98 said...

S, u r rt in every sense. But i didn't want to mean that when i wrote it though now when i read it i can c it also means the way u felt. Guess it should hve been "Lara's knock was enough consolation to those who desperately wanted india to win"