December 6, 1988, Nizam College, Hyderabad: Being a cricket crazy teenager as most of my fellow countrymen, I was tempted to watch/ play sport than be among books. And if the Indian cricket team is playing at a ground right across your college, you would hardly want to be in the classroom, right?
I wouldn’t remember the price of the tickets then but my pocket money definitely did not permit affording one. But good news soon wafted across our college that gates for the game at the Lal Bahadur Stadium had been thrown open. That was probably because India was closing in on a Test win against New Zealand on the fourth day itself, and there were quite a few empty ‘seats’. I, along with a few friends, just had to cross a road to get there.
The policeman at the inner gate lazily waved us in and we entered the arena. That was it. Bliss. There was Kapil Dev, Srikkanth, Vengsarkar, Ravi Shastri and Azharuddin among others on the field. To see my childhood stars in flesh and blood was goose bumps time.
There was more euphoria as we joined the rapturous crowd in screaming our throats off as we danced in gay abandon to celebrate the fall of the last four Kiwi wickets and cheered India as they knocked off 20-odd runs without loss for a series-clinching victory. Those prancing moments provided us great relief, literally, as squatting on a hard stone surface in the stands meant we had to frequently shift our body balance from one side to the other in order to ease the strain on the tender parts of our anatomies.
Twenty two years on, the comfort level has been upgraded, immensely. I am assured of a well-cushioned seat in an air-conditioned enclosure which provides the best possible view of action at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, not to forget the privilege of television replays. Just that being a sports journalist, I have been trained to keep my emotions in check in the press box. All in the game, and life.