First India v/s England one day match of 28 March,06

Hi friends,

I am back again and this time with the exciting description of my journey to  ‘FEROZ SHAH KOTLA CRICKET STADIUM ‘, Delhi to see England v/s India first one day match on 28 March-2006.I know its more thana year now but still better late than never!

I also had a company in this adventure (as I call it). His name is Shashank Singh from Mirzapur in U.P. We arranged tickets with the help of our friend named Amit Singh who is also from Mirzapur. In fact we were trying for the student concession ticket worth rupees 200 only but due to our bad luck or because of the DU students’ careful attitude we lost that. And as a result we bought special ticket which cost us Rs.1000 .Initially we were about 20 friends who were going to match but we reduced to just two of us after the tickets of Rs.200 were finished.

In the evening I got the tickets in hand. One special thing about this event is that at the same time a cricket series was going on in my college also. So you can say that there was an aura of cricket in the atmosphere of the college. That also contributed to our decision of going to match. It was my first ever experience of watching live cricket. According to me that was the main reason behind me watching this match. Let me tell you I am not a cricket-crazy fan but a thing that sets the millions of hearts across this large country throbbing has at least something special and I wanted to feel that thing.

I return to my adventure again. On 27 March, I returned to my hostel at 10:30 pm after buying a computer for one of my friend. I went to Shashank’s room to discuss about the schedule for tomorrow. Just then an idea clicked my mind. Lakshya (my best friend) lives in Delhi and it will be convenient for us to go to his home in the night only. As it would have been difficult for us to start for Delhi in the morning at 4:30am, moreover we were not sure about the convense also and also the routes in Delhi were changed to facilitate the traffic for the cricket match. So I and Shashank had a bath and set off for the journey at about 11:00 pm in the night. We went to the 5th km stone and then to Hapur crossing on foot and waited for the bus but got none for next half an hour. Then we tried for a lift. After a struggle of 15 minutes we got a semi truck which gave us the lift up to Mohan Nagar. When we got off the truck we noticed that the truck belonged to OMX Logistics Ltd. This has an office in front of our college campus.

We reached Mohan Nagar at 12 ‘o’ clock. In the way we received calls from Lakshya who was worried about arrival. From MohanNagar we took a Tempo (Vikram) to Anand Vihar. The climate on that night was something special. It was cool but not cold, it was night but not too dark. The breeze was chilling and the excitement in our hearts was in complete rhythm with the outer atmosphere. There was a fear in our heart – What if India lost the match or what if we could not reach in time? Thinking all this, we reached Anand Vihar at 12:30pm. At Anand Vihar I rang up my friends and had some tea at the tea stall. Shashank had some bread butter also as we were going to Lakshya’s home at a very odd hour. We booked an auto to Shahdara for Rs.40. It took about 45 minutes to reach Shahdara. In the mean time we received calls from Lakshya who inquired about our location.

At last at about 1:15 am we reached Shahdara- Golchakkar.

We entered MIG flat colony from the main gate. I had never gone to Lakshya’s home through the main gate. So we were quite puzzled. And kept roaming inside the colony for half an hour we made 3 complete rounds of the colony. And at last when Lakshya told us the way on mobile we finally reached his home. He was very happy to find us. He had already arranged for our sleeping but we were not in the mood to sleep so we chatted for an hour about our journey (which was actually to start) till then. Then we watched the South Africa v/s England Australia match in which 432 runs were made, chased and achieved!! After that we slept setting alarm for the 4:30am of the 28 march, Tuesday.

Alarms are most punctual things in this world— It’s their virtue as well as vice. We got up at 5 am. We had a bath quickly and dressed up for the match. I had the cap (Abhinav’s IBM cap) and had bread and tea. We are extremely grateful to Lakshya’s mom who took the pains to make us breakfast at that time of the morning. This breakfast was going to be a great help during the whole day.

We stepped out of Lakshya’s home to find the most pleasant morning of my life. It was a very beautiful day and the good thing was that it was going to be better. Lakshya told us the way and dropped us at the Shahdara bus stand. Without him this journey would have been quite difficult. We got in the bus and had our seats. After 45 minutes journey we reached Dilli Gate. From there we could see the stadium and feel the heat of the breaths of millions of lungs.

