MUMBAI: Who says Mumbai is for Mumbaikars? Politics and politicians took a back seat as Mumbai showed the world how it supports its home team in their match against the Kolkata Knight Riders at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai last night.
The stadium was awash with blue… blue jerseys, blue flags and blue faces all cheering for Sachin Tendulkar’s Mumbai Indians. And standing in the crowd were our Bollywood biggies, sitting in the crowded balconies, cheering lustily for every run scored that finally took their team to victory.
Sunil Shetty was there with his son. The actor has actually flown across the world to catch the action live whenever he can. He was present for the 2003 World Cup final in South Africa when India took on Australia and also saw several matches in the last edition of IPL, which was played in South Africa. He said, “I love cricket and when Sachin is playing like the way he is playing, it is a treat for all. I am a huge follower of the game, but unfortunately my son is more into soccer than cricket. But I still play cricket and we have a cricket team in the film fraternity which goes out to play matches, mostly for charity.”
Rahul Bose, not to be out done, wore the Mumbai Indians jersey to openly display the team he was rooting for. A former World Cup rugby player, Rahul said, “There is nothing like cricket in this country. Just see the crowds. The fireworks display by the Mumbai Indians team is just what we wanted after our last loss in this very stadium couple of days ago.”
Aftab Shivdisani, who lives just across the cricket ground, was tremendously excited. A great batsman, Shivdisani was looking pretty despondent after his team lost to the Royal Challengers Bangalore on Saturday, and most thought that he would not come to see his team play last night. To that he retorted, “My not coming to see the match will hardly change the fortunes of the game. I am here to support the team and yippee we won today.”
Also seen watching the match was Mahima Chowdhury, waving out loudly for every run scored. Eventually an event that had the superstars from tinsel town in the shadows as the superstars of cricket shone in resplendent glory.
