Let the games begin

The much-awaited ICC World T20 is finally here and the city and its cricket fans are warming up to it in many different ways. How are you swinging it this sporting season

If cricket is a religion in India, then the World Cup without doubt is its Diwali. And just like the Hindu festival of lights, fans across the country are gearing up for a long and bright festive season with the WC T20 and the IPL lined up over the next two months. Although memories of India’s 2011 WC victory are still fresh in fans’ minds, efforts by the BCCI and several other fans and associations ahead of the T20 world cup are helping spread the fervour.

While Mumbai’s famous dabbawalas are expressing their excitement by sporting team India jackets (Sponsored by ICC) and posting stickers of team India on their ‘dabbas’ apart from providing a match schedule as a side dish with the main course, the organisers, BCCI are keeping fans excited with a new lottery ticket system — where tickets will be offered through random selection and an initiative that will offer free WiFi within all major stadiums of the country. Then of course there’ll be the high spirited evenings where fans can hit a bar and enjoy the match on massive screens with a beer to go...

The BCCI is doing its part in making sure that the experience of watching a match is made better with new initiatives. “It is a stark reality that getting tickets for a match in the country is not a level-playing field,” says Dr. MV Sridhar, the tournament organiser of the BCCI for the ICC T20 Cricket World Cup about how the lottery ticket scheme was conceived. He adds, “This is aimed at making sure that everyone has a fair chance of getting to see the match in a stadium. As it is right now, the number of seats in a stadium is limited while the number of people who want to come see the match is infinitely larger. It is on a first come-first serve basis, which means a lot of people will end up not getting the tickets.” As of now the lottery ticket system is only being used for six matches (4 India matches and 2 semi-finals and the finals). Sridhar further added that depending on how this goes, it may be made a permanent fixture.

But the initiative that has come to be lauded by many fans is the one to provide free WiFi within all major stadiums. “It is a step in the right direction and though the world T20 is the first event we are doing this for, the infrastructure for providing free WiFi will now be available for all upcoming matches. In fact, we have said that this should be used for the IPL too,” says Sridhar, about the initiative.

He adds, “More than the comfort factor, we are hoping that this will be a technical intervention. Apart from connectivity, this will help with security, safety and ease of access as well. These days the entire ticketing systems in stadiums such as Nagpur and Mumbai have been made online, so this will help with that as well.”

While there are a lot of efforts aimed at the stadium going crowd, the TV-watching fans haven’t been left out either. ICC, which has teamed up with Star Sports for broadcasting the event is not only improving the quality of broadcast drastically but is also all set to expand its coverage to never before levels. The initiative will include improved graphics for statistics and have several more hawk-eye and HD cameras than before. David Richardson, the Chief Executive of ICC says, “The ICC with the support of its broadcast partner Star Sports is committed to expanding its coverage so that its events can reach out to its fans as far as possible. This high quality coverage will also massively boost women’s cricket whose 13 matches will be broadcast for the first ever time.”

While their trademark white kurtas and topis have been their regular garb for several decades, over 5,000 Dabbawalas of Mumbai will be sporting colourful maroon jackets and topis while on duty to spread the cheer. The initiative, which is being done in collaboration with the ICC will also see the Dabbawalas distributing the event schedules and over 2,500 ICC T20 stickers to their customers. And not just that, their fervour has also earned them 25 tickets per match for every fixture in Mumbai (Courtesy of the ICC). Telling us about the idea was conceived, Nitin Sawant, the secretary of Mumbai Dabbawala Association tells us, “There are a lot of cricket fans among the dabbawalas and it has been a dream for many of them to go see a match in the stadium. So we wrote to the cricket council and requested them if they could provide some tickets to people from the poorer sections of the fans like us and that is how we decided on this effort.”

Telling us how excited he and his fellow dabbawalas are about the event, Nitin says, “Every time a match is on, there are about 100 of us (dabbawalas) in the association office who watch the match together from a single small TV. Going to the stadium to watch the match has only been a dream but thanks to this, many of us will now be able to experience it for ourselves.”

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