Blues over Orange
The reactions to the new Indian jersey in orange and navy blue are far from effusive. “No cool, man, not cool at all,” says one while the other feels it is too alienating and does not give you the connect in the stands. “Virat gave it an 8/10, I would give it just a 2,” said another fan while the third one said he clicked the English players at the national anthem more till he remembered his team was in orange. “That’s not done at all. Where was the need to move away from the original blue? They look more like the minnows in these new colours,” Amit said, wondering if the colour is going to dent the confidence of the team as well as the fans. Thankfully, for all, it is just a one-match break from the traditional Indian blue.
For a cause
Many organisations have been using the big stage of World Cup to propel their ideology, faith as also charitable organisations as live TV telecast cameras often catch them in action, giving them free publicity. There has been an old Black man propelling all this things God with a huge placard and a louder chant of “Jesus loves you” rising above all the melee. He has followed the India matches all the way from their first one in Southampton said, “the crowds are the biggest in India matches,” he says. Then there are certain Indian NGOs talking about deforestation and other environmental issues as also the dwindling river systems in India and they were outside the stadium gates giving away booklets and literature of their work to anyone who cared enough. Within the Cup, the ICC has earmarked this match to propel its OneDay4Children campaign in conjunction with the UNICEF.
Tickets in black
The sale of tickets in black has been doing good business around the stadiums and the tube stations around the venues. Be it at Manchester or Nottingham or London or here, there has always been a set of two: One lot sells tickets. At the Pakistan India tie at Manchester the tickets were going for as high as 2000 pounds while for the India England match it was 500 pounds per ticket. Then there are dubious looking guys who are ready to buy, perhaps to resell it for a higher rate. Among these are people like “Alan” who carries a placard saying: “Just one ticket please. I am a genuine buyer.” So much for ICC’s warning against buying spurious tickets. The impunity with which these guys do it is not funny. At the Oval, they stood right in front of the ticketing windows of the stadium to sell what they had and make a cool amount of moolah.