The Cricket World Cup 2003

When my studies were becoming important, Cricket was becoming more important for me. There was no T20 format back then and I enjoyed watching ODI’s whole day along with solving maths problems.

The World Cup 2003 fell during my final examinations and since it was held in South Africa, the matches used to end during a late night in India. My parents allowed me to watch the matches only up to a limited time so that I could sleep on time and wake up on time to give my exams. The first thing that I used to do after waking up was to get the newspaper from the main gate of my house to see the match results. Sometimes I had to turn the newspaper pages directly to the Sports page to check the results. The craze of Cricket was at its peak during that time.

South Africa and Australian Cricket team were my favourite team by that time. I still remember the face of captain Shaun Pollock holding his head with his hand; that photo was on the front page of the newspaper that I saw just after waking up. I had my Hindi paper on that day and my mood was completely ruined when I came to know that my favourite team was out of the tournament. It was an unlucky result for the South African team especially because the team tied the match due to rain. There was a misunderstanding when the South African team misinterpreted the target. Instead of winning, they just managed to equal the total given by Duckworth-Lewis which they thought was the target! It broke my heart and started my journey of becoming the biggest fan of the Australian cricket team.

The World Cup 2003 story continues….