An International Cricket Match in India

If I have spoken to you over the last two months you probably would have heard the following short story. I knew that during our trip to India, Kea and I were to visit Ahmedabad to stay with my friend’s extended family who live in the nearby town of Anand. I was also aware of the Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium (named after the current Indian Prime Minister), a stadium built for the Cricket World Cup two years ago, and its mammoth capacity of over 100,000 people.

On a whim, I searched to see if any cricket was scheduled during our visit. I thought at the very least a stadium tour would be good, to see some local/regional cricket would be great but an international match of some sort, amazing. To my utter disbelief, I saw that India was scheduled to host England in a one-day international match the day after we planned to arrive. It was as if the stars had aligned.

A bowler bowling to a batsman in four stages. India vs England

Back to black

Ahmedabad was like most large cities we had visited in India – extremely busy, congested, polluted and noisy. But with one difference, there are far fewer Western tourists. Rarely anyone spoke English, not even a little, and there wasn’t too much to do or see. Thankfully we had the game to look forward to. In true Indian fashion, the tickets didn’t come on sale until roughly ten days before the fixture date, on an event app called ‘district’. As you can imagine, the short notice and uncertainty of successfully purchasing a ticket makes it difficult to plan a trip, which might explain why there were only a handful of England fans in attendance at the game.

Also, there is just no information available on how, where or when to buy tickets for games in India – not even on the BCCI (the formal Indian Cricket Board website). I had to sign up to a telegram channel that notified me when tickets went on sale.

Narendra Modi Stadium

No ball games!

We got them in the end. £25 for a ticket, brilliant seats in the first tier situated at Cow Corner (a fielding position, not a corner of the stadium where cows graze. Although, being in India, this wouldn’t have been overly surprising). Uncharacteristically, we didn’t do too much research into entry requirements, what you were/were not allowed to take with you, etc, assuming it would be similar to most sporting venues around the world. A quick search actually shot us in the foot but hindsight is a wonderful thing. The only information out there is quite ambiguous being that not many international matches have been played at the Narendra Modi Stadium yet and the main bulk of guidelines and rules are from the World Cup matches two years ago, and one of them being for India vs Pakistan.

If you know anything about Cricket, you know that India vs Pakistan is one of the hottest and most viciously contested bouts in sport. One which the fans do not take lightly. The rules of entry for that game were that you cannot bring anything into the stadium other than yourself, your phone and your wallet. Not even water or a flag. The final of the same competition at the same stadium, India vs Australia, had the same rules.

This was not the case for us and we could pretty much take in what we wanted, using a bit of common sense. People had small bags, hats, glasses, cameras, flags, etc. Similar to most sporting venues. We didn’t leave anything to chance so took little with us. We had to bin our water bottles on entry. There is filtered water inside the stadium and after a couple of hours you could buy bottled water from the stalls – we think this is so they do not sell out too early. Other refreshments, such as soda stalls and food stalls, are widely available. The small cups of masala spiced corn was a favourite of ours.

Zig-zagging our way to the venue

As mentioned before, the lack of English speakers and subsequent translation issues caused us a bit of trouble (entirely our fault – it is not up to the locals to speak English). We took a tuk-tuk from the hotel who chucked us out before we got onto the motorway because tuk-tuks are not allowed to drive on them. We waved down a taxi that dropped us off near the stadium but still a little way out, we are not entirely sure why, but kindly did not charge us for the fare. Then we were picked up and given a lift to the stadium by three extremely kind gentlemen who happened to be off-duty members of the Indian Army – they even played Coldplay for us knowing we were English.

However, the funny yet pretty frustrating thing about all of this is that whilst somehow making it to the stadium, no one we spoke to could quite understand that we didn’t want to go to the stadium yet but in fact to the ticket office in town to pick up the tickets first! Thankfully a tuk-tuk driver outside of the stadium knew of the situation and took us where we needed to go, and back. If you found that chaotic and stressful to read, imagine living it!

We had left ourselves plenty of time so the laughable last hour or two was not a problem for us but part of the adventure. We were taken aback by the kind nature of all of those who did their best to help us. Not every day you can say that you rode with members of the Indian Army. But the kindness of gestures was taken up a notch as we arrived at the ticket office. I headed to the back of a queue whilst Kea waited in the tuk-tuk, which must have been a few hundred people long, when a man at the front waved me down before literally kicking his son out of the queue to let me in. Startled, I hesitantly moved in and managed to get my ticket within minutes. I commented on this form of white privilege in my previous article. All he asked for in return was a picture with his son, in which I duly obliged – it was the least I could have done, he saved me queuing for hours.

