Lord it over

It was a bright sunny day, the sort that comes at a  premium in London, when I set off to watch India v England at Lords. It was odd - the home of cricket, here WG Grace smacked the ball around with a toss of his impressive beard, here Michael Holding murdered the English batting lineup after Tony Grieg said he would make the West Indies "grovel", and here Ganguly and Dravid played their first Test series, succeeding in their contrasting styles. And I was here to watch a 20-20. Talk about strange bedfellows.

But whatever, when I walked in, I caught my breath for a second - the ground is absolutely gorgeous, and as soaked with history as I could have imagined, and as modern as it gets, with the new media stand looming impressively to one side. I turned to Jenner, who was also at the ground for the first time, and we both shook our heads in disbelief, and had idiotic grins of excitement permanently etched on our faces (right until Yuvraj got out).

And man, the atmosphere was un-be-lievable. i mean, my stand had about 2000 Indian fans, and about ten englishmen - three were sat in front of me, and three behind, as luck would have it. The brit in front of me turned to me in disbelief and said: "Are we in Mumbai or London?" and i know how he felt. 

First off, Ireland v Sri Lanka, which was a great game. But there was no question about which game people came to see. 

Ive seen several test matches and ODIs at the stadium, saw India v Pakistan, a great test match, and India beating Aus. in the decider in THAT series when Laxman got 281, but believe me, none of those compared with the excitement and atmosphere in this stadium. It was just electric - and when the national anthems were sung, and the whole stadium erupted in a ear-splitting "Jai Hai!" it was the most phenomenal feeling.

The first innings was incredible - Pietersen and Bopara were runnign away with the game, but boy when Jadeja got Bopara's wicket, we were all out of our seats, some people even did a Ganguly-style shirt wave sans the shirt... and when Pietersen got out, Jenner normally soft spoken intellectual was howling "Get lost you BASTARD, just FUCK OFF", spraying spittle all over the english fans in front of us to rub salt into the wound...

but I must say i had tremendous admiration for the english fans behind me - their spirited rally included chants such as "Singh is shit" when the words "singh is king" were ringing thro the stadium, and when Harbhajan held back his run up in anticipation of KP's switch hit, the guys behind me started shouting "Shame on India.. It's a disgrace.." and then repeated it, and then repeated it again, when they couldn't come up with anything new. You have to be really brave to say that amidst 2,000 volatile opposition fans!

And the second innings. 

We had our moments of ecstacy, that first ball six by Yuvraj was ridiculous, and a couple of lovely cover drives by Gambhir. And that delightful cameo by Pathan, tho it was obvious to us by then that it was too late. 

Losing that game was one of the most heartbreaking experiences, with all the high hopes we had for the Indian team. Everywhere I looked, stunned Indian fans, some in tears - and I knew how they felt. I was just sat there, completely shattered. And I was to wake up the next day, stare at the ceiling and think - even being dumped by my girlfriend didn't feel this bad the next morning...

At the time, one of the English fans in front of me, turned to shake my hand in a gesture of goodwill. Jenner cheerfully did so (he bounced back much better than I did) but I just shook my head and refused. I felt really bad about it afterwards - but I hope the guy understood just how shattered I was.

At the time, I thought: That's a waste of 50 quid, isn't it.

But now, I feel differently - the highs and lows I felt in that ground was something you can't put a price on.