Ball boys 145;bowled out146;

All for Dada

Shoaib Akhtar and Sachin Tendulkar may be high on the popularity chart, but the last four days here have shown that nothing gets the crowd going more than Dada.

Not only did the roars from the stand grow louder whenever Sourav Ganguly came in to bat or bowl, but the stadium reverberated to the chants of 8216;Dada, Dada8217; as he took the Pakistan bowlers to the cleaners on Sunday. Akhtar, though, did not want to be left behind, doing an impromptu jig as the Chak De India beat was played over the tannoy.

Capacity crowd

Delhiites created a record of sorts today with the Kotla being almost filled to capacity. Nearly 40,000 turned out to see India take the match away from the archrivals, and the atmosphere finally took on the mood of an Indo-Pak tie. And finally, the heavy deployment of security personnel8212;which included NCC cadets8212;that was at the stadium for the past two days came to use. It took hours for the fans to get into the stadium with long queues at every gate.