Representing Mid Sussex Heathens CC in India

Reality kicks in

By the time we had arrived back at the stadium, the atmosphere had started to build. A sea of navy blue, waves of white and crests of orange engulfed the surrounding streets (the three main colours of the India Cricket team). It was a carnival feel with music, food and drink vendors, face painters, acrobats and performers and of course chants of ‘India… India!!’ We were stopped on many occasions en route to the turnstiles as young fans jumped at the chance to talk cricket with us. “Sir, who is your favourite Indian player?”, “We love Jos Butler and Ben Stokes!!”, “Virat Kohli is the best in the world!”

All of a sudden a wave of realisation and emotion hit me; I could finally withdraw the barrier of apprehension and turn off serious mode. We had our tickets, we had finally got to the stadium and after months of planning it all quickly became real. Like a young boy going to his first-ever football game, that rush of excitement took over and the hairs on the back of my neck started to stand up.

The stadium didn’t begin to fill until a few hours into the game but by late afternoon the excitement had reached fever-pitch. When India took a wicket, you could barely hear yourself think. And I don’t think the stadium got nearly two-thirds full, I estimate probably 40/50,000 – I could only imagine what the sound must be like when it is at full capacity.

A nation-wide love affair

Cricket is like an entirely different sport in India than it is in England. Here the people live and breathe it from the moment they are old enough to throw a ball and hold a bat right up to their later years - male, female, young, old and anyone in between will watch or play if they get the chance. If you could speak dog, even they would tell you how great Virat Kohli is.

Kohli is widely regarded as one of India’s greatest-ever Cricket players and certainly the best of his generation, despite being in the latter stages of his career now. 90% of all jerseys had his name printed on the back. Cricket players in India, Kohli in particular, are seen in higher regard than even the most famous actors, singers and politicians. Imagine Joe Root being more famous than Adele. Whenever Kohli or the captain, Rohit Sharma, would turn to face the crowd, or even merely step towards them with their backs turned, they would uncontrollably scream in an attempt to get their attention and if lucky, wave back. The only other time that I’ve witnessed this level of obsession was my sister with Harry Styles back in 2020.

Because of the above, the importance of Cricket to the Indian people is more than it is of most other countries. It is their relief from everyday life, similar to the working-class culture that was and still is integral to the foundations of football and what it means to the people in England. Cricket here brings people together across class, gender, sexuality, age and religion – some that are much more profound in India than in England. And that is why, unlike the jolly and courteous atmosphere at say Lords, they take it quite seriously. So much so that we dared play the role of pantomime villain when England did well, rather a gentle applause.

He’s behind you!

Unlike the three elderly England fans a few rows below us, the only other England fans we saw during the whole day, who decided to jump up and wave their hands back and forth in rhythm to the boundary music whenever England hit a four or six. This was not taken lightly by the home support who decided to respond whenever India took a wicket. The trouble for the Three Lions faithful is that this was not even close to a fair fight with hundreds if not thousands in the seats around them turning to chant, jeer and even hold up their shirts to them.

This off-field battle started to attract as much attention as the game itself which in turn caused Kea and I to shrink further into our seats in order to avoid even the slight chance of receiving the same treatment. Bravely the three gentlemen stuck to their guns, repeating the dance every time England hit a boundary, earning the respect of the crowd in the end. Good on them. Despite the whole affair seeming at times as if it could creep into the realms of hostility, both sets of fans approached it in great spirits.

Despite England doing what England does best and losing the game, the result took nothing away from one of the most thrilling days and one of the best experiences I have ever had. Even Kea, who is far from cricket’s number-one fan, thoroughly enjoyed it. We were there for seven hours in total with no phone signal – that is like going on a long road trip in the late 90s without a windscreen-wide foldable map for the older generation that might be reading. Incomprehensible! How did we possibly manage!? Easily.

As the sun began to set and a deep orange haze began to fill one-half of the stadium, the floodlights turned on, the eagles began to circle just above the pitch and the humidity and heat rose. We left soon after England’s trademark batting collapse and in doing so missed the rush. It was everything I had dreamt the day to be – a true Indian Cricketing experience. One to tell the grandkids.