Cricket bowls out terror

Cheers after tears: Jaipur buries memories of serial blasts

JAIPUR: The cheergirls were missing, the celebratory music was absent, and the stadium bars were shut. But the spirits of the crowd that cheered the Rajasthan Royals’ entry into the semi-finals were unreservedly high.

More than 10,000 spectators roared, screamed and clapped thunderously as Shane Warne’s men demolished the Royal Challengers at the Sawai Man Singh stadium here on Saturday. The echo of the blasts that rocked the city just a few days back, killing 63 people, was decisively buried under the raucous celebrations that marked the Royals’ march forward.

To give the devil its due, the mood at the start of the game was sombre. Cautious crowds began trickling into the stadium around 3 pm, casting nervous glances around them. The roads leading to the stadium, which till the previous game were a confusing congregation of cars and TV vans, were eerily empty. The serpentine queues at the ticket window, as well as the blackmarketeers who had started doing brisk business, courtesy the Royal treat, were all missing. The heavy police presence, black armbands worn by the players and the two-minute silence to remember the city’s martyrs added to the serious mood.

But it all changed in a matter of minutes. As soon as the game began, the only blast that echoed through the stadium was that of the ball hitting the Rajasthan openers’ bat and thudding into the signboards. Soon, the crowds began to build up.

Home-bred cheer boys too sprung into action. Rahul Joshi, 23, and his friends became impromptu cheerleaders in the partly-empty west stands. The gang of college-goers clapped and broke into jigs to celebrate some brilliant hitting by the Rajasthan openers Graeme Smith and Swapnil Asnodkar. Soon the entire stand joined them in the celebration.

“We are sad because our people died in the terror strikes. But the show must go on. Jaipur will never capitulate to anything - other than cricket,” said a buoyant Joshi after the match.

Mohammad Shakil, a resident of Ramganj in the Walled City, queued up at the ticket counter with his entire family. Wasn’t he afraid? “No, Allah is my saviour,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.

As the game progressed, the familiar sound of ‘Jeetega, Rajasthan Jeetega’ was back in the stadium. Fittingly, both the Royals and the Jaipur crowds won their battles at the end of the day.