Being an Indian guy born in the 90s (the era of Sachin, as most of us say), it isn't strange that I am so obsessed with cricket, the sport which defines us Indians (sadly though, 'coz we are damn good at quite a lot of others too). I have been an avid cricket fan since time immemorial, having spent hours under the sun playing it growing up. Possibly playing, all forms of cricket one could think of: 1D-1 hand, gully cricket, verandah cricket, terrace cricket, tournaments among friends in locality and in school, book cricket and imitating bowlers, batsman with their bowling action and unique batting styles. From the time I started watching cricket, some of the most vivid memories which will always be imprinted will be the Ganguly pitching down to loft a six over long on, Tendulkar's six to Shoaib Akhtar over point, Bhajji spinning batsmen out and last but not the least, the flamboyance of Sehwag decimating bowlers apart.
Having been such an avid cricket fan, it was kind of strange I hadn't watched a cricket match live in a stadium. This would boil down to a couple of factors- no live matches being staged in and around Rourkela (my home town) and spending 22 years of my life at Rourkela, being born, brought up and completed my undergraduation there, I was starved of seeing a match live in a stadium. Just when I had to leave Rourkela after college, of all the places on earth, I landed up in Singapore, with no cricketing history whatsoever. That was when I decided, coz of the proximity of Australia to Singapore, I was going there for Cricket World Cup 2015.
It all started at the trip to Bintan, where I found a cricket fan in Ranjit, my buggie buddy. We started off with casual conversations about how India was faring at that time, to the prospects of India at the WC in 2015. Little did I know, that conversation would actually end up being true 15 months from then, in us actually living that dream. Planning followed, tickets booked exactly a year before the first match, not to forget the hysteria when we actually ended up getting the match tickets for Ind-SA and also Ind-Pak (2 mins after the tickets went online, it was sold off :P ), thanks to Ranjit. Seven months later, detailed planning followed with creation of watsapp group, booking of flight tickets, places to visit in between the matches, activities to be done. With the fair share of people agreeing and backing out (usual before a trip) come Feb 2015, it was all done and four of us (Ranjit, parthiv, Surabhi and me) were all set for the trips of our lifetime.
The buzz around the WC was already building in with warm up events, cricinfo team preview videos and promotional videos by Star plus (mauka mauka), and donning our India jerseys, we were all set to board that flight! World Cup, Road trip, Skydiving, Ind- pak, MCG, Sydney .. we couldn't be more excited.
