THE CHEPAUK TEST: #MyDebut

                           

Every Cricket Fan’s big desire is to watch a cricket match at the stadium supporting his home team. Well, I had to wait 22 years 11 months and 12 days to that. Yes, on the 16^th of December I made my official debut as a spectator in the match between India and England, the 5^th test of the Anthony de’Mello trophy. So what if the series was done and dusted in Wankhede, with India taking an unassailable 3-0 lead? The crowd came out, after the city being hit by a cyclone few days prior to the match.

                                

Credit has to be given to Mr.N. Srinivasan & Co. for making the match come to Chennai after 3+ years and taking all steps to make sure the match happens be it against political problems or cyclone problems. The match turned out be like yet another Chennai test providing the crowd and also the record books some amazing entries. So, how about seeing what happened day by day?

Day 1: English skipper Alastair Cook won the toss, inviting India to field. The duo of Cook and Jennings start the proceedings and on the very first ball a Mishra mis-field resulted in Cook crossing 11,000 test runs. The start was very quiet thanks to some hostile spell from Ishant Sharma whose first spell read 5-4-1-1. Ishant sent Jennings and Jaddu sent Cook and by Lunch it was 68/2. What followed that was an English counter-attack where Root kept sweeping the ball and rotating the strike with Ali and a good partnership was building up and then Jadeja removed Root through a DRS decision.

 Root scored an amazing 88 and the Chennai crowd known for its historical nature applauded his effort as he returned to the pavilion. Then it was all Ali. He was like the baton had been passed from Root to him as notched up his century and Bairstow was unlucky to be out on 49. Taking the new ball did not work in favour of India as it ended up leaking more runs towards the end of the day as England closed Day 1 on 284/4.

Day 2: The day started on a positive note for India as Ashwin removed Stokes which was interestingly his only scalp of the match in his home-town. And Ishant removed Buttler and Yadav bounced out Ali, England were at 321/7. When the crowd expected India to bundle out England out below 400, Debutant Dawson and Rashid had other ideas. They made runs and added 108 runs in 40 overs and in the process completed their respective half-centuries and the partnership ended with Rashid edging to Parthiv. Broad contributed with 19 and Ball scored 12 and Dawson remained unbeaten on 66 and England finished their innings at 477.

India were given 20 overs to play and Parthiv and Rahul partnering for the first time played safe and ended the Day on 60/0. The Chennai crowd got some entertainment in the form of Buttler as he was targeted by the crowd for reasons and started to mimic him and if Cook sent him to the other side of the field, chants of “WE WANT BUTTLER” filled the stadium and he was brought back to same side.

Day 3: Day 3 started on a positive note as Rahul and Parthiv continued what they left on Day 2 with Parthiv unleashing cover-drives and Rahul driving and sweeping the ball. Both brought up their respective 50s and Parthiv was undone by a leading edge of Moeen Ali. He scored 71, his highest score in test cricket. Pujara joined with Rahul and India at Lunch were 173/1. Pujara steered a Stokes delivery to slip and what? One would have expected the crowd to go silent, but we had other ideas as everyone knew the next to bat was the Indian skipper Virat Kohli. It was a cheer Pujara was accustomed to in the early phases of his career when he would come out to bat before Sachin Tendulkar. Virat Kohli, started carefully and K L Rahul completed his 4^th test hundred. Cook’s plan for Kohli seemed to work this time as he chipped out.

The Super Sunday crowd who were expecting a Kohli special yet again, were not disappointed as K L Rahul took the English bowlers for 4s and 6s. He and his Karnataka captain Karun Nair were busy sweeping and reverse sweeping the spinners and when everyone expected Rahul could do nothing wrong, he chased a wide-off delivery only for it to take an edge and find Buttler to be out on 199. Local boy Vijay kept a check on the wickets and India closed Day 3 on 391/4. Buttler was not spared by the Super Sunday crowd as he also joined the entertainment making some moves and playing shadow-football with Root and also not to forget the loud roar when Root threw the ball at Rahul. He had to apologise twice.

Day 4: Probably the day everyone thought of giving a miss considering it was a Monday, Chennai was not like that, the main reason being India were batting. Those who gave a miss were left cursing their stars why on the earth they did so… Why? You’ll know at the end of the paragraph… Vijay did not last long as he was trapped LBW off Dawson. The departure of Vijay brought in another Local-boy probably the Local-superstar R Ashwin. Ashwin made up for his poor outing with the ball as he and Nair made another big partnership frustrating the England attack. Nair completed his 200 and Ashwin brought up his fifty and yet again the ball had to find Buttler who broke all 150+ run partnerships… Jadeja joined Nair and they started to accelerate… The crowd were desperate for an Indian declaration, but there were no hints of that from Kohli as he nodded saying a NO when the crowd along with the English fans were asking “DECLARE!!!” Probably at the time what myself and the other friends felt was Kohli was going to give Cook yet another fine for slow-over rate as Cook &Co. were seen wasting time between balls and overs so that if at all they bat, they would face only less overs.

Nair and Jadeja were just busy hitting the ball and Cook was left scratching his head for ideas. A perfect field and a short ball? A forehand tennis smash for 4 as Nasser commented “That’s a 15-0 in tennis” and an upper cut for 4 and again the same for 6 even when a Long Stop was moved in. Jadeja brought up his 50 and Karun brought up his 300 while the Chepauk crowd forgot about the declaration and were enjoying their batting, the declaration happened giving India only 5 overs to bowl which the English openers survived and ended Day 4 on 12/0. Wait what’s India’s score?? It was 759/7d, their highest in the format and a lead of 282 runs. I think you probably would have found the answer for the question at the beginning of the paragraph.

Day 5: Only 2/4 innings completed and only 5 overs in the 3^rd innings bowled. Ask any fan, he would say if India doesn’t pick up early wickets the match was heading for a draw. As they said it was happening in the first session. Sharp catches were dropped, Cook and Jennings slowly moved towards their respective 50s and also in the process of not losing the wicket to give India an early advantage and England moved steadily to 97/0 at Lunch. Now if any fan who left were left ruing their chances of missing the rest of the play and some who came in were in for a glimpse of a thriller. Jadeja came in and he took out Cook, Jennings, Root and caught Bairstow and England were 167/4 at Tea. The scorecard was inviting the crowds and they soon became the 12^th man of Team India and Virat was giving the signals just like in the Kolkata Test.

After Tea it was like a landslide after a small resistance. Moeen Ali scored 44 and Stokes scored 23 and then again the wrecker-in-charge of the day Jadeja stuck twice in 2 overs and Mishra struck the only wicket of the day that did not have Jadeja to be involved which was disturbing the woodwork of Dawson. New Ball this time worked in favour of India as it brought Rashid’s wicket off the very first ball as he found Jadeja at point. Jadeja then came and cleaned the tail of Broad and Ball in 4 deliveries to hand India a thrilling victory with 30 minutes and only 8 overs of play left. Buttler was left standing at the other end with 6 off 50 balls. India won the match and series 4-0 the most they did against England.

Karun Nair converts his maiden 100 to a 300, the first Indian and second in the world, Jaddu gets his best figures and his maiden 10 wicket haul, KL Rahul gets 199, India pulling off a victory within 2 sessions, India rack up their highest total 759-7, and lifting the series trophy, all these happening in front of your eyes which happens to be your first match… Truly nothing can get special for a spectator like this…

Looking forward for another experience like this… but just wondering as I type when will be the next international match in Chennai???

Oh wait.... The ticket to my experience.. without which I would have not seen anything....

- Guha Karthikeyan S T