The excitement in Ahmedabad for the India vs Australia ICC CWC 2011 quarter-final game has to be seen to be believed.
The city of Ahmedabad is right now in the grip of cricket mania. The minute you step out of the airport, you are greeted by hordes of good luck messages for Team India on big billboards. As mentioned by this scribe on his earlier visit to this city last month, the local Amdavadis have been waiting for this encounter for a long time.
All roads in the city on Thursday will lead to the Sardar Patel stadium in Motera.
As has been the case with any India match in this mega-event, the demand for tickets has been astounding. Each and every ticket in the 54,000 capacity stadium has been sold out. But as is often the case with any match involving the Men-in-Blue in this country, a curious bunch of hopefuls always hang around the premises of the stadium just in case they can manage to get a ticket from somewhere.
Wednesday was no different. Apart from around 1000 people who had come to collect their tickets booked online, there were also a large number of people hoping to somehow get a ticket for this big clash. Summer has just started making its presence felt in this part of the world so waiting for hours in the sun is quite an arduous task. Kudos to those who managed to all those individuals who survived this ordeal!
Yours truly was approached as well by some of these hopefuls when they spotted the press accreditation card on his neck.
All roads in the city on Thursday will lead to the Sardar Patel stadium in Motera.
As has been the case with any India match in this mega-event, the demand for tickets has been astounding. Each and every ticket in the 54,000 capacity stadium has been sold out. But as is often the case with any match involving the Men-in-Blue in this country, a curious bunch of hopefuls always hang around the premises of the stadium just in case they can manage to get a ticket from somewhere.
Wednesday was no different. Apart from around 1000 people who had come to collect their tickets booked online, there were also a large number of people hoping to somehow get a ticket for this big clash. Summer has just started making its presence felt in this part of the world so waiting for hours in the sun is quite an arduous task. Kudos to those who managed to all those individuals who survived this ordeal!
Yours truly was approached as well by some of these hopefuls when they spotted the press accreditation card on his neck.
