The Knowledgeable Chennai Crowd
The cricket stadium in Madras has always been a mythical place to me. I have never once been there though I grew up in the city.
Chennai’s M. A. Chidambaram stadium in Chepauk is considered the home of the “knowledgeable cricket crowd.” Who coined this phrase, on what occasion, and when it appeared in print first: such details remain obscure. There is one thing we can be certain about: the spectators in Chepauk lived up to this badge of distinction on January 31st, 1999, during the first match of a bilateral test series between Pakistan and India. And how!
Fundamentalist politicians in India had wanted to scrap this series — the first in twelve years — because of intensifying tensions over Kashmir. Goons dig up the wicket in New Delhi, the original venue of the first test match. For good measure, they also damaged India’s 1983 World Cup Trophy housed in Mumbai. The appropriate politicians were appeased, and the series was back on track. Still, all was not well. The police kept their eyes peeled for signs of trouble in Chennai.
Pakistan players doing a victory lap after beating India in the Chennai Test in 1999. Picture courtesy: The Hindu.
At Chepauk, the crowd showed up for the game, seemingly oblivious to the pre-Kargil War winds brewing up north. Our winters are mild, even non-existent, our patriotism non-jingoistic. For three days, the crowd sat mesmerized as the two teams’ fortunes see-sawed in an evenly matched game. On the fourth day, a visibly tired Sachin Tendulkar scored a century despite his back injury. His valiant knock of 136 would go in vain. The four tailenders could not carry us over the finish line. Pakistan won by 12 runs. The victors let out battle cry-like chants to celebrate, right in the middle of the ground. The crowd sat in stunned silence.
The best scriptwriters in Bollywood could not have dreamt up the next scene. The crestfallen fans at Chepauk rose to their feet. With tears flowing down their cheeks, some began to clap. Like Sivaji Ganesan in the old classic song, naan azhuthukondae sirikkindren, (I cry and I smile) the spectators at Chepauk showed two opposing emotions at once. It was all spontaneous, organic. Rising to the occasion, the Pakistan team led by Wasim Akram began a victory lap around the ground. The dignified applause continued. The standing ovation which resounded for a few minutes – in that time of fervid hatred – is now etched into the subcontinent’s collective cricket memory.
In his excellent long read, on the twentieth anniversary of that match, writer Siddartha Vaidyanathan includes one spectator’s vivid memory from the end of the match. “There were a couple of guys throwing something – maybe plastic cups or plastic water packets – in the general direction of the Pakistan players. Then they realized they were the only ones doing that and stayed quiet. They got shouted at. It was the reverse of mob rage. Mob appreciation, maybe.” Another eyewitness recalls that a couple of girls – dressed in tank tops or similar trendy attire – got up and clapped. Perhaps, they catalyzed a chain reaction.
But this was not the only time the crowd had acted magnanimously.
In a curtain-raiser to the India-Bangladesh 2024 Test Series, local boy and international cricketer, R. Ashwin recalled another match in Chepauk. Again, between India-Pakistan match, an one-day international (ODI) played on May 21, 1997. India lost that match by a bigger margin – 35 runs. That match was never India’s to win thanks to Saeed Anwar’s magnificent knock of 194.
Of course, the Chennai crowd wanted the ace Pakistani batsman’s wicket to fall. Still, when Anwar was close to the legendary Vivian Richard’s record knock of 189 not out, the crowd cheered him on. Once Anwar got past that number, a double century was on the cards. With a little over three overs left in the innings, Anwar swept Sachin Tendulkar and was caught by Saurav Ganguly. “Running backwards for the catch, Ganguly roughly hurt his head as he landed on the ground. Poetically enough, even as Anwar walked off the field, he had done India damage,” is how Roha Nadeem of dawn.com describes the end of that fine innings. A cricket writer from Pakistan — even while sitting down to write calmly after the event — finds it hard to keep violence out of his words.
On that hot summer day, Ashwin, right arm off-spinner and lower order batsman for India, was only a school kid. As a spectator, he overheard the North Indian boys in the row ahead talk among themselves in Hindi. Though Ashwin was learning the language in school, he could not follow the actual words. But the 11-year-old felt their despair.
Anwar was hitting spinner Anil Kumble all over the ground. At one point, there was a slight chance for a catch, but Sunil Joshi, a fellow spinner from Karnataka, could not get a grip on the ball, and it went over the boundary for a six. Infuriated, one of the Hindi-speaking boys dug into his steel tiffin box, rolled a ball of puliyodharai, or tamarind rice, and hurled it at Joshi’s back. Until then, Ashwin says, he had no idea that north Indians too could pack puliyodharai for a picnic lunch at Chepauk.
In all the writing about Anwar’s record-breaking knock, there is no mention of this incident. But why would anyone mention something so trivial? An improvised tamarind rice-missile is nothing. Besides, it was not aimed at Anwar. Elsewhere – and at times, even in Chepauk because no one is perfect every single day – irate fans have thrown bottles, firecrackers, and other hard-hitting projectiles, or done worse things to disrupt play, when a game didn’t go their way. Overall, some quiet decency has reigned in Chepauk most of the time.
And the Chennai stadium wasn’t only about grace in rivalry. There is more.
More Chepauk Memories (Let’s Hear It for The Ladies)
The West Indies team had arrived in Madras (now Chennai) in November 1976 for the second match of the first-ever official women’s Test series in India, Sruthi Ravindranath, sub-editor of cricinfo.com writes in a feature for the sports portal. For the first Test played in Bangalore, the stadium was nearly full. In Chepauk, the stadium was three-fourths full – despite the monsoon.
Shubhangi Kulkarni, a leg spinner, then a student at Ferguson College, Pune, finished as the highest wicket-taker in that series. In Ravindranath’s feature, she is quoted as saying, “My first impression was that the crowd knew their cricket. They were genuinely applauding the performance. They came to watch the cricket, unlike when we played in 1975 in various cities – the crowd [there] came to see whether the girls played in skirts or pants, you know. They [the Chennai crowd] were cheering both teams, cheering good performances.”
Shantha Rangaswamy, the Indian team captain, recalls the report in the sports page of The Hindu about the Chepauk match thus: “Her arrival was greeted with cheers as is normally given to the Nawab of Pataudi and Ajit Wadekar, the other captains of India. She got a rousing send-off after her half-century, and things like that.”
Sudha Shah, an 18-year-old at the time, was Chennai’s local girl.
“Back then, women taking up cricket would often be offered alternatives – table tennis, carrom – and told that we might get dark, not find a husband,” the veteran would recall in an interview with The Hindu. Her supportive father was a founding member and vice-president of the Tamil Nadu Women’s Cricket Association. That day, her family had come to Chepauk to cheer her on. She scored 18 runs and took no wickets in a match cut short by rain. After her long career as a player, the all-rounder, a Good Shepherd Convent alumna, would go on to become a cricket coach for India.
Flash forward to the present. During this recent India-Bangladesh test match a mami, a dignified-looking older woman, with grey hair and a few missing front teeth was seen enjoying the game at Chepauk. Whenever Ashwin hit a four or a six, in his superlative innings of 113, mami got up to clap even when the young man next to her stayed put. She braved the heat, applauded the good shots, and seemed to be having a great time overall. India won by 280 runs.
Was mami a former player or was she an ardent fan of the game? If asked, she’d have shrugged and said, “Forget the sari, and don’t even start about my age. I am just another individual in this Chennai crowd.”