We Are The Champions ! We Are The World!

My first experience of live gaming. It was absolutely fantastic. And the way match turned it was even more joyous to celebrate Indian Victory.

When 20-20 match was announced in Mumbai we started hunting for tickets. Ofcourse there was lot of excitement after India's 20-20 world championship win. One of my friend from office was successful in grabbing the tickets and it was sure that we are going to be live spectators in the stadium. Everyone was excited about it.

Since mobiles were not allowed, we started coordinating and yesterday as per plan we met at predetermined places. Then the parade started. We expected a long queue at the gate but unexpectedly met only few people in queue. Perhaps we were too early. After security checking at lots of points we entered the stadium and a big grin settled on everybody's face. We were finally in. We searched for place which can offer us the best view and finally after half an hours hunting settled down for a place.

It was only 4:30 by then and stadium was relatively empty. As time passed crowd pulled in and stadium started reaching to its limits. All vendors were doing best of their businesses by selling colas, burgers, sandwiches and ofcourse Indian flags. Few people were painting tricolor. We also joined the bandwagon and grabbed the tricolor on our faces and big flag for cheering Team India. Music was playing all over and crowd was enjoying every bit with the cheerleaders in the new format of cricket. Teams came for net practice around 6:00 and entire stadium went gung-ho. This is the points where innovative slogans started originating. Few of them I can quote but for few of them this is not the place :) We could take closer look at our superstars, Dhoni, Yuvi, Uthappa, Gambhir, Pathan, Shree, Bhajji, Brett Lee, Ponting and ofcourse Symonds. It was standing ovation all the time for our heroes whenever they passed our side of stadium.

Australia won the toss and selected to bat. Finally at 7:15, teams were on field and RP was ready to deliver his first ball. Amidst deafening applause he delivered first ball. Crowd was enjoying every bit. On subsequent balls Gilly reached fences and crowd went into a bit nervousness. Next RP delivery, aimed at Gilly's stumps, went pass through his pads and did its job. Entire stadium was at its feet, enjoying, dancing. Slogans reached the crescendo. Then crowd never sat. Occasionally slogans like "Baith Jao" went into air but were never listened by anybody. For 4 hours atleast our part of stadium was watching match standing.

It is altogether different feeling when you view the match in stadium. Camera's manipulate and you see a much bigger picture through every angle. But here, you get so up, close and personal with every single moment that you cannot compare with TV live feed. Australian Innings finally ended finally at 166 in 10 overs and we needed 167 to win. Even during interval nobody moved from his/her place because of the sheer suspicion whether one will get his/her seat back. Perhaps tickets sold were more than capacity and there were lot of people banging on the closed doors for entry.

After short duration Indian openers were on the field. Innings started with Brett lee bowling and in few balls fire crackers started all over. An exception ofcourse was Sehwag's wicket. But that apart, it was India all over. Slogans again peaked and crowd sang and danced on the music, on the beats of cheerleaders. Few Aussies, especially Symonds faced heat when he was fielding at boundary line. But nothing went obscenly wrong. On one of the occasions camera swung to special gusts Deepika, Shahrukh and then captured Dhoni smiling. Another cheerful uproar in the stadium.

Finally Dhoni, Yuvi did the honours and grabbed match for us. Firecrackers went bursting on adjacent terraces. Everyone was very happy. It was a "Paisa Vasool" match and Indian tigers did not disappoint. People started leaving as soon as India won the match but we waited for presentation. We got the close looks of our heroes when they went riding Gautam's car. We left happily storing those memories forever. It was really an awesome day, something which cannot be forgotten, a real memorable one.