More to sport than cold numbers

first time in my career, I did not step into the press box while watching India play the South Africans at Mohali and Delhi. I must confess it was a liberating experience to be a part of the crowd, to respond like a fan and be a participant in a collective emotional sense rather than pretend to be a pedantic observer of a clinical trial.

Mohali, in the absence of any crowd, especially where I was sitting, wasn’t so exhilarating an experience, though the cool breeze and the benign sun while watching the match in all its three-dimensional aspects was a refreshing contrast to the stifling atmosphere of an airconditioned press box.

HOPE LEFT

Delhi was a revelation and it had to do with the numbers at the ground. The stadium, an ugly mass of concrete, was brought to life by a throbbing, lively crowd which turned up in thousands to transform even an extreme pessimist to believe that there may still be some hope left in the

Since the Test was being con ducted under a retired Judge, Mr Mukul Mudgal, better known in cricket circles as the man who cleaned up cricket, tickets were easily available and sold at much cheaper rates than the organis ers have in the past.

In what should be considered a pioneering step, children from various government schools were given free access to the ground. It was these children around 8-10000 in number, who not only filled one side of the stadium, but through their rau cous and intense involvement brought the ground alive.

Test cricket, it seemed through this imaginative step had been given a new lease of life by a judge, who is more of a cricket fan than an administra tive wizard. Justice Mudgal has set a new template for how to get crowds into the Test matches for the cricket administrators to follow in the country. There were lessons for insular professionals like me --- step out of the closed rooms of a press box, for there is more to sport than just mere