Amidst the ‘mad’ crowd

Kishore C.S. (November 2000)

In a country that took pride in its cricket matches and cricket players, watching a cricket match is a preferred choice leisure event . Especially the ‘one-day’ series have captured attention of viewers well. In the hey days of this craze, I happened to watch a match ‘live’ on the ground instead of a ‘couch’. The experience is something I will remember forever.

It was in 1993-94 season and Hero Cup was being hosted in India. I was studying in IIT Kanpur and Kanpur was a venue for international one-day matches. The first match of the tournament between India and Sri Lanka is played in Kanpur. As usual all the cricket lovers of the campus were very enthusiastic about watching the match on the grounds. Since I have not watched a match before, I wanted to join my friends and have this experience. Some one got tickets in the ‘students’ gallery for my classmates.

On the day of match we all started in buses and reached the venue at 7.45 AM. And there was a long queue for each gallery at the entrance. We eagerly joined the queue. At the entrance there was thorough security check and we were not allowed to take anything inside. All the water bottles and various bags brought by people were taken away and dumped near the entrance. By the time we entered the gallery it was nearing its capacity and we quickly found a place to sit in the ‘un-sheltered’ student gallery. The stadium itself was getting filled fast. It was the first time I saw such a large crowd. There was a big roar going around the noise was always there through out the day

The match was first of the series (Hero Cup 1993-94) and was played on Nov – 7, 1993. (Match link) Sri Lanka batted first and India batted second. India won the match comfortably and as the win became certain the crowd just went crazy. They started throwing water bottles on to the field and started lighting bon-fires with all the junk that they get their hands on. Then the police intervened and started controlling the crowd. I was so scared with the unruly crowd behavior that I wanted to get out as soon as possible. Finally, we got out even before the winning stroke was played. We came out and started back to our campus. Again on the roads also there was so much crowd and it was scary as I have never such big crowds.

Though it was winter, the day was hot as we sat in the sun. We used all means to shadow ourselves during the match. We could not go out during lunch and we just drank and ate whatever was available within the stadium premises. People were always moving around and one never sat in one place for long. The claps when opposition player got out or when our player made a good stroke to the boundary, the stadium was filled with roaring noise. Unlike the cricket match watched on TV, we had to keep an eye on each ball. If you missed you a catch, you just have to ask others what happened and be content with it and there is no ‘replay’. Unfortunately this match was not telecast live on TV that day, otherwise may be for a feeble second we could have been on TV also when the crowd is shown.

Overall, the experience is something that remains in memory forever.