5th November 2009..

Exactly 3 days before this date, early in the morning at 6 am, I received a call from my friend. I was asked to get ready soon in 15 minutes. My friend was in a hurry, so he didn't say me about his plan. However, I was ready in 15 minutes. Yash and Venky came to my place, picked me, and we started to KPHB. It was around 7am I guess when our car stopped at UCO bank. There were already few people standing in the line, and within no time I was asked to join the line. I didn't say you what we were actually trying to do. That day, our last 60 minute hurry-show was to buy tickets for India vs Australia Cricket match. Bank opened at 10.30am, and tickets are in our hand at around 12. No doubt.. we showed our extreme patience levels..!!

Two days passed...

The actual cricket feel had begun on November 5th, after the birthday celebration of venky. It was midnight when me and Raviteja went to balanagar to get vinyl prints which we ordered for the match. However, our midnight ride ended after one hour when we came back to venky's room to sleep. The worst part of that time was Harsha didn't allow me to sleep and we both had a long chat (not online.. its live :P) for two hours. That midnight chat troubled me which you'll come to know very soon.

Early morning, at around 6.30 am, I got up and started to my place. I was bit weak that day. May be due to fever which I had for the last 2 days or may be due to previous night's bike ride or may be due to that sleepless chat with Harsha. However, I didn't had any option of bunking that cricket match. Though if I had that option, I would have not opted for it because “Cricket ke liye.. anything.. in any situation.. :P”. All of us started at around 10.30am and we were at the stadium by 12pm. Actual excitement had begun then. It was very hot, and there are already thousands of people lined up. We had no option other than increasing the count of number of people standing in the line. However, after sometime, we entered in (Camera was not allowed.. very disappointed). Till that day, I had a wrong opinion that watching match live in a stadium is strainful, and I even thought that the players are not clearly visible. My opinion is true to some extent but not completely.

The match had started at 2.30pm with Australians occupying the pitch. The first thing which I felt was... “when we watch a match in television, 22yard pitch gets filled in our eyes.. whereas if we watch it in a stadium, the whole ground gets filled in our eyes..”. It was really a great feeling watching live in the stadium. But, we had a disappointing afternoon that day as Australians were in full swing. I slept for one hour due to my weakness, and also because of the soothing musical notes produced from Cameron White's bat. His exposure on that day helped Australia to reach 350 run mark.

In the 30minute session break, all of us gained some energy and we were ready with flags and banners. Our eager wait ended when Sachin came out looking up at the sky. As Sachin need 7 more runs to reach to his 17000run mark, for every run scored by him, the crowd showed their heights of vocal power. The moment he scored his 7th run, the crowd produced huge decibels of sound. I think “huge decibels of noise” is more apt. Let it be anything.. Sachin deserves everything. It was really a great feeling joining my hands to applaud the little master. The later part of the match was damn good as Sachin went on to score 175. Once imagine my level of excitement that day as I watched my Cricketing idol performing. Credit goes to my friend Venky for his Cricket match wish. Though India lost the match by 3 runs, we were really happy as we saw Sachin implementing his classic shots all around the ground. So, the date, 5th November 2009, was very memorable to us as we all experienced Sachin's master class that day..

P.S: Congrats to Sachin for his Double Century in ODIs. I thought of writing this blog after his 200 knock, but I was busy :P.