The knock out experience : IND vs AUS Quarter Finals CWC 2011

It was a spring evening in the month of august last year(2010,had started this back then :P) ; Puneet and I happened to surf the KYAZOONGA.COM while having the usual cricket chat.

We looked for a good cricket match to book our tickets and after applying all mathematics(finally it was of some use) which we learned till date (the last mathematics paper that we wrote was approximately a year back  ,so we were kind of pathetic  while doing our calculations) and checking all possible permutations and combinations;  booked  ourselves two tickets for the quarterfinals scheduled at Ahmedabad (SARDAR PATEL GUJARAT STADIUM,MOTERA) ,on the 24^th MARCH 2011<EAST STAND>. The website mentioned that the tickets would be send  a  week before the commencement of the tournament .

PS : it was only later we discovered that the home team was given the advantage of playing at home had they reached the KNOCK OUT stages.

phewwwwwwww..... that was lucky I thought, a sense of achievement actually.(Had INDIA not been to the knock out stages of the WC ,I wouldn’t have been writing this thing !)

All this while what I was trying was to somehow get the tickets for the match between INDIA and SOUTH AFRICA (it was quite intelligent to watch a good game of cricket than go and watch a quarter final  b/w NZ and ENG :P ).

I never imagined how lucky I was to get those tickets .The quarter final opponent was going to be decided by the outcome of the game b/w INDIA and WEST INDIES(I prayed it to be LANKA ... fingers crossed).If we win ,we will face AUSTRALIA  and if we lose , we play LANKA. What a match its going to be I thought ,my first ever  live match.......And it was INDIA vs AUSTRALIA in the knock out stages of a world cup ......\m/ !!!! I wished nothing more.

But I had a MINOR issue as whether I would be able to attend the MATCH or not.Our MINOR(cousins of unit tests at the college level) exams were scheduled from  23^rd to 29^th MARCH.Didn't matter,it was decided that we will bunk our MINOR exam and go to MOTERA.

I never told my parents about the crime that I was about to commit(missing THE RAANGNEKAR mam’s paper was indeed a crime ), I only told that the exams were starting from 26^th.....by that time I would already be back.

But none of that mattered to us, cricket crazy people !!!!!
We somehow got to Ahmedabad......no reservations(at the mercy of Indian railways)

PS : waiting tickets for Somnath Express, the only connectivity, and a 14 hr long journey.

We reached destination A (read Ahmedabad) by 8.00 am, booked ourselves a room............ (yepp we managed to get one and that too for an affordable price) and straightaway headed to the MOTERA stadium.

What scenes - MAD CITY, the whole city was in festive mood, banners, flags, hoardings, posters everything covering both sides of the lane. Everything related/unrelated to cricket was saleable. Height of profitability – PAANI POUCH  being sold for Rs 5.....that was crazy I thought  ,not that we did not need water but we had our own stock but for our bad luck water bottles were not allowed inside the stadium .And we did not forget to paint our faces in the tri colour.

# every Indian supporter must get the tri color or else hes not in the INDIAN version of the BARMY ARMY of England  !!

It was already 12 noon by the time we reached stadium .Lucky again :) ...The line being almost  half a kilometre  we were in the first 100 metres  for the entrance to the east stand (GATE  18-22).I had a sense of THE GREAT MANITIAN BHASAD,infact even greater than ours.

We also had our fun moment.In all chaos a shrilling voice yelled(in typical gujju accent)- “A AAO KYA AAGE,......... (after a brief pause)...HATH MILAANE”.

Another mature sounding voice demanded – “DU KYA ........MISSED CALL”.

There was another group of people who started a fight ......They were not sure of any better way to kill time in that heating sun.It was only then that the place- “AHMEDABAD POLICE”, made its presence felt.....no questions asked only their LATHI spoke,everyone else was happy keeping quiet.

 

PS : the cue was more than 4 km long (courtesy : Ahmedabad Times) and it took us almost two and a half hours to get inside the stadium.

We could get inside only after 2.30 pm and grabbed seats and still there was some energy left with us as to write a poster which said –

“SORRY MOM

I MISSED MY

EXAMS COZ I CANT MISS

SACHIN’S 100"

Our poster for the match.

I don’t know what my AUSSIE friends wrote in theirs.....yepp we made friends with two AUSTRALIANS who were on a trip to INDIA. They took a 6- month off from their regular academics and were travelling for 2 months now. But poor Liam,got tickets in BLACK.

After waiting for so long in the sun ,it was moment to enjoy, Australia won the toss and elected to bat.And Dhoni continued with his experiment of opening  the bowling attack with R Ashwin. And there was the field set we couldn't ask better for , HARBHAJAN SINGH in the third man area (EAST STAND) covering the boundary.

The inexperienced INDIAN bowling kept the screwes tight for the whole of mandatory powerplay.Meanwhile Ashwin scalped(bowled) Watson of some brilliant off-spinners .The next Aussie batsman ,the captain(PUNTER) himself hadn’t had a very tournament so far but looked to hit the purple patch,he again hit an ODI ton  in a WORLD CUP match.Australia amassed a total of 260.

India started the run chase quite steadily with a boundary of the third ball by Brett Lee. The little master also on duty,guiding the ball to the boundary or cheeky sin gals and doubles.Sehwag going down on the first ball of the 9th over by Watson.Ravi Shastri,"So Gautam Gambhir comes out to the middle at number 3.India have lost their first wicket."Another moment of high emotion and drama of another Watson delivery,an appeal for a catch and Gauti must have had his heart in his mouth.Ganguly complaining-"will this be counted as a review !!!"

18000 runs for Sachin Tendulkar in 1 Day Cricket,announced DADA from the commentator box.

Sachin completes 18000 runs in 1 Day cricket.

The little master was out in the 19th over to Tait but not before completing another of his classy innings.He made 53 of 68 deliveries.Soon Kohli,Gautam,Dhoni  followed back to the pavilion and India were reduced to 187/5.Suresh Raina made his way to the ground and rest is best left to the readers to again live the moment of victory,joy,pride.Revenge was taken.It was India that won the match and cruised to the semi-finals to face arch rivals Pakistan and Yuvraj and Raina made sure they didn't loose any more wickets.

The majestic Yuvraj roar is still afresh in every Indian Cricket fan,flags waving,emotions high.We have done it,giving Aussies the taste of their own medicine,by far my best cricketing moment.

   

I bet you wont ever be bored to see this again and again.

few of the memorable excerpts - 

Emotional Words of Dhoni :

Sleepless Nights ,grey hairs with the same fade of beard... It was a bunch of youngsters given to me along wit a god...Everyone mastered their skill but i was alone failing everytime...

But when sachin walked back into the pavilion with his face down i was upset...I quickly padded up.The whole team was looking at me and gary alone backed my decision to move up.

I was not even able to run but the only thing that flashed my mind was sachin's childish face looking at the entire crowd ''oh sorry it was my mistake to leav the ground soon'' will anyone like god to put his face down in front of his own crowd? Yes i cant allow tat happen...

I controlled my pain and decided to go...Finally we had the last laugh with a cry !!

Tendulkar has carried the burden of the nation for 21 years. It was time we carried him on our shoulders: Virat Kohli

I would wind up with a few pictures,yes we managed to sneek in our camera into the stadium,I guess no one else could.

Puneet (left) and I after India won the match

 

Look at the captain's eyes.The big shot that won us the World Cup.

Champions - World Cup 2011.

That ends my knock out experience.Hope you all had the same fun and joy reading it,which I experienced.Take care folks.