Witnessing the spoilsport, yet again!

29th September 2007 - Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore – It was all set for Bangalore to host a superb one-day match between Australia and India. Expectations ran high among the fans as India stunned everyone by winning the World Twenty20 tournament which was concluded recently. I traveled all the way to Bangalore from Chennai to watch this match. I could manage only a couple of tickets for me and my friend, who has a great reputation of carrying the rain with him wherever he goes. Yes! I’ve watched quite a few matches with him, but 4 out of 5 matches that I watched with him were rain-affected.

The first one being the fifth day of the test match between India and Australia, which was affected by rain, which forced a draw. The second one is a ODI match between India and South Africa, which was abandoned due to rain, without a ball being bowled. Third is the India vs Sri Lanka test match and the fourth one is the challenger series final match which was played between India A and India B. The only match that was not rain-affected being the India vs West Indies ODI, which we lost!

My friends warned me about taking this risk, but I was very confident that it’ll not happen again. But, we decided to take the risk of challenging our luck since both of us knew about the passion both of us have towards the game. With white clouds all around, it appeared to be a perfect day for cricket that morning. The match was scheduled to start at 2.30pm, but as usual we were present at the stadium at 11.30am. There were some tedious security procedures which I had to undergo before entering the stadium. The policemen at the gates snatched the newspaper that I had and checked my pockets. I was irritated as I could not take the newspaper inside. People who have watched a cricket match in Chennai will know the importance of carrying a newspaper inside the stadium. You can’t really imagine sitting on the chairs without cleaning it with a newspaper. Most of the times, people used to put the newspapers on the chairs and sit on them.

After the first level security check was done, I entered the stadium which was unlike the Chennai stadium, properly maintained and I was even more pleasantly shocked when I saw a barcode scanner which was used to scan the tickets. Another security check was there, this time it was more serious as two guys were around me, with one checking with the metal detector and the other one, checking my pant pockets. Third round of checking was even more horrible as the police guy who checked my pockets again, threatened to squeeze my balls as he was vigorously doing the searching process. He checked my socks, my wallet and I was asked to unlock the keypad of my cell phone and show the display to him!!

Huh…. After undergoing the tedious security checks, we managed to get inside and find seats for us. Thank God, there was no need for the newspapers as the chairs were pretty clean. We had the liberty of choosing our seats as there was not much crowd there at that time. It was a beautiful ground, a bit small when compared to the Chennai ground with the electronic advertisement boards and a good electronic score board. After sometime, the players walked in for net practice with a huge roar in the crowd. We enjoyed the atmosphere there as the crowd were pouring in and the excitement was building. India lost the toss and bowled first. There were a lot to cheer about when the first four wickets fell quickly, but since then we could not but appreciate Michael Clarke and Haddin’s beautiful stroke play.

After 50 overs, the Australians amassed 307 runs, which appeared to be quite a big total to chase under the conditions, but since we Indians live on hopes, we hoped that our batsmen could do it, just as we hope every time. When Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir (Gambhir opened the innings as Ganguly was injured) walked in, the crowd was on their feet. It was absolutely electric. It started to drizzle in the first over and it got heavier as time went on. To add to the misery of the spectators, Sachin was dismissed by Mitchell Johnson. It was a pin-drop silence in the stadium and Pathan walked in at number 3. Gambhir managed to score a couple of boundaries in the next over off Brett Lee but then, the rain got heavier and the covers came on. Alas!!! It happened again….

It is the worst feeling to wait inside the stadium, hoping for the rain to stop. After a continuous heavy downpour for one hour, it stopped. Huge cheer from the crowd again!! The India vs Pakistan Twenty20 finals was put on the screen when rain interrupted play, which entertained the crowd a little bit. The ground staff worked hard to make play possible. The super zoppers were busy sucking water all over the ground. It was announced that play might be extended to one hour if needed and also, the equation of the Duckworth-Lewis method. We were really happy that we could at least witness a twenty over game. India’s target was 165 in 20 overs in the DL equation. We firmly believed that India chase the target, considering their present Twenty20 form.

Two and a half hours passed by and the umpires made their way to inspect the pitch. Both the umpires were discussing seriously and nothing came out. Our patience was tested. Finally, it was announced that match was abandoned due to wet outfield. We got totally pissed off and stated cursing ourselves for having come all the way to watch rain play spoilsport. It is a terrible feeling to experience this again and again. India vs Pakistan test match is coming up this December at Bangalore, but I am seriously re-thinking about going to Bangalore to watch it.