It is the dream that has sustained you through many a sodden day. The roar of a crowd. Now, it is one legal delivery away from becoming a reality. You are in the stands, a breeze swirling around your ears, your heart pulsing like fibre optic cables. Before you lies the ground. You raise your head, and run out into... silence.
Silence can be calming or frightening, lonely, or joyful. Then there is the romantic silence — what William Wordsworth called the “bliss of solitude.” That’s what it felt like at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, on June 29, a couple of hours after India had beaten South Africa by seven runs to win its second T20 World Cup title. With the stands now all but empty, the cacophonous ground had been transformed into an echoey hangar of aspirations realised, heartbreaks mended, and memories replenished.
The remaining fans didn’t need a second invitation. A handful walked on the outfield, while a few ventured to the pitch, paying homage to the 22 yards where, moments earlier, Hardik Pandya had knelt, tears streaming down his face. The area near the non-striker’s end was the denouement of the tumult that had engulfed him both on and off the field for the past two months.
India’s Suryakumar Yadav taking the catch to dismiss South Africa’s David Miller. | Photo Credit: DEEPAK KR/The Hindu
While a few fans wandered near the long-off fence, reminiscing about the boundary catch by Suryakumar Yadav that had turned the final on its head, others lounged on the sand-based outfield at the Oval. They basked in the glory of SKY’s catch, Hardik’s steely resolve under pressure, and Virat Kohli’s riposte when it mattered. The earlier apprehensions that haunted them, now mere whispers, were swept away by the strong gusts of wind heralding the approach of Hurricane Beryl, which would delay the Indian team in Barbados longer than anticipated.
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Samar, an Indian fan who moved to Jamaica in 2020, is pacing up and down the pitch. He’s on a video call with his wife and son, who couldn’t make it to the game. Showing them around the stadium, which is now empty but still buzzing with festive energy, Samar reminisces about being in Ahmedabad last year. There, in front of a 100,000-strong crowd, Australia defeated India to win the ODI World Cup. “I stayed back at the ground that night too,” Samar recalls. “I was so sad. The stadium was so big, and once it emptied and the floodlights started going off, there was an eerie silence.”
The unsettling chill of that fateful night at the Narendra Modi Stadium has now given way to the soothing, windy tranquility of Kensington Oval. A feeling of something lovely, glimpsed and treasured, lingers in the air. After the highs of the 2011 World Cup win, fans have felt adrift on the boundless seas of longing, hoping for India to end its World Cup drought. It came after 13 years on an afternoon when the Indian fans happily embraced the lingering silence.
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