So what do you expect from an India-Pakistan clash in a World Cup? A stadium packed to the rafters, unmatched noise from the crowd and of course, an Indian win. Alas, none of the three were anywhere to be seen on Wednesday at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, venue for the match involving the two arch-rivals in T20 World Cup for the blind.

The match was supposed to start at 9am and a handful of journalists and spectators had filtered into the historic venue by 9:30. But there was nothing, no sign of any cricketing activity either on the field or off it. The pitch in the middle looked quite green, nowhere close to what it would resemble if Virat Kohli's boys were playing in a Test. Since the bowling skills involved in blind cricket are different from those in other forms of the game, the grass on the pitch wasn't going to trouble the batsmen.

It is worth mentioning that Cricket Association for Blind in India (CABI) is not under BCCI wings. This has been lamented by many including Shekhar Naik, the Indian blind cricketer who was recently awarded Padma Shri by the government.

The result is that CABI is left on its own to manage the entire event. All they have in the name of support is the brand ambassadorship of Indian legend Rahul Dravid.

A good number of volunteers, mainly young students from various institutes of the city working for an NGO Samarthan, were trying to put things in place for the match to start. It was heartwarming to see these youngsters helping out the visibly impaired spectators entering the ground in getting a proper seat. While most of the stadium was empty, the stand which in normal circumstances would have been covered by the sightscreen but was open for this match, was starting to fill up with spectators, both visually impaired and those who probably found an India-Pakistan game, regardless of the format, too exciting to miss.

After the volunteers had put the advertising boards in place, and later brought it in due to smaller size of the playing field in blind cricket, finally the stumps were planted at the two ends of the pitch. The crowd started to make some noise, whistling, cheering even started that familiar Indian cricket chant, jeetega bhai jeetega, India jeetega. The arrival of two drummers suddenly brought the place alive and finally you could feel a fraction of the excitement a India-Pakistan match promises.

Finally, the players arrived, did a few laps and then other exercises before the toss eventually took place and was won by India. The match started past 12 PM and India batted first. The opening partnership batted long and steadily to take their team past 100.

Opener Prakash J scored a brisk 90 while his partner Venkateshwar Rao chipped in with 53. But a spate of run-outs meant that India couldn't build on their start and were restricted to 204/5, a modest score compared to 305 that they scored a day earlier against West Indies.

Pakistan made small work of the target by chasing it down in just 15.3 overs with the loss of just three wickets.

The star was Muhammad Zafar, whose 88 not out in 52 balls led Pakistan to their third consecutive win in the tournament.

The effort of CABI and the volunteers has to be appreciated as well as the spectators who chose to come and appreciate the cricket played. If only there was greater backing by authorities, things could have been better.
Source: http://www.dailypioneer.com/sports/blind-men-show-the-way.html