The pressure may be building up in the middle for Thursday’s big semi-final at Sydney, but by last count, it seems it will be the stands which will be tilting the match India’s way.
According to reports, the tickets of the match between India and Australia are sold out with just a couple of corporate boxes left on the ICC’s ticketing shelf. And the good news is that 80 per cent of those tickets have apparently been bought by Indian fans, the high cost notwithstanding.
The prospect of playing before at least a 30,000-strong hostile Indian crown has daunted even the Australian skipper Michael Clarke and his boys who have been regularly tweeting their appeals to the Aussie fans to bring some yellow into the stadium.
“I call on all Australian cricket lovers to paint the SCG gold on Thursday. We need your support. #goldout,” Clarke tweeted just a couple of hours after winning the Adelaide quarter-final with David Warner following up with another appeal.
Such is the nerves among the Aussies that they have even appealed to the local fan club, Sydney Swans, to come aboard and support their appeal. On Monday, Australian all-rounder James Faulkner acknowledged that the Indian crowd presence would be a factor. “We were talking about it at dinner last night actually that the last game we played here definitely felt like that. Obviously the passion that the Indian fans showed towards their cricket team is sensational. We are definitely expecting that come match day. The fans were unbelievable supporting India and I suppose everyone is excepting that,” he said.