World Cup: Kenya’s upset over West Indies long forgotten, Pune expects India’s dominant run to continue

The majority of the crowd, which is under-25 that is used to driving down to the Gahunje stadium for IPL games, weren’t born when Kenya upset West Indies and will need the blue shirts, flags, face-paint and the ceaseless India-cheering frenzy to sit through the 8 hours of a format.

The Maharashtra Cricket Association hasn’t needed to advertise the game with hoardings inside the city. Its officials, constantly harangued for tickets, carried creased foreheads with mobiles stuck to the ear as demand cranked up even more in the days leading up to the match.

“The MCA stadium has hosted 68 matches including IPL already, but the World Cup tends to be a pressure game for organisers. More than pressure, we are excited, given hopes from the Indian team have increased,” says Maharashtra Cricket Association secretary Shubhendra Bhandarkar. Hosting organisers saw a renewed surge of requests for tickets after India beat Pakistan.

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With nearly no public transport in existence ferrying the flock towards the stadium, the MCA has taken hold of 42 acres of land surrounding the stadium for parking cars. Huge blimps will fly out into the sky, numbered to help locate parking zones. Stadium boxes have a fresh coat of paint and lights are all LED now. Blue park benches outside are dusted off, seats are flapped open and aisles are hosed down.

As the World Cup branding phase took off on Monday – cutouts and mammoth cloth scrolls rolling down the stadium facades – the stadium lost its local flavour. The inner city’s most iconic ‘Puneri paatya’ – boards with sardonic and cutting humoured instructions that dot the heart of the city and make merchants seem standoffish if not entirely rude – were sorely missing.

Still, in one of the narrow approach lanes, the Cup seemed to have caught on with the city’s reputation and a tilted ICC board proclaimed: ‘NO TICKETS sold here.’ (To be read as: don’t linger around unnecessarily looking for counters just because you see a gate.)

As happens with steadfastly branded international sporting events, in this World Cup also one venue remains indistinguishable from the other. So, F&B stalls are more likely to hot-sell Cajun Veg Burgers rather than the garlic-coconut chutneyed local vada-pav.

Inside, the architecture of the stadium is flaunted as utilitarian. A single concourse runs the rim of the whole arena, making access relatively easy. The entire stands are not covered, and a 2 pm start means the notorious October heat of Pune will beat down on many of the 37,406 spectator seats in the early part.

But uncovered stands and only a handful of canopies also mean no beams blocking view, and an uninterrupted action of the cricket. “The beauty of this stadium is whichever chair you sit on, first row or last, you can clearly see the boundary ropes. At other places, you need to stand up but not here,” Bhandarkar says.

The sand-based ground has provisions to drain out within 45 minutes of rains stopping, even heavy rains, Bhandarkar informs. The Maharashtra Premier League final did get postponed to next day, after a severe lashing of rains in July. But the heat looks like a bigger challenge with cloudless October skies.

ICC officials trooping into the stadium and first-timers bombarded with images of how pretty the Dharamshala venue looks from pictures, call the Gahunje ground, ‘mini Dharamshala’. A quarter of the stadium has a stunning backdrop of a couple of mesmeric hillocks. Pune’s favourite hiking haunts of ‘tekdis’ find a fine representation at the venue.

Low-rise residences and ambitious towers can be seen on the horizon on the flanks but don’t pervade the open view. The hillock-facing view is quite fetching in fact, and the wide, white staircases offer great sunset vistas.

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A neat DB Deodhar statue stands at the entrance. Though Pune doesn’t have many cricketers of international repute, there’s high hopes from Ruturaj Gaikwad. After a hat-tip to the two Jadhavs, Dheeraj and Kedar along with Hrishikesh Kanitkar, the stadium leans on its Sachin-love.

The choice of frames, mostly pre-2000 unwittingly links the natty Gahunje facility to the older Nehru Stadium. Memorable moments like Sachin Tendulkar’s Astra won at Sharjah 1998 and another with Tendulkar, Briant Lara and Ricky Ponting, the OG Thrilling Three of batting, are slung along walls inside the dens. Some are captioned, and others not given an explanation in Pune’s figure-it-yourself style.

The Nehru Stadium used to be a concrete block of cramped spaces. Street noises would filter in and the pokey dressing rooms were wholly make-do. It’s smartened up a tad, and holds junior summer camps and nets now. The exciting cricket, the underdog upsets and giant-slayings often stepped up, to make up for the drab facilities.

The Gahunje fans though will be hungry for what constitutes Youtube Team India melanges – run-fests, a six-smashathon and daddy centuries from India’s Top Six. When the Indian team turned up full-strength for optional practice, the first thing they did was clear out the lower tier of stands at long on and long off, warning that sixes might rain down in training.

Fans will also zoom in on magical deliveries of Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav, micro-obsessing on the speed and angles and movement of the ball, and their new-age celebrations. Even Gahunje’s stunning backdrop view might not detract from the one-dimensional India win focus of fans, though Bangladesh, labouring to stay on track in the tournament, are expected to put up a fight.

Pune, famous for its most renowned World Cup upset, might not have an appetite for one involving India, though coach Rahul Dravid might have unpleasant memories of Bangladesh from 2007. Rohit Sharma slamming his third straight World Cup century against Bangladesh after 2015 and 2019 or Virat Kohli adding his jumpy excitable cayenne capers to the field, are more or less the predictable picture lines Pune will come to watch.