The fans who thronged Chennai’s MA Chidambaram stadium or the Chepauk stadium as it is fondly known as, on Friday, October 27, to watch the Pakistan-South Africa clash, lived up to the city’s reputation of being a ‘knowledgeable’ cricket crowd. According to reports, a crowd of more than twenty five thousand were in attendance, one of the highest for a non-Indian game, cheering on both the teams as they played a nail-biting second innings in which South Africa beat Pakistan by one wicket and climbed up to the top of the leaderboard. Previously, on October 23, Pakistan lost to Afghanistan at Chepauk.
Vamsi Krishna, a Chennai resident who attended the game on Friday told TNM, “It felt like a home game for both Pakistan and South Africa at Chepauk. When Pakistan was playing at one point, the entire crowd was chanting ‘Pakistan! Pakistan!’ It was very refreshing to see cricket being enjoyed as a sport irrespective of who was playing, especially after what went down in Ahmedabad. Everyone left with a smile that came from watching a good match and there was no nationalist hate being thrown at anyone.”
It is to be noted that on October 14, when India played Pakistan at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad, the crowd harassed Pakistan players with nationalist slogans. Pakistan’s wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan was also taunted with slogans of ‘Jai Shree Ram’ while he was returning to the dressing room.
An X (formerly known as Twitter) user @lav_narayanan posted, “There's ONE South African in the stand in front of the press box and everyone has been hugging him, giving him high fives and fist bumps. The same crowd was also encouraging Shaheen Afridi when he picked up pace and got difficult to hit. What a crowd, Chennai.”
Another X user @lanand1985 posted a video in which the crowd was cheering for Pakistan’s left-arm pacer Shaheen Afridi. “Absolute madness in #Chepauk Crowd fully behind Afridi,” the user wrote.
Vishnu Prasadh, who was at the stadium, corroborated and told TNM that the crowd in the last five overs would start cheering as Pakistani bowlers would get ready for their run ups. “At the same time, when South African batsmen entered the field, the cheers were equivalent to what Indian batsmen would receive at their home. I have been to ODI matches where foreign teams played one another but nothing comes close to how people cheered for both the teams in Chennai on Friday,” Vishnu added.
Pakistan has for the first time in World Cup history lost four matches in the tournament. They will now play three matches in the build up to the semi-finals.