Wankhede Woes- The travails of watching a cricket match

Though I have been an avid cricket fan all my life (being from India, one doesn’t have much choice with regards to cricket) I have never had the opportunity to watch a match live from inside the stadium. So when the Wankhede stadium in Bombay was allotted a day/night match for the India – South Africa cricket series I was all excited and decided that come what may I was going to watch this match.

Though India did win and there were lots of exciting moments, overall when you look the kinds of discomforts one has to undergo for watching the match, watching it on the idiot box looks like a better option. Here is a Wankhede Woe list.

Tickets: Of the 45000(official number) tickets up for sale, only 4500 are given for the general public. The rest 90 percent is given away to affiliated clubs, sponsors and other corporates. Have contacts, watch matches!!

Overpriced Tickets: Initially I was told the tickets would be costing 1150 rupees, and then within a day the price went to 2000. Reason was that the Madras match was washed off and so the Bombay match would be a decider. One would think this is some stock market index reflecting change. India then lost miserably at Calcutta. Then the rates came down to 1500. We must draw an index for this.

Fake tickets: Police estimated about 55000 people in the stadium against a capacity of 45000. That is a whopping ten thousand people who had got in using fake tickets. Funnily I still do not know if I had a real one or duplicate.

Hence the aisles which normally are the place where people walk up and down are full of people standing, squatting, perched on top of another, hanging in mid air and many gravity defying postures. There was no way you could walk through the aisles. If at all I go out during the first drinks break, I would be getting back in only during the next drinks break. (For the cricket illiterate, that would be about an hour)

Security: Food stuffs, water bottles, mobile phones, cameras and anything that can be used as a missile and thrown into the stadium are banned.

But everybody around me was carrying a mobile phone; a chap on the next row was clicking away to glory on his digicam, a bald plated Uncle Fester look alike was smoking away like a steam engine. Security is fool proof; one could have walked in with a hand grenade.

Plastic bottles are banned because people could throw them into the play field and disrupt proceedings. Then pray why are plastic mineral water bottles being sold inside the stadium premises?? You can’t bring your own water bottle, but can buy one from inside, because I presume, these bottles have been bewitched and so if at all you throw them they would boomerang back. Harry potter would have been proud.

Don’t bring any foodstuffs from your home; instead eat the overpriced, under nourishing, low on quality food that vendors sell on the stand. A chocobar of MRP Rs.13 was being sold at Rs 30. Talk of monopolist pricing in economics.

Seats: We were on the north stand, a decent enough part of the stadium that gives you a good view of the happenings, but the seats were pathetic. Since there are so many people you don’t get to have a comfortable sitting posture, u always twist and turn and wriggle and what not and top of it the seats are designed to encourage u keeping your feet on them and not your bums. Hey, come, have a stand...Err... Have a seat!

At the end I had, cramped legs, painful back and butt, hunger, thirst and headache. I thought I was more tired than the players on the field.

The saving graces were that India won the match, there were lots of exciting moments, the crowd was terrific and sporting and it was a good experience watching the match for the first time. If only the authorities could use some common sense, cricket watching would be an out and out pleasure.

The Blog gets a new name

I really was not doing justice to my previous Blog name - a blog a day keeps boredom away. As can be guessed the idea behind the name was to put in a posting daily, but that turned out to be next to impossible. One did not have the time, the inclination or simply there was nothing that the mind would think of that could be put to words. So the name was as big a misnomer as there could be. A blog a month was more like it..

As i was contemplating a new name ( this contemplation was going on for a long while) ,i stumbled upon this fascinating Latin Phrase " Verba Volant, Scripta Manet" - which means. Words fly away, the written( letter) remains. I found that phrase totally captivating and I immediately knew that i have got the name for my blog.

All thanks to my friend from Turkey, Burak Anadolu who has this phrase as his signature and which iam now happily using as my blogs title.

What Numbers got to do with it ???

In India, Cricket is a religion and Sachin Tendulkar is its biggest deity. For the past few years he has been plagued by injuries and bad form and people were starting to write him off. It was also no surprise that during this phase, Indian cricket also went on a downward spiral. From the high of the 2003 world cup (India –Runners up, Sachin – Man of the series, not a coincidence is it?) to a lowly rank of 7 in the International One Day international rankings last month. Sachin was completely away from the game for the last 6 months nursing a Tennis elbow and people said his days are over.

And then 2 weeks back he made his comeback to international cricket. He made 93 and 70 not out in the first two matches; India won four matches on the trot. Coincidence? Could be, but there is no denying the positive influence this guy has on the team. And of course the media has been quick to point out things along the same lines as I have written. But also I saw an interesting TV news piece about Sachin s comeback which was regarding his Jersey number and that’s what I am writing on

Sachin usually wears a number 10 jersey and this series he has been seen wearing a number 33 one. The TV report I allude to was an interview with an astrologer who it seems had advised Sachin to don the number 33. He was talking about stars, planets, lucky charms, lucky numbers and said that number 3 would sum up to healing and good luck and so 33 means double healing and double good luck. As good a cock and bull story as I have ever heard.

Sachin obviously believes in this and so is wearing it, but he knows that if he plays a bad shot he will get out, like how he got out in the fourth match. So, what irritates me is the importance given to this whole numerological mumbo jumbo. People went as far as to attribute his return to form entirely to the numerological effect. Give me a break.

He started playing 16 years ago when colored clothing was used only in Australia. By the time India started having cricket under lights and with colored clothes; he must have scored thousands of runs and become the world’s best batsman while still being about 20 years old. Numbering of the jerseys stared much later and by the time Sachin started sporting the 10 jersey (inspired by football and not by astrology) he was the best ever One Day cricket player and as Tony Greig put it ‘the closest that ever came to Bradman”. And now after 17 years, almost 25 thousand runs and about 70 centuries in International cricket, Sachin’s return to form is due to number 33. There is no substitute to hard work. Numerology, Astrology, lucky charms etc are a matter of faith and superstition that is for each individual to decide and are just emotional supports. The problem is when they are given importance much more than what they deserve and are construed as the be all and end all of things.

Wondering what he will do while playing Test match Cricket dressed in white Flannels. Maybe get out after scoring 33 runs, lucky number isn’t it?