Sachin hit the four that took him from 93 to 97; six people sitting in a large Sumo next to my car exchanged high-fives. Ganguly failed to take a single; another driver muttered a curse and shared conspiracy theories with the lady sitting next to him. The radio commentator got excited, shouted “Is he OUT??!” when Sachin nicked a ball short of second slip; in numerous vehicles, hands abandoned steering wheels and flew to heads. It was high drama on the streets.

The radio channel didn’t have advanced sound filters to muffle the crowd noise, which meant that from around the point SRT got to 98 it was almost impossible to hear the commentators over the screams of tens of thousands of spectators. In that last over, when Ganguly hit a four, the crowd roared a standard roar (whether they were applauding the boundary or shouting at Dada to get off the striker’s end is another question). But when he took a single off the next ball, the noise made my car shake (shaken myself, I jumped a red light, that too in the high-security India Gate vicinity). From that point on till well after Sachin had reached the 100, I couldn’t hear a thing the commentators were saying – but then, I didn’t need to.

So that’s my story for the grandkids; it may not be as exciting as some others, but I’ll tell it anyway. To all of you who were at the ground, do spare a thought for us little people who weren’t. We were as much a part of the celebrations as you were.

There isn't anything quite like the following cricket in unconventional places and ways. Your story reminded me of how I followed the 2nd ODI between Pakistan and India during that fateful tour of 2004. The first innings was well followed on telly, but the world is such a cruel place. Chemistry tutions aren't something you can miss. Pakistan were 2 down chasing 250 odd when I had to leave the comforts of my living room, and by the time me and my group of friends were half way through our journey we were four down for next to nothing.

The remaining match was followed via terribly un-elaborate SMS Cricket alerts while sitting in a class room enviroment. One person - usually the one that had the most credit left in their cell phones - would SMS the required code, then the score would be noted down on a slip of paper torn from the back pages of the register, and then the chit was passed around, so everyone could have a look at the score. This was done every 15 minutes or so, we probably would have done it more frequently had it not been a scarcity of credit on people's phones. We won eventually, which was very pleasing. But it very hard, not being able to bang your fists on the table when you read that Yasir Hameed has got out in the 90s or punch it in the air when you get to know Pakistan have won. All the while our poor teacher didn't figure out a thing, he was merrily teaching us Organic Chemistry, or at least he thought he was at any rate!

Jai
At the other end of the spectrum I was watching the match live on the intranet at a dumb PC - literally, one without a sound card!

You didn't get the picture and I missed the sound - need to sit together some day!

A Great blog - with a name that I always relate to (check out the name in mouthshut and that's me ;-) ). Anyway, this blog reminds me of the classic world cup quarter final at Bangalore. After watching Venkatesh Prasad's answer to Aamer Sohail, I had to leave to catch a bus back to my college. Now, mobiles then were unheard of and so the next we got to know what the score was when the bus driver stopped at a place (somewhere late in night) to chase his sleep by having a cuppa by which India had won by 39 runs !!! I remember seeing the replay and was cursing myself for missing such a match.

Cheers,
Sandeep

This might be a rather late comment. But feels nice to share it anyway. I followed most of India's matches in the 2003 world cup while travelling. For the Ind vs SL match, I was at home for the India innings. When I left for the station, SL were 1-1. When I was half way to the bus stop, I heard they were 2-2. By the time I had reached the station Muralidharan was batting! No one in the station seemed too worried about missing their train. All were glued to the only tv in the place! And when SL were all out finally, how the crowd erupted!It is still fresh in my mind. It was a different experience.I dont regret not watching the match in full at all. In fact I find it is really interesting to watch people watching the matches!!