AHMEDABAD: Chartered aircraft buzzing in skies are not something that evoke a second look from residents of Ahmedabad, yet the intensity of private aircrafts flying into this western Indian city ferrying the business tycoons and their entourage have caused such a logjam that some of these flying machines were asked to park in nearby Surat and Mumbai airports.
Parking bays have become so scarce that the rich and famous are no longer assured of their aircraft being ready in attendance at Ahmedabad for the flight back home after watching the showpiece India versus Pakistan cricket encounter in the ongoing 50-over World Cup at the Motera stadium that boasts a seating capacity of 1,20,000.
Driven by the excitement of an Indo-Pak encounter in the World Cup, the city has been gripped by cricket fever that reached its peak as a sea of humanity donning the blue Indian team uniform got into the Narendra Modi Stadium – that now easily the biggest arena of the cricketing world.
India celebrated the occasion with a rousing seven-wicket victory, extending their one-day World Cup record versus Pakistan to eight matches. After bunding Pakistan out for 191 in 42.5 overs, India raced to 192 for the loss of three wickets from 30.3 overs.
Putting Pakistan in to bat first after winning the toss, India’s bowlers bolwed them out cheaply despite an 82-run partnership for the third wicket between skipper Babar Azam (50 runs) and Mohammad Rizwan (49 runs). The Indian attack struck back to claim eight wickets conceding 36 runs after Azam’s dismissal. Pace ace Jasprit Bumrah (2 for 19) was the pick of the Indian attack, while four other bowlers – Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravinder Jadeja and Mohammed Siraj also claimed two wickets each.
This is Pakistan’s third lowest total in eight one-day World Cup matches against India. The lowest score remains 173 all out at Sydney in the 1992 World Cup. At Manchester in the 1999 World Cup, Pakistan were bowled out 180.
Boisterous home fans began celebrations early as captain Rohit Sharma led the assault with a belligerent 86 off 63 balls to lead the Indian chase. Rohit Sharma struck four huge sixes and four boundaries, but fell within striking distance of his eighth World Cup century. With seven hundreds, he already holds the record for most a centuries in one-day World Cups.
Shubman Gill, returning from his Dengue-forced absence of two World Cup games, and Virat Kohli contributed 16 each, but Rohit Sharma’s swash-buckling knock set the tempo for the hosts.
Shreyas Iyer remained unbeaten on 52 from 62 deliveries (two sixes and three boundaries) and drove India home in partnership with K.L.Rahul, who remained unbeaten on 19.
Staging several key fixtures of the ongoing World Cup, Ahmedabad has emerged as the nerve-centre of Indian cricket, displacing traditional metropolis of Mumbai and Kolkata. The World Cup kicked off on October 5 at the Motera with the tournament opener featuring 2019 champions England and runners-up New Zealand. A large number of seats in the massive stadium remained empty and attracted some criticism.
Passionate spectators, however, made it a near full-house on Saturday (October 14) when India took on sub-continental rivals Pakistan – a game that never fails to attract the biggest audience of the cricket hemisphere.
Nicknamed of “Manchester of the East” due to its large number of textile mills, Ahmedabad has in recent years attracted attention by hosting big-ticket cricket matches. The “Hub of Indian cricket” sobriquet will be further strengthened as Motera will host the title encounter of this World Cup next month (on November 19).
Mumbai, then called Bombay, was the traditional headquarters of the Indian cricket. With changing equations in the corridors of cricketing power, Mumbai had lost its pre-eminent status to Kolkata, which was then called Calcutta, when the World Cup first moved out of England in 1987.
Calcutta was picked as the venue for the finals of the World Cups in 1987 and 1996. India were joint hosts with Pakistan in 1987 and Sri Lanka joined them as the 1996 tournament was staged across three countries. On all occasions when World Cup has been played in the sub-continent, the title contest was allocated to India, including in 2011 when Bangladesh replaced Pakistan in the list of host nations.
The 2011 final, featuring hosts India and Sri Lanka, was played in Mumbai as the reins of the Indian cricket board were back in the hands of the western metropolis. Ahmedabad, whose Motera stadium was demolished and rebuilt a few years ago, will be the venue of the final this time, underscoring the fact that Gujarat now calls the shots in the nation’s cricket officialdom.
In old days, Ahmedabad did not even feature among the five Test match venues. It first hosted an international in the Sardar Patel Stadium in the heart of the Ahmedabad before the stadium at Motera, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, was first constructed in 1983. The same year, the Kapil Dev-led India played a Test match against Clive Lloyd’s West Indies. In that match, Sunil Gavaskar posted a score of 90 in his first knock and Kapil claimed nice wickets in the West Indies second innings, yet India suffered a 138-run defeat.
The craze for cricket also saw the Ahmedabad-based Gujarat Titans team join the Twenty-20 Indian Premier League bandwagon two years ago. The World Cup encounter between India and Pakistan generated such a demand that the city’s hotels found themselves unable to find rooms for all the cricket buffs coming for the crux match. Such was the demand for rooms that some fans went to the extent of booking medical examination packages that provided them a room in the hospitals.
