Day 37-42 (Pt. I) : Crickets
There were few a couple of standout events during my second
week in Bangalore, but they were all overshadowed by what took place Thursday
Night in Bangalore, deep inside the city center in the large, crowded, raucous
Chinaswammy Stadium. The Mumbai Indians visited the Royal Challengers Bangalore
(stupid name, I know) in their opening game of the new IPL season. The IPL is
basically the most made-for-tv version of the only sport India gives two shits
about these days. The IPL features T20 cricket, so instead of a 5-day test
match or a 50-over game (about 8 hours), each side gets 20 overs, or 120 balls,
to accrue their runs. Basically, it is cricket in its most watchable form.
Also, I’m done explaining the game, because if you don’t know what the rules
are, then look them up. They really aren’t that complicated. My Uncle scored
him and me tickets from his work, as the general tickets were sold out, quickly
gobbled up by a massive queue that lined up in front of Chinaswammy Stadium on
the day the tickets opened to the public. I was greatly looking forward to this
experience, both to get an opportunity to watch my first live cricket match,
and to experience sports at its most primal level in a foreign country. Both
experiences were great.
The first part of the experience was getting to the stadium.
Because Chinaswammy Stadium is conveniently located right dab in the middle of
the city, there is little to no parking at the stadium, and because Bangalore
is Bangalore, bringing a car within earshot of the stadium is a death wish, so
we parked in the Bangalore club, 1.5 km away, and walked. Despite the heat and
the humidity (though my Uncle ensured me that I would get sweaty during the
game anyway), I’m pretty sure that we got there quicker than anyone who would
have driven as the traffic was that bad. I even joked that because of the
precariousness of the sidewalks in Bangalore and the lack of any noticeable
movement in the gridlocked streets, it is safer walking on the road past the
idle cars. We reached the stadium at 8:10 (the game started promptly at 8:05),
and walked around to Gate 9. When we entered, we were told that “our seats are
most likely taken” and I quickly realized that the seat number you have is
completely meaningless. Bangalore works on a very accepted unwritten “take
whatever seat in your section” rule for games, so the only available seats were
way at the back. Fortunately, we found ‘seats’ on the base of the steps on the
first row of the upper deck. The stands are quite small, so despite being in
the upper deck, I would venture we were about 30 feet above the oval. The
siteline was descent, and despite being concrete steps they weren’t that far
less comfortable than the seats. We definitely had better seats than the scores
of people higher up on the stairs, and we settled in for our 40 overs.
T20 games are notable for high scoring at a fast pace, as
each team still has the same amount of available batsmen, but far fewer overs
for them to get out. The risk of getting out quickly is far less here as there
are only 120 deliveries anyway. Because of this, T20 games have generally more
4’s and 6’s than normal cricket matches, and since 4’s and 6’s are basically the
cricket version of home runs, the crowd is energized, to say the least. Despite
the fact that India loves cricket more than anything else, I was still a little
surprised about how familiar the atmosphere felt inside the stadium. With every
boundary (4 or 6), the stadium erupted in a wave of RCB flags and banners, spinning
along with a tune that became all too familiar by the end of the first innings.
The RCB innings started slowly (it took them 15 overs to get 100 runs, which is
a pace that isn’t even good in a 50-over pace), but RCB still had their trump
card, West Indies giant Chris Gayle. My Uncle, who I learned knew a lot more
about cricket than I thought he knew, told me that Chris Gayle is a guy who
when he is on could be great. I asked him when Gayle hit 50 runs if it is rare
for anyone to get 100 runs in a T20 match, to which he told me it was. Well,
Gayle ended up with 92 runs, hitting fours and sixes with ease in the last four
overs. RCB ended with 156 runs, a perfectly respectable total. I wanted to
capture the stadium at its best, reacting to another massive boundary by Gayle,
in the last over, and right before the last ball the whole stadium started a “we
want six” chant, and lo and behold, Chris Gayle appeased the crowd and my video
camera, launching one last parting shot into the Bangalore sky.
The 20-minute break between innings gave me a chance to
collect my thoughts on what I had just seen. First, I cannot overstate how
happy at was at seeing that crowd so enthralled by their home team, so into the
game. I have no idea why I’m surprised about Indians loving cricket, but seeing
an almost European Footballl-like atmosphere deep within the heart of
Bangalore. Then there was the cheerleaders, who are most certainly not Indian,
a point of much controversy. When the IPL started, and the cheerleaders were
brought over from the US to perform at games, India was up in arms about how risqué
the whole thing was. Looking back, they obviously weren’t up in arms enough
because the cheerleaders stayed and are a large presence in the game, with
about eight sets of three cheerleaders taking up platforms on the circumference
of the oval. And finally, I got to see just how crazy India is over one of its
most worshiped Gods: Sachin Tendulkar.