We went to the queue which was already about a kilometer long and stood there. There we came to know that we had missed a very important thing. We had our mobiles with us and it was not allowed to take mobiles inside. So we left the queue and went to search for the place to keep our cell phones.

First we went to a petrol pump but we were refused, then to a temple but no success. However from the temple we came to know about the tea stall where we can keep our mobiles. So we went to the tea stall and gave our mobiles to the shopkeeper trusting him completely.

When we returned from the tea stall, the queue has already commenced and now we were about 2 km away from the main gate no 7.There was a foreigner standing before us and behind was a family. The line crawled slowly. But at once there was some energy and the queue broke, people crossed the iron railing and jumped to the nearby line. The reason was the time. It had already been 9am and we were standing outside so people lost patience. We reached the main gate within 10 minutes and stopped for the security check.  However it was just a formality. We went into the gate. Now we could clearly hear the noise of people. I came to know that there were 70000 people in this stadium of maximum capacity of 48000.

I entered the stadium building and climbed to the second floor quickly so that we could find seats but as obvious we got no seats so we sat on the cement stairs. Those stairs were quite better than the seats because they were closer to the ground and also now we had no tension of loosing our seats. We settled and at last were happy that we reached there on time with quite ease. The match started. The crowd waved off its seats and shaked the whole stadium with the noise of ‘INDIA INDIA INDIA’. Indian team came for batting first. In the very first over there were two boundaries that made the whole stadium jump, with joy. It was Sehwag this time. But very soon Sehwag was out. I will not go into further details of the match as you can find that everywhere else too. In all India made 203 runs from 50 overs with Harbhajan as the highest scorer. There were two sixes too. One of them was from Harbhajan. Very honestly I would say that Indian batting was not to my expectations. I was a bit disappointed. This is the difference that can be felt just in the stadium not on any television set because all these players look to be heroes on T.V. but on the ground they are just any other player who can do mistakes and take wrong decisions. On the ground you become a part of the desire – a common desire of 70000 people and you rise and fall in emotions with all of them. The rhythm generated at one boundary and excitement surpasses anything else. Moreover there was one more feeling in our hearts – we were expecting for some miracle to happen so that this match becomes a memorable one. In the break people were silent. Some were praying and some disappointed.

We had some lunch in the break and returned to our seats. The Indian team came to ground and scattered all over the field. First over was taken by Irfan Pathan .First two balls went virgin. Then on the third he took the first wicket of England and the stadium waved with joy. People started beating chairs and shouting like mad. The crowd stood up to encourage. And on the next ball one more wicket. And now that was enough for the crowd to handle. All the men, women and children were shouting at the loudest of their tones and marking their presence in that aura of joy. After that England maintained its run rate with boundaries .Peterson and Flintoff were taking England to victory. But just then Harbhajan came into action. This spinner took 5 wickets. The entire stadium filled with rhythmic chords of ‘BHAJJI BHAJJI’ and ‘JO BOLE SO NIHAL – SASTRIYA AKAAL’.

Now there was a huge pressure on England, Yuvraj bowled very well and also took one wicket. The equations of the match were reversed the match that before the lunch was in England’s favor turned out to be in India’s favor. This match had everything that we wanted or had expected. At last on the ball of Irfan Pathan, England lost its last wicket and India became victorious. The miracle had happened and we all were happy, embracing each other with winning smile. Harbhajan was declared the man of the match and got a motor cycle which he and Dhoni drove in the stadium.

We came out of the stadium, took our mobiles and had a cup of tea. Then we sat in a DTC bus which took us to Anand Vihar. We were exhausted and hungry so we went to Sector 10 in Ghaziabad had our stomachs full and returned to hostel with the stories of India’s victory and our’s too!!

This was the end of my first ever live cricket match which was certainly excellent and memorable. It had everything which one can expect.

Regards-

Tarun Kumar Jaiswal