VS 
The Planning and the journey : -
This was my first visit to a Cricket stadium, we had been to the spanking new Dr DY Patil Stadium located at Nerul, New Bombay. Edlin, Bertron and Reagan decided to join me, i managed to book the tickets with the help of my friend who resides at Nerul. The game was scheduled to begin at 4 PM.
I was skeptical about watching a match at the stadium and Leo whom i asked to join put some doubts in my mind by saying " Why do you wanna go to the stadium when we can catch the action at home over some beer" but i wanted to experience live cricket and nothing was going to change my mind, i also managed to coax some of my colleagues to join me.
We left for the stadium at 1:45 PM as we decided to go there by train, once we reached the station we had a surprise in store for us, trains were only running upto Vashi which is 3 stops before Nerul, we had no choice and so we got off at Vashi and decided to take a cab to Nerul, once we got out of the station there was total chaos as most people wanted to go to the stadium which was 20 mins away by road, the Cabbies and Rickshaw wallas took advantage of this situation and hiked their price, cabbies were charging Rs 150 we managed to get hold of a Rick and got there for 100 bucks, we reached the stadium by 3:15 PM the crowds were already swarming the place the exitement was in the air, people sporting Mumbai Indian jerseys and merchandise, i had my 99 World Cup jersey.The instructions to get into the stadium were excellent and we didn't have any trouble getting into the stadium except for the seering heat. The stadium looked massive, it was an imposing structure.
Inside the stadium :-
After a security check we entered the stadium at 3:30 PM the stadium was choc-o-block it was packed to its capacity of 60,000.The sight was awesome, there was this energy inside you need to be there to experience it, our seats were located at the Media Center end of the ground, the view was awesome it was better than what i expected we had a good view of the action on field, i was of the thought that we will not be able to watch the action properly but i was wrong.
The Game :-
The toss was won by the Daredevils and they chose to field, so it was gonna be Mumbai Indians batting first the opening batsmen got a rousing ovation from the amazing crowd, Sanath Jayasuriya was the crowd favorite the crowd went wild when he hit Glen McGrath for a boundary, we kept on chanting Surya followed by 3 claps, the Marauder from Matara didn't disappoint he kept smacking the bowlers all around once he fell it was Dominic Thornley's turn to entertain it was an all round effort by the Mumbai batsmen, Polly (Shawn Pollock) another crowd favorite didn't disappoint and his big hits took the Mumbai score to over 160. During the 1st innings South African AB Devillers came to field towards our section, he was in a jovial mood and kept waving and blowing kisses at the crowd we responded by by shouting AB AB AB there were people throwing paper rockets at him and he reciprocated by kissing the rockets and throwing them back into the crowd.
The score that our batsmen setup looked meager after Shewag went on a rampage but our bowlers kept a tight leash and continued bowling well and picking crucial wickets. We also got stuck into Ashish Nehra for his poor fielding but he had the last laugh with a brilliant save at the boundary and the crowd was on his side after that.
My fondest memory of the match will have to be the Mexican Wave yeah we managed the wave not once but we were able to get it going for 8-9 consecutive rounds around the stadium the sight was breathtaking Edlin has taken a video i will upload it if it is good enough i was disappointed as i didn't take my camera along as the rules stated no cameras will be allowed but there were many people with cameras.
The crowd went wild on the fall of the last wicket we were dancing in fact the whole stadium erupted with joy, Polly won the man of the match for his brilliant all round efforts, no wonder he is one of the finest all-rounders the game has ever seen in fact we got to see 4 amazing cricketers Glenn McGrath the Aussie legend whom i love to hate, Polly whom i have spoken about, Jayasurya the pioneer of pinch hitting and Virender Shewag the genius. I had my moneys worth and we are planning to go for another match :)
We had a few beers on our way back home and then headed to Pop Tates stay tuned for the pix.
