A day out at stadium

Alright, The story from last post continued for another day. Just at the right moment, when an Indian player is about to play biggest match of his life, DD sports switched to showing beach volleyball between kazakstan and some other stupid team. (I am surprised womens lib has nt spoken out yet about bikin clad women playing games right in the middle of the city. Did the organizers catch culture police sleeping? hehe) On Friday, Chetan Anand beat world no.4 Chen Yu from China in quarters. Saturday was a rare occasion for India. A lowly ranked (no.70) player was in semi-final of a grand prix. For the badminton uninitiated, this is equivalent to an Indian playing in a semi-final of a grand slam :). Competition are being held Gacchibowli. Kashi and I decided to go to stadium all the way to Gacchibowli and watch the match live. Boy, that was worth all the trouble.

We arrived at the stadium around 5pm, all the while doubting if the match was already over. As I mentioned earlier, Organizers are doing a great job. They scheduled Chetan's match at 7pm. Inspite of the big occasion stadium was half-full. The stadium is awesome, built with international standards. We found seats with a good view and settled in. Womens singles semifinals was going on. Chetan was sitting in the arena talking to Jwala Gutta (his wife, India's no.1 doubles player) and other friends. Lot of people think, whats the big deal in going to a stadium when you can watch the match in TV. Folks, believe me, going to stadium is worth every penny. After the women's singles, it was mens doubles semi-finals between 2 teams both of which were ranked top 5 in the world. You get to see what kind of warm-up routine players use before the match. Shadow practice et al. The doubles semi-finals was AWESOME. If you are a keen observer, you can watch all the mind games, strategies so clearly in a stadium. (Somehow, badminton is not covered live in our parts of the world and those who cover show some silly commentary with out adding much value.)

Jwala started distributing inflated sticks just before Chetans match. Chetan started his detailed warm-up routine. Stupid me, I did nt carry my camcorder :(. Crowd started shouting Chetaaaan..Chetan and noise was reaching its highest level. Finally the big moment came. Chetans opponent was Andrew Smith, an English player. He was like a deer in the headlights. Totally out of place, right from the go. Crowd was behind Chetan for every point. Chetan anand won the match in 20 mins with 21-16, 21-9. You really get to know what is home advantage. It was a tame surrender from the brit. Anyways, we were really happy. Crowds, media did not let Chetan do his cool down routine for 30 mins. After everything was over, Chetan walked to the galleries and greeted almost every one. We congratulated him as he was passing us by and took autograph on the half-torn ticket stub. It was really worth every penny. Quality badminton (not in the Chetans match though), gotta see Gopichand and many Indian players, got an autograph. Seriously folks, next time there is a match in your town, go to stadium and watch it live. It is really a worthy experience. More so, if you have a child. They will have a great memory for rest of their lives.

We ended the day with a dinner at chutneys, Himayatnagar. I had to mention this as the food was sooooo good. Folks, next time you are in town, go order a south indian thali in Chutneys. I wont go into details but this thali does not have a match in twin cities :)

ciao.