Spectator at a Cricket Match

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YOU ARE A SPECTATOR AT A CRICKET MATCH. TROUBLE ERRUPTS SUDDENLY IN THE STADIUM AND YOU WITNESS RIOT AMONG THE CROWD . GIVE A VIVID DESCRIPTION I was lucky enough to fulfil a dream last week when I visited Kolkata’s famous Eden Gardens cricket stadium to watch Pakistan play India in a test match. What’s more – if you’ll allow a little gloating – it was a historic success: Pakistan don’t often win in India let alone Eden Gardens and it was a thrashing to boot. Eden Gardens is famous amongst the many grounds in India and elsewhere because of its size. It once held 100,000 people among its concrete seats; now proper bucket seating has been installed it has dropped to around 65,000. Nevertheless, it’s still an immense place and the noise when even only half full is something for the ears to behold. What’s more, the Indian crowd is known to be crazy here. But to focus on that would miss the point: it’s true that Indians cheer every ball batted by their cricketing heroes – the general consensus is the average fan of India prefers batting to bowling – and cheer even more loudly when the ball disappears over the ropes. The crowd was an enormous part of the experience and I chatted too many. All were friendly; despite being naturally zealous for their team in a country in which cricket is almost a religion. I’ll never forget the roars when Sachin walked on, or even fielded – and what you can’t sometimes hear is the polite applause when an Indian wicket falls, say. I feared that sometimes the enthusiasm and energy spill over into rioting and fires and there have been several such incidents in recent years. And to my utter surprise, violence began minutes after hundreds of Indian supporters began dancing on their chairs when the Indian cricket team outplayed archival Pakistanis in a test cricket match. Muslims in many parts of India supported Islamic Pakistan's team against

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