Sachin Tendulkar plays for Mumbai (as any good Marati boy
should), but more accurately, Sachin Tendulkar plays for India. In the moments
in between the two innings, a group of young RCB fans moved up to the front of
the upper deck and hung a well-made banner over the side which read “I’ve gone
to church many times, but all I had to do to see God was to go to the Stadium”
(yes, it was about that wordy). Similar signs littered the crowd, and most of
these signs were being raised by RCB fans. Sachin Tendulkar is more than
cricket in India, he’s more than city rivalries. There is no comparison to any
US athlete. Part of this is the main US sports are all more popular in the US
at the domestic level than the national level, something that isn’t totally
true in European Football (where national team results are about as important
to fans as club team results) and despite the success of the IPL, not close to
true in India, or any cricket-playing country. When the PA announcer bellowed
the name of “Sachin Tendulkar” as the opening batsmen for the Mumbai Indians,
the noise and clamor from the crowd drowned out the announcer then announcing
the other opening batsmen, Ricky Ponting. This may mean nothing to most people
who don’t know cricket, but Ricky Ponting is almost certainly the greatest
player of the last 20 or so years not named Sachin Tendulkar. Many of the
career records that Sachin holds have Ponting in 2nd place. Yet, it
might as well have been a 12-year old boy as the other opener. Act I of the
Mumbai innings was Sachin’s show.
Both Sachin and Ricky Ponting started off slowly, getting
just 4 runs between them over the first three overs (which is quite bad),
looking every bit as old as they are. But then, all of a sudden, they were
energized, mostly by the chance to bat against the bowling of Muttiah
Muraliduran. Once again, to most people this means nothing, but Muttiah
Muraliduran is one of the great bowlers of my time, the record holder of many
bowling career records. Getting the chance to see Murali bowl to Sachin (and to
a lesser degree, Ponting) is all a casual cricket fan (or more accurately a
non-fan when at home, a super-fan when in India) could ask for from their first
IPL experience. Off Murali, Ponting hit his first boundary, and then Sachin hit
one. In the next over, Sachin hit another. Against Murali in the next over,
Sachin hit another pounding one straight back where the ball came from. It was
classic Sachin, a great show. And then, in a flash, it was all over, as Sachin
was run out trying to come back after an aborted chance at a run.
The crowd cheering Sachin
Sachin’s wicket actually brought to light another little
show of how popular Sachin is. The decision was close and it was given to the
third umpire (essentially a booth review). IT took about a minute for a
decision to come, in which the stadium was silent. I joked to my Uncle that I’m
not sure what the RCB fans would want more, to see their team get a crucial
wicket or to see Sachin stay at bat. Tendulkar was given out, and while the
music played signaling a positive development for RCB, there was a very audbile
‘boo’ coming from the crowd, admonishing the gall of the third umpire for
felling the great Sachin. Ponting too quickly followed, and Mumbai started out
somehow worse than RCB, and then it happened.
Six balls, five boundaries, four sixes. Right before that
sequence Mumbai needed 51 runs off of 21 balls. After it, Mumbai needed just 22
runs off of 17 balls (completely gettable). It was such a sudden reversal of
what had happened in the Mumbai innings that right after the game I asked my
Uncle if he even considered the possibility that that particular display was
fixed, for no reason more than to provide a semblance of a close ending. Of
course, there is no proof, and the people involved were established enough to
almost certainly not be viable fixing vehicles, but you just never know.
The
match ended with high, high drama, as Mumbai needed 8 runs to win (7 to tie)
off the last two balls. At bat was Pollard, another mammoth West Indier, an
all-rounder (someone who is proficient at both batting and bowling) with the
ability to launch some balls. On the penultimate delivery he hit a line drive
down the oval and it appeared to land directly on the rope that serves as the
boundary. The decision would go back to the 3rd umpire, where if it
was deemed to have crossed on the fly it would be 6. After another incredibly-tense
minute, the stadium erupted as it was correctly ruled to have bounced
centimeters before the rope, bringing the game to its best possible end. A four
and Mumbai wins, anything less, RCB finishes off their rival. Pollard had one
more chance, but the ball was too good and Pollard hit what baseball fans would
see as a lazy grounder. The second it left his bat, the stadium erupted in a
way that I wasn’t even ready for. It was as loud as any US stadium I’ve seen at
the end of a match, and this was just a regular season one. For one night, I
didn’t miss not seeing US sports, didn’t miss not being able to witness the
Devils collapse or March Madness, because I got a dose of April Madness in
Bangalore.
The Last Ball... Four to win
